Rainbow Village

The inspirational stories behind Rainbow Village are as uplifting as its colorful streets. Initially, the rainbow village was called Caihongjuan, which was invested by the government at a modest cost to house former soldiers after being discharged from the army. When mentioning Rainbow Village, people will immediately think of Mr. Huang Yung-Fu, who has great merit in creating works of art in the village. Born into a family of four in Guangdong province, Mr. Huang joined the KMT Army in 1946. In 1949, when the KMT was defeated, he and his teammates followed. Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan. Here, they are provided with temporary housing in specialized military villages scattered across the island nation of Taiwan. And Rainbow Village is one of the stops for many veterans and their families in Taichung.

In 2010, the Taiwanese government planned to clear and convert Rainbow Village into a new and more modern residential area. Before that, there were 1,200 households in Rainbow Village and the people accepted the terms of compensation and moved to a new place to live. At that time, only Mr. Huang and a few households were still determined to stay here, the number of households at that time was reduced to only 11 houses. With an early artistic talent, Mr. Huang used paint to decorate the remaining houses in the village in an effort to preserve them. His art works mainly depict nature, animals and people, highlighting unique cultural and artistic values; and gradually spread to the community and tourists. There were then many petitions from neighboring art universities asking the mayor of Taichung to keep the village in order to preserve this priceless art collection.

After the success of retaining the village, Mr. Huang is even more motivated to create more works of art for a lifetime. Every day, this 95-year-old man still wakes up early at 3-4 o'clock to take care of his spiritual children. Under his drawings with high artistic value and enthusiasm, he turned the old buildings that were thought to be leveled and suddenly became an ideal place to attract tourists to visit and check-in. Especially coming here, you will have the opportunity to meet and interact with Mr. Huang, known by the people as "the old man of the Rainbow" (Grandpa).

Rainbow Village is free to visit, but you can support Mr. Huang and the people in the village by buying souvenirs here, helping him and the people in the village have funds to maintain and develop. develop the Rainbow Village. From Taichung city center, you can use public transportation (bus, tram, taxi or uber…) to visit Rainbow Village. Because Rainbow Village is increasingly famous and quite crowded with visitors, you should come here early or go on weekdays to avoid crowds and have more comfortable space.