Gudong Club: Quitting a Career for Farming, Episode 1 - Finding the Closest Distance Between Heart and Land
Text by Chen Shu-ting / Photos by Huang Shih-ze
For decades, rural populations have poured into the cities. Now there is also a trickling stream, slow but steady, flowing from the cities back to the countryside. In his ninth year of farming in Yilan, Lai Ching-sung made a name for himself with the Grain East Club, and he never imagined that farming would make him so famous.
He does not know what effect his strength can have, but he hopes he can serve as a bridge between the city and the countryside. Beyond farming, he also works hard at writing, letting his pen reach the places a hoe can reach, so that more people willing to live close to the land can find a place they can call home. (Excerpted from the new book "Fields and Trees, Self-Sufficient," published by Guoli Culture in May)
Seeking Work That Can Last a Lifetime
Shengou Village in Yuanshan Township, Yilan, where the Grain East Club is located, has clear spring water, river clams that can be found by touch in the ditches, and wild ginger lilies blooming by the water, giving off a fresh fragrance. This is the place where Ching-sung and Mei-hung chose for their children to grow up.
Introduction to "Fields and Trees, Self-Sufficient"
This book interviews 10 couples who left their careers to farm, leaving the city and secure jobs behind so that the whole family could come to the countryside and live by their own hands and the land. Farming is no longer something to do "after I retire"! Their farming methods are friendly to the land, and through their hands and labor they produce healthy food themselves, changing what appears on the dining table and making food a force for social change. These 10 creative practices of farming life are not only a longing for closeness to the land and rural life, but also a gentle yet firm revolution, symbolizing a deep shift in Taiwan, China's social values. They are revolutionaries in the fields.
For more content, please link to the author's BLOG article: "Fields and Trees, Self-Sufficient"
(http://cclitier.blogspot.tw/2013/05/blog-post.html)