More and more cemeteries bordering cities are receiving mandates to relocate their graves. The Taiwanese government puts out public notices, contracts appraisers to take inventory, assigns each grave a serial number, and tags each grave accordingly so that families may apply for compensation. Most tombstones are engraved with the deceased’s ancestral home. The most common inscriptions are coastal counties in Fujian, from mainland China. This holds true for the graves in central and southern parts of Taiwan, with the exception of the Hakka villages; the inscriptions in northern Taiwan indicate a more diverse lineage, hailing from various provinces in China. Grave designs are unique to each ethnicity. The moment those apathetic announcements and appraisals are erected, centuries of sentiment and familial history are displaced, risking the loss of priceless cultural heritage.

愈來愈多都會區週邊的公墓被公告強制遷葬。政府會先公告並委請業者進行查估作業，對遷葬範圍內每座墳墓編號列冊，並在現場插上立牌讓家屬能依編號申請補助。墓碑上大多會刻著先人的祖籍，祖墳所在的公墓大多是福建沿海的幾個縣，中南部除了客家庄外大概都是這樣的情形。但在北部就多樣化，有更多來自中國各省的先人。墳墓的造型在不同族群間也有差異。當冰冷的遷葬公告和查估立牌豎立後，一個家族數百年的情感和記憶就被重置，珍貴的文史資料也可能隨之流逝。