Homey foods: Domesticating memories of the martial-law era in Taiwan’s heritage tourism

Abstract

After the martial law period (1949–1987) ended, Taiwan embarked on democratization, which became interwoven with Taiwanization. Mainlander migrants, who came to Taiwan in the late 1940s with the Chinese Nationalist Party, and their offspring born in Taiwan, have come to be recognized or position themselves as the ethnic group of Mainlanders. Essential to this ongoing identity (trans)formation in Taiwanese society is how to remember the martial-law era. This article examines heritage tourism of two preserved sites built in early postwar Taiwan: the Shihlin Official Residence 士林官邸 of Chiang Kai-shek and the Forty-four South Village 四四南村, one of the earliest military dependents’ villages. More specifically, it investigates how tourist culinary programs and on-site exhibits de-militarize and de-sinicize the heritage sites to create a nostalgic prosthetic memory couched in a discourse of home-building and domesticity, which parallels the mainlanders’ changing foodways with their Taiwanization.