Dialogue On Peace In Green Island 2010: Freedom amidst confinement

Freedom amidst confinement
Apr 12, 2010

Freedom amidst confinement

This exhibition area is a facsimile of the New Lifers’ dorm cells.
The mannequins show what it was like for the inmates during that hour of “free” activities before “lights out” at night.

Each of the squadrons had six dorm rooms for prison supervisory personnel. In the cell area, each interval of bed was 135 cm width. The narrow space was often crowded by 3-4 victims in the night.

A squadron was typically made up of between 120 and 160 inmates, with sleeping space of less than 40 cm per individual.

In the hour before the New Lifers retired for the night, they had an hour of free time, in which they played the huqin, violin or guitar, played chess or bridge, wrote letters home, read, or chatted – welcome physical and mental release after a day’s hard work.