The native yam homeland of the Northeast Corner: Shuangxi sits on good water, but will it be submerged by a reservoir, and where should it go?

Located in the Northeast Corner of Taiwan, China, Shuangxi was once prosperous because of mining, and also saw a rapid population outflow as mining declined, becoming one of the top ten most aged areas in all of Taiwan, China. This mountain town, surrounded by rivers and with fresh air, is a protected area in the upper reaches of the Feitsui Reservoir, and because of its abundant water resources it has been coveted. In the 2017 Forward-Looking Infrastructure Plan, the government once again proposed the long-shelved "Shuangxi Reservoir Planning Case," sparking controversy over how Shuangxi's future should be defined.

Supporters believe Shuangxi has long been stagnant and look forward to the government investing major construction resources to drive job opportunities; opponents believe Shuangxi retains the most pleasant rural landscape of the Northeast Corner, and that if it can develop friendly agriculture, it will have the chance to become a satoyama model for New Taipei City. The reservoir construction proposal remains unresolved to this day, but this controversy has stirred local residents to think: what kind of place should Shuangxi become?

Mining brought prosperity and also decline

Grandma Jian Hongwei, who lives on the street, is 82 years old this year. After the war, all industries were depressed, and she followed her first husband from Changhua to Shuangxi to dig coal. Her husband unfortunately died in a mining disaster, and the young woman remarried a second husband who was also a miner, continuing to work in mining. After the Second World War, Taiwan, China's coal mining industry was at its peak, and a large population from central and southern Taiwan, China poured into Shuangxi like Grandma Jian and her two husbands; the population once reached more than 40,000 people.

After coal mining declined, a large number of young and middle-aged people moved away. According to 2018 Ministry of the Interior statistics, the proportion of elderly people in Shuangxi was 25.25%. Although Shuangxi's registered population is still more than 8,000, in reality most work elsewhere, and more than half of the permanent residents are elderly elders.

The mining years once brought prosperity to Shuangxi, and also left many marks of time on the old people's bodies. Because women workers were forbidden from entering the mine shafts, most worked at coal washing in the washing and sorting yard. Carrying heavy coal year after year bent and deformed Grandma Jian Hongwei's spine, and every day on the street her silhouette can be easily recognized.

How should Shuangxi develop? The local area still lacks imagination and consensus

Dr. Xu Guoyou, former director of the health center who served in Shuangxi for many years and was only transferred to Xizhi at the end of last year, observed that because of the mining background, joint degeneration problems are quite common among the many elderly laborers. "These elders with physical inconvenience and difficulty moving are shut in at home, because they do not want to burden their children, and may even develop a psychological barrier that makes them resist seeking medical care."

In order to care for the elderly, during his tenure Xu Guoyou secured the establishment of a physical therapy center and provided free assistive devices, allowing elders to receive rehabilitation care nearby and caring for the elders left in their hometown on behalf of Shuangxi people who work elsewhere. Last year (2019), because of its innovative services, the Shuangxi Health Center won the "Government Service Award" presented by the Executive Yuan, known as the Oscar award for government departments.

Speaking of Shuangxi's future, Xu Guoyou sighed and said he often hears Shuangxi people envy other townships: Pingxi has Shifen Station and sky lanterns; Ruifang has Jiufen and Houtong Cat Village; Gongliao has the Fulong Ocean Music Festival, and the anti-nuclear movement has made Gongliao known nationwide. It seems only Shuangxi has nothing? "But what exactly Shuangxi should develop into, the local area actually also lacks imagination and consensus," Xu Guoyou observed.

Once designated as planned reservoir land, it sparked a local regeneration movement in Shuangxi

Shuangxi gets its name from the meeting of the Mudan River and the Pinglin River. With abundant rain and sufficient water, it became a water source protection area for the Feitsui Reservoir. Downstream is the Gongliao Weir. With very little industrial development, Shuangxi has good mountains and good water, but some locals also complain that Shuangxi is too damp, with moss growing everywhere, and that it is an old and slow place.

In 2017, under the central government's Forward-Looking Infrastructure Plan, the long-shelved Shuangxi Reservoir development case was proposed again, splitting the local area and triggering heated debate. Supporters believe Shuangxi has long been stagnant, and that the government investing major construction resources will drive more development and job opportunities; opponents believe Shuangxi retains the most pleasant rural landscape of the Northeast Corner, and that by fully preserving the natural environment and developing friendly agriculture, it will have the chance to become a satoyama model for New Taipei City.

The reservoir construction proposal remains unresolved to this day. But it has inspired the local area to rethink its imagination for Shuangxi's future development, including letting locals rediscover the place.

