Wanbao Watermelon Gathering, Celebrating the Exemption from Land Requisition

Yesterday was the 12th Watermelon Festival of Wanbao Community in Miaoli. Entering Wanbao Community in Houlong along the coast in the opposite direction from the West Coast Highway, plump watermelons lay quietly on the ground sunbathing, but Longyun Temple was already bustling with activity. Fifty or sixty "Wanbao good friends" who had come from northern, central, southern, and eastern Taiwan were either biting into watermelon or devouring pumpkin rice noodles cooked by local community mothers, listening intently as Hong Xiang shared the bittersweet story of resisting land requisition. What she kept repeating was the same remark she had said probably hundreds of times over the past few years: "Thank you all for coming to the Watermelon Festival. Without society's help, there would be no Wanbao today."

Competing to See Who Is the Sharpshooting Seed Spitter, the Watermelon Festival Filled with Laughter