Walking with the Stream Gods, in Different Forms In recent years, some urban rivers and streams have been engineered into canal-style landscaped waterfront spaces. Many city residents see the clear flowing water and assume this is a successful restoration. But do we really know what the streams of Formosa were originally meant to look like?
The large streams of Hualien and Taitung are like valiant warriors; the creatures hidden in their deep green, rushing waters are fierce, peculiar, and each endowed with its own talents.
Eastern Taiwan's terrain is steep and rugged, and the large streams formed between its great mountain ranges display a raw and violent majesty.
Originating from the Central Mountain Range, streams rapidly gather and race down from several mountain hollows, carving magnificent deep gorges through the great mountains. They burst out from the peaks into the rift valley, spreading freely into broad river channels. After a long lateral journey running parallel to the mountains, they quickly and nimbly turn left and right from the mountain god's soft spot, skirt the valley of the Coastal Mountain Range, and empty into the blue Pacific Ocean. The dance of eastern Taiwan's great rivers is like that of a warrior full of primal power, displaying valor and skill in facing trials with agility even amid adversity.
A warrior's battle robe is composed of totems rich in symbolism. Its base tone is made up of deep green rushing rapids, cascading falls, and deep pools. The upper reaches are engraved with the Taiwan shovel-jaw carp, symbolizing abundance and vitality, and the mysterious swamp eel; the middle reaches feature the silver-armored giant of the Cyprinidae family–the Hsu's spiny barb, predators far greater in number and size than in other river basins–the large-snout goby, and the upstream-struggling migratory algae-eater–the Japanese bullhead shark; the lower reaches are graced by hundreds of grey mullet swimming in a single school, massive snakehead mullet, and the silhouettes of Amis fishermen; the estuary carries a slightly weighty grey-green, symbolizing the convergence of nutrients. Here the substrate is already mostly fine sand and gravel, with no shortage of peculiar decorations such as the dragon-mouthed snake eel and the gar shark that prefer to hide in the sand, while the ferocious great barracuda of the Pacific also catches the scent and comes here to run wild, accompanied by the rhythm of waves and stream water striking cobblestones, closing this lower hem with a bizarre and breathtaking edge. The entire battle robe is covered everywhere with praises of the power of life, and is at the same time a story of life-and-death adventure with one climax after another.
So then, what about the "great rivers of the west" that flow through several counties and cities? In the next installment, we will continue our visit~
Text/Illustration: Li Zhenglin (This article was written with the support and collaboration of the Renhe Foundation and Keng Meng AVEDA)
