位於南投的博望新村，是一個充滿滇緬文化神祕色彩的老眷村，居民多為異域孤軍及其眷屬，村內松崗滇緬文史資料館，展示昔日的文化與照片，傳頌異域游擊故事，結合仁愛鄉原住民與合歡山新移民文化，在清境霧上桃源中，打造因戰禍而離鄉者的「臺灣新故鄉」。
Reported by Chi-chen Fu
Translated by Warren King
Photo Credit:YDN
The Bowang New Village, a small place full of mystery Yunnan-Burma culture, is standing firm on the mountainous area in Nantou. Most residents living there are guerrilla fighters, known as the Lost Army, and their dependents after their retreating from Yunnan-Burma border areas. Paintings on the local houses are so colorful and naïve that keeps this old dependents’ village full of vigor and vitality. Cultural collections and photos belonging to these righteous people, who have been living there for three generations, are all presented and preserved at the Yunnan and Myanmar Cultural Exhibition Hall, once the Songgang Community Center in the village.
The Lost Army living in the Bowang New Village are mainly those Yunnan-Burma Righteous Compatriots retreated to Taiwan in 1961. Posted on the billboard under the pine tree at the entrance to the village are the historical photos taken in the early days of the village. Viewing the neatly arranged low bungalows as well as simple and unadorned street, you may seemingly see the righteous compatriots’ sheer resilient persistence as they had been there striving to build up their new hometown from scratch.
The Yunnan and Myanmar Cultural Exhibition Hall in the Bowang New Village is an important place where the history and the development of this village are recorded and preserved. There are photos with different frame sizes along with many handicrafts and accessories made by the ethic people from Yunnan and Burma. You may see from those presented photos that the faces of the righteous compatriots were mingled with vicissitudes resulting from a long journey of homelessness and displacement while they were undergoing warfighting and suffering from alienation on their way to find ethnic identity. In addition, through their eyes so profound and steadfast, each one of them showed some temperament traits of fearlessness to a piercingly cold environment and material deprivation, which seemed to reveal to the world that they would never and ever give up. From those preserved in the exhibition hall, people can witness the life trajectories of the Yunnan-Burma Righteous Compatriots after their retreating to Taiwan.
Every late October, people living in the Bowang New Village celebrates the Torch Festival. During the two-day event, other activities, such as Long Street Banquet, Paiyi (Dai) Dance, Water Pipe Smoking Competition, BBQ Feast with Spit-Roasted Lamb & Pig and so forth, are also organized to signify the everlasting spirit of the Lost Army, who had dedicated their lives to fighting for the ROC Government around the Yunnan-Burma border areas. With such resilience, they built up a Utopia right above the Qingjing Farm and made it their new hometown in Taiwan.
