Holding hands for wedding photos at the salt fields, even fishing and farming for you is romantic

Holding hands for nearly fifty years, getting through meals of sweet potato rice-paste porridge and the wind and rain of the sea, and then having wedding photos taken - what greater romance could there be? Now that their children have grown up, they bring along their old companion and the fermentation jars and tiller they have lived with for years and take a photo that leaves a sweet aftertaste.

The Budai Zui Cultural Association of Chiayi has been reviving local sea salt and has offered the "Zhounan Salt Works" brand for 8 years now, and the Salt Thanksgiving Festival it holds every year has just drawn to a close. Over these years, as salt-drying culture, the Zhounan evening banquet, and local mini-tours were rolled out one after another, the Budai Zui Cultural Association began digging into the stories of the industry. Last year it put on the "24 Hours of Industrial Labor and Life" photography exhibition, and this year, under the theme "Love: Settling Down and Rejoicing in Work," it is putting on a wedding photography exhibition and a small documentary film festival.

The Budai Zui Cultural Association selected 6 couples in all: the sea-faring couple Li Yingyi and Xiao Bichan; the Beiguan musicians Huang Jincai and Huang Cai Suluan; the pig farmers Zhang Fengxin and Wu Yongying; the fish farmers Qiu Jingyao and Pan Xiuguan; the farmers Qiu Chongzhan and Lin Meizhu; and the soy-sauce makers Xiao Xinwang and Chen Limei. Each couple's wedding photo scene is drawn from their own life, making for delightful contrasts.

"Falling in love is romantic, but building a home and a career is a kind of responsibility," said Cai Jiongqiao. A wedding dress usually stays fresh for less than a week before being forgotten once it is put in the closet, but the life that follows one after another after starting a family keeps updating. What the photography exhibition wants to present is how these residents who have settled in Budai find joy in the industry they live by, and through the exhibition let the outside world know more about the striving stories of the sons and daughters of the salt fields.

A Sea-Faring Couple's Lifetime of Love

Among the six couples, the sea-faring pair Li Yingyi and Xiao Bichan are the oldest. Married 49 years, both already 70 years old, they have never had wedding photos taken. "Life was so hard back then, and wedding photos cost more than 3000 yuan - how could we have that kind of money?" said Li Yingyi, who lives off the sky and must wrestle with the sea. When he was young his family had no money, so after finishing his military service he followed others out to sea to fish. Back then weather forecasting technology was not as advanced as it is now, and on top of that he had no fishing boat of his own; in the worst period, there was a month when he only got to go out to sea twice.

In those hard times, Li Yingyi and Xiao Bichan got by on sweet potato rice-paste strips with soy sauce, and if they wanted to eat fish they had to pick the smallest ones. The year after they married, his wife gave birth to a daughter, and Li Yingyi bought the mangrove crab he caught and cooked it for his wife to build her up. Only the following year, once they had gradually saved some money, did he rent a boat together with a few fishing friends and keep wrestling with the sea, and life gradually improved.

Now their children have grown up, and their son has come back to learn sea-faring alongside them, yet Li Yingyi has no plans to retire. The fishing boat used for this wedding photo shoot is numbered 66 and was bought less than 3 years ago. "When the weather is good, I go out to sea," he said with a laugh. "I am used to working; asking us husband and wife to chit-tho (Taiwanese, pronounced close to 'chit-tho') is harder work. When I have free time I go fishing."

A Soy-Sauce Works Couple of 30 Years, with a Rock 'n' Roll Soul Hidden Inside

Turning the lens to Longjiang Village in Budai Township, the third-generation successors of the Xin Lai Yuan soy-sauce works, Xiao Xinwang and Chen Limei, worked for many years in Kaohsiung. Because Xiao Xinwang's father worried that his son would have a hard time in the fermented black bean industry, he insisted on keeping the couple in Kaohsiung to make a living, until 6 years ago, when Father Xiao suddenly passed away from illness and only their mother was left at home. The couple then resolutely set aside their Kaohsiung jobs and returned to their hometown, carrying on the family's handmade fermented black bean method, and last year the couple switched to using local yellow soybeans and salt from the Zhounan Salt Works to make a white soy sauce that belongs entirely to the flavor of Budai, Chiayi.

Xiao Xinwang and Chen Limei have been married nearly 30 years. In fact, when they were young the two once ran a stereo shop, so their traditional three-sided courtyard house hides a jazz drum set and an electric guitar. This time, by having wedding photos taken again, the couple brought out their instruments and set free the rock 'n' roll soul within.