Yellow Butterfly's Little Journey (Part 1): Independence and Self-Reliance Create Rural Local Economies

When you were 18 years old, what kind of dreams did you have? The well-known "Meinong Yellow Butterfly Festival" has decided to hold a one-of-a-kind coming-of-age ceremony in the year it turns 18, moving forward together with the elders and fellow townspeople to weave a different beautiful dream for rural Taiwan.

The 18th "Meinong Yellow Butterfly Festival" kicked off last weekend with a warm-up event called the "Yellow Butterfly Mini Trip." During the two-day, one-night itinerary, the organizers worked with guesthouse operators, restaurants and tea houses in Meinong Township, inviting "local experts" to personally guide visitors in experiencing the true, the good and the beautiful of Meinong.

The Meinong Yellow Butterfly Festival is a Hakka cultural and ecological ceremony organized by the Meinong Love-Homeland Association, originally started as a protest against the construction of the Meinong Reservoir. This cultural event used to rely on government subsidies; now, as it enters its eighteenth year, the organizers hope that by holding the "Yellow Butterfly Mini Trip," the community can come of age, stand on its own economically and break free from dependence on government resources.

An Eighteen-Year Coming-of-Age Ceremony: Independence and Self-Reliance, Creating a Local Rural Economy

In December 1992, to supply industrial and domestic water for the greater Kaohsiung area, the Water Resources Agency of the Ministry of Economic Affairs planned to fill in Meinong's Yellow Butterfly Valley with cement and build a reservoir with a dam height of 147 m. Because the dam body was too high and located in a fractured fault zone, if it ever burst, the small town of Meinong would be submerged by a massive flood within minutes. Facing the threat of their homeland being drowned, the people of Meinong launched an anti-reservoir movement with the spirit of "a small town against a nation," repeatedly blocking the relevant budgets in the Legislative Yuan, and finally in 2000 obtained President Chen Shui-bian's promise that the Meinong Reservoir would never be built during his term.

The Meinong Yellow Butterfly Festival, first held in 1995, takes place at Yellow Butterfly Valley, the very site where the Meinong Reservoir was planned. Through the gentle "Yellow Butterfly Offering" ceremony, it solemnly expresses the tough-minded demand of "opposing the reservoir," and for eighteen years it has drawn visitors from all over Taiwan to gather there. However, Taiwanese society's growing forgetfulness and neglect of rural "farming" communities also poses a huge threat to the small town of Meinong, and it is against this backdrop that the 18th Meinong Yellow Butterfly Festival attempts to use the festival to build a rural "local economy" and find possibilities for Meinong's alternative development.

"The Yellow Butterfly Festival has been held for eighteen years, yet many Meinong residents feel that 'this has nothing to do with my life,'" said Chang Hui-chun, chief convener of this year's Yellow Butterfly Festival, frankly. In the past, the Yellow Butterfly Festival applied to the government and businesses for subsidies and sponsorship, and mostly consisted of fixed-point arts and cultural activities. Although outside visitors participated enthusiastically, there was too little interaction with local businesses. "We hope that, in addition to promoting values such as ecology, culture and anti-reservoir activism, the festival can also foster a micro-economic cycle in the community, so that more Meinong residents will feel that the Yellow Butterfly Festival 'matters to them,' and even keep young people in the countryside."