Written by Yu-Yueh Tsai.
Image credit: The Yayin tribe’s remaining traditional houses. Photo by the author.
When I made my first trip to Lanyu in 2000 to conduct ethnographic research, I witnessed many Lanyu families building new homes to replace the original government-built ones. On my latest trip in 2024, I noticed that the coastline was adorned with vibrantly coloured guesthouses catering to tourists. However, not far away, Tao families still lived in dilapidated, incomplete houses—evidence of the ongoing consequences of ill-conceived housing policies. These striking contrasts prompted me to reflect on the history of the government housing policies that underpin them.
Located southeast of Taiwan’s main island, Lanyu is home to the Tao, one of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples. The Tao have faced a long history of state intervention and colonialism. The best-known example is the disposal of nuclear waste on Lanyu in the 1970s without notifying the Tao. Less widely recognised, however, is the state’s housing modernisation project, which profoundly transformed Tao society and continues to shape the island today.
During Taiwan’s Martial Law era, government housing policies on Lanyu displaced Tao communities and produced a legacy of historical trauma that continues to this day. Yet it was not until 2022—half a century later—that the government began investigating these injustices through the Indigenous Peoples Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Committee.
Colonialism and the Government’s Housing Modernisation Policies
The government’s efforts to modernise housing on Lanyu began in the 1960s. Construction initially proceeded slowly but expanded rapidly after the KMT-affiliated Chinese Women’s Anti-Communist League made an inspection visit to the island in 1974 and recommended that the government intensify its efforts to improve Indigenous housing. This led to a phase of large-scale construction beginning in 1975, with 566 houses constructed by the late 1980s. This was accompanied by widespread demolition of traditional houses, which caused significant upheaval.
In addition to causing social upheaval by displacing Tao families from their traditional homes, these state-built houses were structurally flawed due to concrete made with unprocessed sea sand containing high levels of chloride ions. This concrete began to deteriorate immediately after families moved in. The concrete blocks fell off, the exposed steel reinforcements began to rust, and many houses became uninhabitable.
In response, the Tao people established the Yami People Sea-Sand House Self-Help Association in September 1993. They petitioned the Legislative Yuan and the Taiwan Provincial Government for assistance.
In 1994, the government agreed to fully replace the sea-sand houses. Based on the Indigenous Affairs Commission’s 1995 Housing Condition Survey, which assessed the severity of damage to each house, the government approved a subsidy of 450,000 NTD per household to support reconstruction. Although this subsidy was presented as compensation for the unsafe state-built houses, it covered only a fraction of the actual construction costs.
Incomplete Houses: Social Suffering and Mental Disorder Under the Housing Reconstruction Policy
The reconstruction plan covered nearly 90% of households in Lanyu, but the Tao families had to supplement the subsidy with their own money. Consequently, houses were built slowly, often in stages. Some remained unfinished for years, while others were never completed. This led to growing housing disparities.
Some families never managed to build a new home. Construction also caused many physical injuries. According to the 1996–2010 accident analysis report from the Lanyu Township Health Centre, the leading causes of accidental injuries were cuts and lacerations, traffic accidents, and falls, with the rates of cuts and falls notably increasing (Taitung County Lanyu Township Health Centre, 2010, Briefing on Healthcare Services for Mountainous and Offshore Areas; unpublished internal report).
Though official statistics did not indicate a significant rise in suicide rates on Lanyu, the Tao commonly attributed mental illness and suicide to the immense stress of rebuilding their homes.
The transition from traditional houses to uninhabitable modern concrete homes—and the later reconstruction program—has produced trauma lasting over half a century. For economically disadvantaged families, the construction of adequate housing has been delayed for decades. Additionally, the heavy financial burden and poor living conditions have contributed to social suffering and mental health issues, perpetuating cycles of hardship and cultural disconnection.
By the early 2000s, it was common to see half-built houses with only foundations or abandoned homes with windows and doors nailed shut. These incomplete homes resulted from insufficient funds, prompting many younger Tao men to work on the main island to raise funds and then return to Lanyu to continue construction. This constant back-and-forth made it difficult for them to learn a trade or develop professional skills, limiting their career opportunities and upward mobility. It also increased their psychological frustration.
According to the Investigation Report on the Demolition of Traditional Houses and National Housing Policy in Lanyu (2023), there are still about 20 households across Lanyu that have been unable to rebuild their homes. These are often families without children, or elderly people who are widowed and live alone. This situation has resulted in cultural disconnection, heightened intergenerational caregiving burdens, and gaps in the social security system that exacerbate the broader social and cultural challenges the community faces.
