Xia Yun Rural Grassroots Field Survey Series Two: Into Erlin Wanggong (4)
Text/Lin Lexin, Chen Ning, Huang Yuying, Ji Xinyun, Yang Xianglin, Lin Minghua, Chen Yijun, Wu Jialing, Lu Guanming, Zheng Biwei
PrefaceThe "Xia Yun Erlin/Fangyuan Field Survey Group" is one of the teams of the Xia Yun rural field survey. The scope of this group's survey is not limited to the traditional "countryside". Beyond the famous Taiwanese farming village of Erlin in Changhua, following its concern for Taiwan's primary industries, it also ventures to the southwestern coast of Changhua to visit the inshore aquaculture fisheries of Fangyuan and Wanggong.
[Lesson One: "The Sea-Toilers"】
Text/ Wu Jialing
This field survey took us to Wanggong and Xinbao in Changhua. Although my hometown is not far from the sea, for someone like me who had never been out to sea, the fishing industry was a rather unfamiliar trade. The first time I rode an iron ox cart, its engine puttering away, it carried us into the 6000-meter-long intertidal zone along Taiwan's western coast of Changhua, rich in ecology. This was vastly different from the intertidal zone I had seen before in Little Liuqiu, China. Like Granny Liu visiting the Grand View Garden, my eyes went wide. If you have never been to the western coast of Changhua, you absolutely cannot say you have ever been to an intertidal zone!
Coming to Changhua, I learned a great deal of local knowledge. (Ahem..) Lesson One: "The Sea-Toilers"
What is the true meaning of this term? My goodness! I had never seriously pondered this term before. After the young instructor explained it, I suddenly understood: a sea-toiler is someone who "earns a meal by begging from the sea." So this is where the ancient saying "those who live by the mountain eat from the mountain, those who live by the sea eat from the sea" comes from. "To beg" means to beseech heaven. It may seem humble, but it reveals the fishermen's tenacious will to survive. So what do fishermen beg from the sea? One answer is "oyster spat." How amazing. It turns out that oyster farming is very different from farming on land. You do not need to buy seeds from a merchant, or set aside your own seeds and calculate how many plots to plant next year. You simply string oyster shells together and place them in the sea, and the oyster spat attaches itself to the shells automatically. I was deeply stunned, shouting over and over in my heart: How amazing! What a wonderful industry! You can farm (oysters) without even buying seeds. The above is the inner shock of a farm kid with limited experience. To be continued in the next lesson.
[This vast intertidal zone is a moving sight you must see to believe]
Text/ Chen Yijun
Nature, ecosystem, wetland, intertidal zone, fiddler crab, oyster, clam, seabird, what do we imagine them to be?
In early September, at the end of summer, I came here for the first time, to this national-treasure-grade wetland located between Dacheng Township and Fangyuan Township, or what could also be called the proposed site of the Kuokuang Petrochemical project. A six-kilometer-long intertidal zone, something I had not seen in twenty years; everywhere I looked was a scene of white fiddler crabs scurrying about, and since that day it has been seared into my mind. The sight of oyster farmers in the oyster fields, carrying equipment on their backs and holding harvested oysters, standing against the backdrop of the intertidal zone, somehow I can never forget it either.
The astonishment I felt the moment I rode the iron ox cart from dry land with a "clang" into the intertidal zone, the nervousness of my feet slowly sinking into the mud the moment I stepped off the cart, and even the peculiar sensation of being half warm and half cool when entering chest-deep seawater, I want my friends, my children, and even my grandchildren to experience too.
I am just an ordinary student. I do not know how to compare in detail the economic benefits of fishing versus industry, nor do I know how many industries Kuokuang Petrochemical could drive or how many opportunities it could create. I only know that this great mother, the intertidal zone, is an irreplaceable existence, because she feeds countless little fish, little shrimp, and little crabs, and fills the bellies of many hardworking oyster-farming families.
