Two Sides of Shengli Road: Hukou Memories from the Armored Corps Coup to the "Big Parking Lot"

On January 21, 1964, when Deputy Commander Zhao Zhihua of the 1st Armored Division at Hukou drew a pistol on the drill ground and shouted "March north to defend the king," the Shengli Road behind him was still a quiet country lane. The attempted coup, lasting only two hours, made Hukou synonymous with "rebellion" in the eyes of Taipei's high command — but for the people of Hukou on the other side of the wall, this colossal presence had an entirely different face.

In those years before material abundance, Hukou Camp was not merely a restricted zone; it was the community's "welfare center."

The camp housed a movie theater, a swimming pool, and even a commissary where residents could purchase daily necessities. For the children who grew up there, summer memories were the steam rising from the pool and the military goods at the commissary that were cheaper than outside. The boundary between military and civilian was not an iron wall at the time, but a symbiotic neighborhood relationship.

📝 Curator's note: When a military camp becomes a site of everyday consumption, the wall transforms from a political boundary into an extension of neighborhood life.

Yet this "neighbor" also brought violent shocks.

Along one side of Shengli Road, the camp wall stood shoulder-to-shoulder with residential homes. Due to a scarcity of parking space, locals jokingly called the strip along the wall the "Shengli Road Big Parking Lot." The landscape here witnessed its most shocking scene in May 2007: an F-5F fighter jet belonging to Singapore's "Starlight Troops" crashed into Hukou Camp during a mission. The massive explosion and towering plumes of smoke remain, to this day, a hair-raising memory recounted by Shengli Road residents over tea.

The shockwaves Hukou Camp sent through Taiwanese society reached their peak in 2013.

Hung Chung-chiu, a corporal attached to the 542nd Armored Brigade at Hukou, died from improper disciplinary abuse just before his discharge. The tragedy set 250,000 "White Shirt Army" protesters marching down Ketagalan Boulevard and ultimately led to major amendments to the Code of Court Martial Procedure. For the people of Hukou, it was the heaviest shadow cast from within the walls — and it made the name "Shengli" (Victory) Road sound especially ironic in national news coverage.

📝 Curator's note: History left two marks on Hukou: one was the 1964 challenge to power, the other was the 2013 awakening for human rights.

Walking down Shengli Road today, the movie theater and swimming pool have long vanished into the dust of history. In the early 2000s, when President Chen Shui-bian personally visited Hukou to preside over a national defense exhibition, the columns of tanks rolling past and helicopters circling overhead filled visiting high school students with wonder.

Today, this remains the heart of Taiwan's armored corps — but it is more like a quiet giant, living side by side with the homes along Shengli Road. From "cradle of rebellion" to "neighborhood parking lot," the walls of Hukou Camp have recorded every contradiction and every warmth of Taiwan's journey from martial law, through development, to democratic transition.

References

• National Archives Administration, National Development Council — The Full Story of the 1964 Hukou Incident
• Liberty Times — 2007 Report on the Starlight Troops F-5F Crash at Hukou Camp
• The Reporter — Ten Years After the Hung Chung-chiu Case: Echoes of Military Justice Reform and Social Movements
• Hsinchu County Cultural Affairs Bureau — Military and Local Development History of the Hukou Area
• Ministry of National Defense All-Out Defense Education Website — Records of Past Camp Openings and National Defense Exhibitions