Qualla: Former Japanese Navy Fongshan Communication Center

Former Japanese Navy Fongshan Communication Center: Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rybloo, CC BY-SA 3.0. Most buildings serve one purpose and keep it for life. The compound in Kaohsiung's Fengshan District has had at least six. It started in 1919 as a radio station, the first the Imperial Japanese Navy built in Taiwan, and despite the military pedigree, its primary job was civilian communication: relaying messages between ships and shore across the waters of southwestern Taiwan. It would not stay civilian for long. Over the next century, each new regime that governed Taiwan found a different use for the same walls, and the uses grew progressively darker before the light was finally let back in.

Image: Rybloo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Former Japanese Navy Fongshan Communication Center: Signals and Silence

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kaoshiung panorama.jpg: Rubendene derivative work: ויקיג'אנקי, CC0. The Fongshan station was one of three radio facilities the Imperial Japanese Navy operated in Taiwan. For its first two decades it handled routine maritime communication, a vital service on an island surrounded by busy shipping lanes. When a major mechanical failure at the statio...

Image: Kaoshiung panorama.jpg: Rubendene derivative work: ויקיג'אנקי | CC0

Former Japanese Navy Fongshan Communication Center: The Dark Decades

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pbdragonwang This file was uploaded with Commonist., CC BY 3.0. After Japan's surrender in 1945, Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China, and the Republic of China Navy took control of the Fongshan station. The radio equipment was no longer needed; the new owners converted the compound into a navy boarding house. That innocuous name concea...

Image: Pbdragonwang This file was uploaded with Commonist. | CC BY 3.0

Former Japanese Navy Fongshan Communication Center: Opening the Doors

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 嘎布, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the Mingde Disciplinary Camp was finally decommissioned, the compound entered its most recent incarnation: the Kaohsiung Military Dependents' Village Cultural Association. The transformation reflects a broader movement in Taiwan to reckon with the material legacy of its auth...

Image: 嘎布 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Former Japanese Navy Fongshan Communication Center: What the Walls Carry

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rybloo, CC BY-SA 3.0. Today the former communication center sits in a quiet part of Fengshan District, within walking distance of the Fongshan Junior High School metro station on the Kaohsiung MRT. Visitors encounter a compound that looks deceptively ordinary, low-slung buildings behind a perimeter wa...

Image: Rybloo | CC BY-SA 3.0