ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the demolition of the military villages during the era of Cold War in Taiwan from the perspective of critical plant study. By focusing on the hibiscus and bamboo fences, I argue that the vegetal are more than a passive environmental backdrop, but actively constitutive of human memories of a specific time and place. Drawing on the work of Monica Gagliano, Michael Marder, John Ryan, and Patricia Vieira, I examine how the selected works by Tien-hsin Chu signify an elegy of environmental mourning—literally the process from nostalgia to solastalgia.
