Zhang Mingli farms and learns alongside her daughter, where freedom lives within love

Text and photography by Kang Jiaoyuan (editor-in-chief of Green Advocates monthly)

Shortly after Grain Rain I arrived in Nan'ao, Yilan, on the greater Nan'ao plain that lies between the Central Mountain Range and the Pacific Ocean, a delta where farming and fishing both have a place, with the great mountains embracing it from the west and opening freely and boundlessly eastward to the sea. At ten in the morning, I met Zhang Mingli at the entrance of Nan'ao Railway Station; she had driven over from Dongshan with her daughter Zhou Zishan along the Provincial Highway 9, the Suhua Highway, a trip of about one hour. In January 2017 they moved from Keelung to Dongshan, and she was still busy sorting out her new workplace, which is also the rented house next to the Ci-Xin Waldorf Education Experimental Senior High School that her daughter attends; after the Spring Festival she took leave to travel back and forth to Nan'ao to farm, and occasionally returned to Keelung's Malingkeng to tend the ginger field.

Driving from Nan'ao Railway Station toward Datong Road, we passed along the way the Suhua Improvement (the Provincial Highway 9 Suhua Highway mountain section improvement project) under construction, which will strengthen the safety of certain sections and is expected to shorten the route by nearly 17 km. The daughter sitting quietly in the back seat suddenly voiced a precocious observation: "Its landscape will change." After about three minutes we arrived at the Shuitianwu farmhouse homestay a kilometer away, whose farmland mainly grows sugarcane, rice, soybeans and black beans; the owner, Huang Shicong, runs "Acong's Natural Field" using the Shumei natural farming method, and provides nearly one fen of land for Zhang Mingli to cultivate.

Postscript: Life has its own shape

Trained as a journalism professional, she worked in a hazy way until, five years after falling ill, she learned about environmental pollution and food safety issues; to promote these ideas she built up her own strength, even paying for childcare so she could serve as a volunteer, and connected with the power of the Homemakers United Foundation cooperative. The urgency of these problems was such that Zhang Mingli could not hold back and quit what was then a promising e-book development job, and to this day she remains someone who dares to break the frame. "I am looking for a real place to settle down; after all, one needs a stable life."

For her, she used to turn herself into a generator, constantly charging and discharging, until she came to Dongshan, where there is a group of companions whose energy keeps multiplying, "It is like a power plant here." Yet the air pollution caused by the nearby cement plant is the most pressing environmental problem, affecting every moment of life; Zhang Mingli joined the Yilan anti-air-pollution action platform "Blue Sky Project 2.0," continuing to put her ideas into practice through action, leaving behind firm footsteps, which is her attitude.

"Although I encounter many difficulties and misunderstandings, I feel the universe understands. For example, at election time, the headquarters rent was due the next day and there was no money! Suddenly some money came in, and I thought it was ten thousand, but it turned out to have an extra zero!" For the sake of "truth" she stands up and moves forward, and the persistence along the way has not been easy; she understands she must bear it, "I only later realized that what I am doing is social movement." This realization annotates her energy. Now she better understands that she must let herself relax in order to reserve energy; on weekends, once the farm work is done, she says with a smile, "I still have to go out and wander!"

(This article was originally published in Green Advocates monthly, May 2017, issue 163.)