Kaohsiung Muzih Torch Festival Brings Back the Firelight, Lighting the Way Home for Mountain Residents

Everyone held a torch aloft, forming a long procession of more than six hundred people, like a galaxy in the night sky stretching across the foothills where the Alishan Range extends toward Kaohsiung.

Muzih Village in Shanlin District, Kaohsiung, was originally a small mountain village where no one came or went after seven in the evening. On the night of October 10, an unprecedented and extraordinarily lively carnival appeared. Whether they were visitors from elsewhere or wanderers who had long been away from home, everyone agreed to pick up torches and joyfully parade through the village, recreating those bygone days half a century ago when there was no street lighting.

Although fireflies are rarely seen in autumn and there are no stars along the mountain paths at night, the flickering torchlight accompanied by laughter, singing, and the sound of gongs and drums had already made Muzih the happiest rural village in Taiwan on this Double Tenth night.

A Remote Place Where Delivery Does Not Reach, Where Time Stands Still

Compared with Dakanuwa in Namaxia or Meishan in Taoyuan District, Muzih in Shanlin is not remote at all. Driving from Muzih to the Shanlin street area takes only ten minutes, and the journey to Meinong's ban tiao street or Qishan Old Street takes no more than half an hour, yet Muzih gives outsiders the stereotype of being very remote. Even chain pizza and franchised bubble tea shops are unwilling to provide delivery service here.

Hou Wudai, former chairman of the Muzih Community Development Association, said that Muzih Village is located in a no-man's-land, in the mountainous border area where Shanlin, Neimen, and Jiaxian meet. It is divided into five settlements, including Baishuiquan, Hongmaoshan, Muzih, Jiadonghu, and Wuqitan. The only road connecting it to the outside is the industrial road Provincial Highway 129.

Winding Mountain Roads Preserve Local Uniqueness

Chen Zhaohong, secretary-general of the Small Township Community Building Alliance, described it this way: "People entering Muzih from the outside for the first time often feel that the mountain roads all look alike and think they will arrive at the next turn. But after turning, they discover that there is still a very long stretch of road ahead, and as they keep driving, they start to question life itself..."

However, Muzih, whose development has been constrained by transportation and geographical location, has instead preserved more of its local uniqueness. Scattered villages and sparse farmhouses are interspersed among pineapple fields, guava orchards, banana plantations, and papaya orchards; groves of ma bamboo surrounding the waists of the hills sway in unison with the northeast monsoon as it gradually moves south; farmers work at sunrise and residents rest at sunset. Although few people are seen on the streets, laughter never ceases in the fields and orchards. In Muzih, time seems to stand still.

Serious Aging Population, Elementary School Closed, Police Station Soon to Be Abolished

According to data provided by the household registration office, Muzih currently has 313 households and 734 people, but fewer than half actually live here. Chen Zhaohong said, "The permanent resident population is only just over three hundred." Ye Qianzhi, a community volunteer mother who is also responsible for the current visitation work for the community's elderly, added a few words that fully captured the difficulties of Muzih's development. She said, "More than forty percent of the people remaining in Muzih are elderly over 65. In the past year alone, the number of elderly people living alone who received our regular visits has reached 126."

Over the past nearly thirty years, young people have left one after another to work and settle elsewhere, and the aging phenomenon in Muzih has become increasingly serious. First, twenty years ago, Muzih Elementary School was closed and merged into Shanlin Elementary School. A few days ago, on October 7, the police station announced the news of holding a briefing session. Ye Qianzhi said, "I heard the police station is also going to be abolished..." For residents, it feels as though the world is gradually casting them aside bit by bit.

To Protect Their Homeland, Muzih Mobilizes the Whole Village to Raise Torches

In fact, as early as the end of 2017, the honest and taciturn community cadres had approached the Small Township Community Building Alliance because they wanted to promote community work. Zhang Shujing, executive secretary of Small Township, recalled, "When the community cadres came to talk, they really wanted to do something but did not know how to begin, so they wanted to seek some experience from Small Township, because Small Township has a lot of experience in elderly care work."

So Small Township began accompanying the Muzih community in conducting field surveys, establishing an elderly care station, and further building up visitation work for the community's elderly. During their cooperation, the two sides even discussed and came up with the bold idea of holding a "Torch Festival."