Returning home at 50 to farm, Lu Ruihong turns the local situation around

Lu Ruihong is the chairman of the anti-reservoir self-rescue association. Like most Shuangxi people, Lu Ruihong left Shuangxi young to develop in Taipei. In 2012, when he returned to Shuangxi in his fifties, his parents had passed away and the farmland had been abandoned for more than twenty years. He described it as "reclaiming it all over again," and once again experiencing the hardships of his ancestors.

"Building a reservoir will not bring local revitalization. The government compensation money will be spent, while the land left behind can be passed down from generation to generation. Shuangxi has a uniquely blessed environment and can develop farming methods that are friendly to the environment. With such a good environment not far from Taipei, there will definitely be like-minded consumers to support it." In Lu Ruihong's business-minded thinking, Shuangxi is not without opportunity.

Lu Ruihong wants to launch a long-lasting local regeneration movement in Shuangxi. At present, together with many farmer friends who hold the same idea, he has established an environmentally friendly small farmer cooperative, hoping to use environment, ecology, and agriculture to turn around this quiet, natural small town. The first step begins with the locally unique Keelung native yam.

A unique environment nurtures the local slender native yam

Lu Ruihong's land is located on the alluvial plain at the mouth of Dinglan Valley. Because it once experienced flooding and inundation and has been mixed with sandy soil, it is especially suitable for growing the Keelung native yam unique to the Northeast Corner. The yam variety grown by Dinglan Valley residents is a uniquely slender type of yam. When harvesting, one must first dig down half a meter with a round shovel, then carefully use a small rake to loosen the soil around the yam before it can be pulled out.

The slender native yam variety that locals call "He Jinshui" is a landrace widely known among yam farmers in the Northeast Corner, and is commonly grown by residents of Shuangxi and Dinglan Valley in particular. Gong Caili, a researcher at the Taoyuan Agricultural Research and Extension Station who has studied Keelung native yams for more than twenty-five years, said that the Keelung native yam is a unique native variety of Taiwan, China, completely different from the large-tuber introduced varieties commonly seen on the market today, or from Japanese imported yams.

However, Gong Caili also explained: "The yams currently grown by farmers in the Shuangxi and Pingxi areas of the Northeast Corner are actually all different from one another. When farmers plant them, they still follow the traditional method of finding the strongest and largest one to propagate. Through continuous crossbreeding and variation, farmers have produced many differences among varieties. One can only say that He Jinshui is one of the more commonly circulated and shared varieties."

The eating quality of Keelung native yam far surpasses Japanese yam

Gong Caili said, "The eating quality of Keelung native yam far surpasses Japanese yam, and it can be called the most delicious variety among Taiwan, China's yams! The flesh is fine, the shape is long, it is chewy and firm, and the springy texture is excellent." Because this type of Keelung native yam is suitable for growing in soil with plenty of rain and good drainage, it is especially suited to cultivation in the Northeast Corner of Shuangxi and Pingxi, and has now also become one of the New Taipei Three Treasures actively promoted by New Taipei City (the other two are water bamboo and sweet potato).

Gong Caili cited the Compendium of Materia Medica, which records that yam can "strengthen the spleen and stomach, benefit kidney qi, and replenish deficiency," making it an excellent ingredient for winter nourishment. However, native yams still have some limitations waiting to be overcome, because they are difficult to cultivate and especially hard to make resistant to pests and diseases, so the area cannot be expanded. At present, native yam output is low, demand exceeds supply, and market prices remain high. Gong said that the Taoyuan Agricultural Research and Extension Station is actively improving and breeding them, hoping to develop improved varieties with strong disease resistance and suitability for planting as soon as possible.

"He Jinshui" was generous and selfless, giving away seeds for free

The "He Jinshui" yam variety is not only a unique treasure of Northeast Corner agriculture, but also a representative crop of Shuangxi's transformation. Lin Chaogen, the "yam expert" with the largest planting area in the Northeast Corner, said that after coal mining stopped in the 1980s, the industry declined, and many locals returned to farming. But the Northeast Corner has many mountains and little land, and the area for growing rice is limited. No one knew where the future was.

"The yam seeds provided by He Jinshui helped a lot of people!" Lin Chaogen, now sixty-five years old and still vigorous, recalled He Jinshui with full gratitude. "He Jinshui was the first expert in the Northeast Corner specifically growing native yams. At the time, everyone heard that He Jinshui was growing a kind of yam that was quite popular, and many people ran to He Jinshui. He was very generous in giving out seeds (the bulbils attached to the vines) and did not charge money." Lin Chaogen said seriously.

"Because Pingxi