For tens of millions of years, mother has quietly been there, guarding the children of the intertidal zone, guarding the natural ecology, guarding us.
This is a moving sight you must see to believe, and also a chance to turn imagination into reality. Truly step into this vast intertidal zone, and you will know just how precious this place really is.
[Little Poem: The Proposed Site of Kuokuang Petrochemical]
Text/ Lu Guanming
Changhua, Dacheng
Here lies a vast wetland
Soil, aquatic life, people
Nurturing so many lives and several generations of oyster farmers
Little crabs
Walking toward the sea
On the intertidal zone
Countless, endless little crabs
From their home in the soil, they hear the puttering of the iron ox cart
Sorry for startling them from their afternoon nap
I hope our arrival did not disturb them
Oyster fields
On the mudflat there are several neatly arranged racks, a clothes-drying yard
And the oyster shells hung on the racks are still waiting for oyster spat to attach
In the rising and falling tides of the seawater
The oysters gradually grow
Once grown, they dedicate their lives to fine food
Oyster omelette, oyster vermicelli, oyster tofu soup
Clams
In the lagoon nearby
Several uncles and aunts are still soaking in it
Feeling for clams, gathering clams
That is the rice paddy provided by the seawater, a rice paddy in the water
Looking over
Just like farmers harvesting, bending down to gather that beautiful rice
A kind of harmony between nature and people, coexisting, right here
Dacheng Wetland, proposed site of Kuokuang Petrochemical
【Guarding the mouth of the Zhuoshui River, guarding the white dolphin, and also guarding the health of Taiwanese people.】
Text/ Zheng Biwei
Video: Come and see the national land you have subscribed to through the National Trust.
Video Introduction
The Zhuoshui River is the longest river in Taiwan, China, nourishing all Taiwanese people.
The intertidal zone at the mouth of the Zhuoshui River, where looking down you see an endless expanse of fiddler crabs, produces one third of Taiwan's oysters, and is the proposed site of Kuokuang Petrochemical; it is also the first national land purchased through a National Trust in Taiwan, China, to protect the white dolphin.
The sweltering heat of August makes one sticky all over, and the steamer-like atmosphere ignited the enthusiasm of the [Xia Yun] interviewers. We arrived at Erlin and gathered at Putian Temple, changing into sun-protective sleeves and special shoes for going into the sea. Everyone rode the iron ox carts, immersed in the rumbling clamor of motors, as Putian Temple gradually receded into the distance, heading toward the dark tones of the 6-kilometer-long wetland, with egrets spreading their wings to welcome us. Standing in the muddy ground of the vast oyster fields, one is caught at the boundary between land and sea on Earth, with the Formosa Plastics Sixth Naphtha Cracker Plant, which had just caught fire, on the left.
[Xia Yun] companions experienced the intertidal zone that supplies seafood to thousands of Wanggong villagers, feeling for clams while washing their pants. There was also net fishing. Experienced fishermen could scoop up crabs with a casual reach. And the tender fresh oysters within easy reach were delicious whether dipped in wasabi or not.
Seeing the piled-up soil brought by the Sixth Naphtha Cracker Plant gradually and seriously affecting the fishermen's oyster farming, [Xia Yun] is worried that the Kuokuang petrochemical industry, with a development area of as much as 4000 hectares, will cause the disappearance of the Chinese white dolphin's habitat, habitat blockage, and destruction of the estuarine ecosystem. It will exhaust the soil's ecology, turning it into a ruin on the western coast, and Taiwan, China will also shrink into an exhausted soul. The [Xia Yun] survey team's footsteps grew heavier and heavier as they departed.
Reflections:
Ideals, tears, and love.
Ideals in the sound of waves in the Fangyuan intertidal zone: all beings are equal, all things are alive.
Tears fall on the soil of Erlin Xiangsi Liao: people in their homeland, hearts in the world.
Life is actually very simple.
The value of life lies in the practice of love.
<未完待续>