The Ideal Household in Traditional Tao Culture: Family, Kinship, and Housing
The traditional ideal image of a Tao family is deeply rooted in the concept of togetherness and shared living. In the Tao language, asa ka vahai means both “a home” and “a family,” referring to “those who live together” (Liu, 2004, p. 105). This phrase captures two ideas: co-residence and shared meals, which signify “a family eating food cooked on the same stove.”
A family group, known as asa so inawan in Tao culture, forms part of the bilateral kinship system called zipos, which encompasses the kinship network formed through marriage. The zipos represents a family network integrating both paternal and maternal lineages.
The basic components of a Tao home include the vahay (main house), makarang (workhouse), and tagakal (platform). A newlywed couple initially resides in the husband’s parents’ house. Once the wife becomes pregnant, they leave to build their own new residence, typically starting with a one- or two-door house. Over time, the couple gradually expands the house into a three-door structure, requiring a completion ceremony. This ceremony enables households to establish social prestige and accumulate social capital within the tribe. Even today, when few Tao families live in traditional homes, building a home remains a central marker of social status.
A Tao man pointed out:
Some men face such intense economic pressure to build a house that they haven’t gotten married. Others, already married, ended up divorcing because they couldn’t finish their homes, since for the Tao people, the house is a symbol of social status. The stress of an incomplete house weighs heavily on men, leading to drinking and even domestic violence. The 450,000 NTD subsidy has only added to the cultural trauma and financial strain. In some cases, steel reinforcements were put up, but they deteriorated before the house was even completed.
From Egalitarianism to Inequality
Many past studies have pointed out that Tao society was traditionally an egalitarian, non-hierarchical community without chieftains. But the incomplete housing reconstruction has given rise to social inequality, shifting the island from an egalitarian community to one where class divisions are increasingly visible.
The economic struggles of the family of Chen Haimai (pseudonym) during the prolonged reconstruction process exemplify this growing inequality. Both Haimai and her husband were unemployed, and their house was only half built. The family home, located near Haimai’s parents’ house, resembled an unfinished bunkhouse. The windows were covered only with cardboard, and inside the house, there were two rooms without doors. The walls were covered with unpainted, chipped cement. Cardboard boxes were torn open and laid across the sandy, rocky floor as makeshift bedding.
This precarious housing situation, alongside the economic strain and lifestyle changes, was accompanied by mental health issues. Haimai began exhibiting signs of abnormal behaviour in the fifth grade, but she did not receive psychiatric treatment until a decade later. Her third child, Huaiguang (pseudonym), began exhibiting symptoms including hallucinations and wandering into the cemetery at the age of 16.
When I met Huaiguang in 2022, he was in Lanyu working short-term for his cousin. He said:
Living in this house, there is no dignity, no hope. People judge us for it… You see, the doors inside barely work…I don’t have enough money for our house. It causes me great suffering, and all I can do is pray.
As the government provided a very limited housing reconstruction subsidy, completing the modern house remained a considerable burden for Huaiguang’s family. Housing has long been viewed as a marker of social status in Tao culture. The inability to complete a house therefore represents not only economic hardship, but also a loss of dignity and social standing that can have profound consequences for individuals and their families. These stories of the intertwined traumas of incomplete housing reconstruction and mental illness reflect the gradual weakening of the zipos kinship-based support system in the process of modernisation. These disruptions have intensified the struggles of many families, especially those dealing with mental illness and alcoholism. In this case, the effects of the housing reconstruction policy have extended far beyond the physical structure of the house, reshaping family relationships, kinship support, and social life within Tao communities.
The government’s housing policies in Lanyu, driven by a Han-centric modernisation agenda, disregarded the Tao people’s social, cultural, and historical traditions and led to ongoing historical trauma. The unfinished houses that remain on Lanyu today are therefore not simply signs of individual poverty or incomplete construction, but material reminders of a state policy whose social, cultural, and psychological consequences continue across generations. Addressing the legacy of the Lanyu housing reconstruction policy has become an important part of Taiwan’s Indigenous transitional justice movement.
Yu-Yueh Tsai is an associate research fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, working in the fields of medical sociology; science, technology and society (STS); and indigenous studies with a special focus on issues related to Taiwan Indigenous genetics, suffering, and identity. She published her first book, Mental Disorder of the Tao Indigenous Minority in Taiwan: Modernity, Social Change, and the Origin of Social Suffering (Taipei: Linking Publishing, 2009). She co-edited three books: Abnormal People? Psychiatry and the Governance of Modernity in Taiwan (Linking Publishing, 2018), Post Genomic Taiwan: Shifting Paradigms and Challenges (National Chiao Tung University Press, 2019), and Taiwan’s COVID-19 Experience: Governance, Governmentality, and the Global Pandemic (Routledge, 2024).
This article was published as part of the special issue on ‘Feeling Taiwan’.