Taiwan Rural Front's November 17 Summer Cultivation Sharing Session Invites You to Join

This summer, Taiwan Rural Front brought young people and citizens who care about rural areas to learn about local places through field surveys. Now that the surveys are finished, we will share with everyone at the sharing session the plentiful fruits of the summer's cultivation.

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[Facebook event website]

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[Time]
◉ Sharing session: November 17, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
◉ Static exhibition: November 17, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

[Location]
◉ Sharing session: The Little White House at the National Taiwan Museum Nanmen Park
◉ Static exhibition: National Taiwan Museum Nanmen Park

Participants in the Summer Cultivation activity first had to take part in a field training workshop held in Meinong at the end of July.

The first-stage camp was held in cooperation with the Meinong Rural Field Society. In addition to leading participants to learn about this classic Hakka rural community, the five-day, four-night camp also invited speakers specializing in agricultural issues, letting participants quickly learn about contemporary agricultural issues. For example, they visited the Meinong Farmers' Association to learn about Taiwan's agricultural production and marketing and the functions of farmers' associations; they invited researcher Chen Chieh-ting of the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute to introduce the current state and development of Taiwan's placemaking, and so on.

The second stage was to conduct field surveys in various places across Taiwan. This year, the places we surveyed included: Yuanli, Nanfang'ao, Erlin Goutou, Meinong, and Kouhu Chenglong. Depending on the location, there were different survey themes, including plains, the ocean, markets, and also explorations of history. For the participants, the survey process was both a learning experience and a shock. Young people who grew up in the city felt their own lack of understanding of rural areas, while young people who grew up in the countryside reflected on their own loss of roots in their native soil.

⟡⟡⟡The Four Solitary Army Villages of Meinong⟡⟡⟡
Half a century ago, the Kuomintang remnant troops in Thailand and Myanmar settled in Meinong and Ligang through the "Project Guolei." Facing the hardship of constant migration, after coming to Taiwan they worked hard to build new lives, and this group of Kuomintang remnant troops from Thailand and Myanmar has taken root in Taiwan. Summer Cultivation participants came to the four villages of Xinguo, Jingzhong, Dingyuan, and Chenggong at the border of Kaohsiung and Pingtung, this exotic land rich in Yunnan flavor, and saw the beauty and sorrow of the four villages.