Dual Master's Degree Holder Flies South: He Yuxuan Returns Home to Farm and Carves Out a Success

(Taiwan Business News) He Yuxuan, who holds dual master's degrees in Japanese cultural studies and Australian feminist studies, originally worked in Taipei as an English cram school teacher and ran a mosaic studio. Four months ago, she responded to the Pingtung County Government's "Swallows Flying South" program, ended her work, and returned to her hometown of Changzhi to learn farming. Under the guidance of mentor Chen Yanbo, she began her agricultural life. The cucumbers and corn she planted in the fields have matured and she has started harvesting. He Yuxuan, known as an elegant beauty, believes that returning to the countryside has allowed her to truly experience the meaning and value of life.

He Yuxuan said that a few years ago, a big fire burned all the family's tools for making a living to ashes overnight, and her father suddenly lost his foothold in life. Fortunately, some farmland left behind by elders happened to come in handy at this time.

He Yuxuan would use the internet to help her father sell fruit, but there was often "out of stock" - not because demand exceeded supply, but because the fruit simply would not grow. At the time, the county government was promoting the "Swallows Flying South" program, and county government staff encouraged her, saying, "Why not come down and try it yourself?"

It was that sentence - "You'll learn faster if you go into the fields yourself" - that made He Yuxuan really end all her work and sign up for "Swallows Flying South." She stated very clearly that she returned to Pingtung on February 28 this year, beginning another kind of wonder in life.

From an air-conditioned room to under a melon trellis, exposed to wind and sun, drenched in sweat, through wind and rain, picking melons and harvesting corn - she had to do everything herself. Fortunately, she received help from the mentoring organization, Chen Yanbo of Jiuru, who helped them diagnose the land that could not grow good melons. It turned out this field was originally a fish pond, filled with some poor soil, making the soil hard - no wonder things grew poorly. To solve the problem, Chen Yanbo came up with the idea of growing cucumbers off the ground, using containers filled with imported soil, with cucumber seedlings planted directly on the containers. This batch of cucumbers was planted on April 19, and harvesting recently began. Using net house cultivation without spraying pesticides, it is non-toxic cultivation. He Yuxuan, holding freshly harvested cucumbers, said this is the greatest harvest of her life - from seedlings to fruiting, she planted them with her own hands and picked them with her own hands.

She said being a farmer is not easy. Much knowledge is not taught in the classroom; only by doing it yourself can you reap beautiful rewards.