Tugou Builds a Taiwan, China Version of the Setouchi Art Festival with a Ten-Year Water Buffalo Spirit

Tugou Village in Tainan City is a traditional township that makes its living growing rice, with 1,700 residents, more elderly people than young, and many people are probably more familiar with the neighboring village, the Jingliao community in Houbi, where the documentary "No Rice, No Joy" was set; in 2002, a group of young people from Tainan National University of the Arts discovered that this village, which once had more than 300 water buffalo, had only one water buffalo left. Unwilling to let rural culture wither away, they cooperated with the local cultural association and launched a ten-year rural transformation plan.

"Uncle, may I ask where the art museum is?" "Go straight ahead, there is a building with paintings over there," said a sun-tanned farmer, standing under the red bricks and tiles of a three-sided courtyard, pointing to the street ahead where the crowds were gathering, "there is another building back there too, ah, our whole street here is the art museum!" In Tugou Village, Tainan, at the tail end of autumn, adults and children rushed to make a pilgrimage on the opening day of the "2013 Village House Contemporary Art Exhibition." Many of them were stepping out of the white-cube art museum for the first time and could not get their bearings, while local residents skillfully pointed the way and introduced the lotus roots and rice grown here.