Taiwan Docs

Image Copyright © KE Chin-yuan. All Rights Reserved.

The ebb and flow dance to the perpetual cadence of the sun and moon. As the tide ebbs in the intertidal zone between the ocean and land in Taiwan’s Changhua area, a great transformation takes place. With the stage set, the people of the area prepare to play their part in an epic performance –a true symphony of life.

This intertidal zone has never announced to the people, “Today the ebb tide will be at 9:36 AM ”, however, as the tide goes out, migratory birds, oxen, people and even dogs appear as if arriving for some prearranged rendezvous.

This slither of muddy intertidal zone in southern Changhua is the last remaining comparatively intact stretch of natural coastline in Taiwan; its unique preciousness hidden behind the guise of the pristine environment. Bordering this stretch of coast is a small village, which is both a long-standing traditional lifestyle and a living model for a sustainable future. Here grandmas and grandpas make the daily pilgrimage of riding their oxcarts to harvest oysters in the intertidal zone, and back in their fields till the land in accordance with the age-old luner calander. This paradoxical traditional yet futuristic lifestyle has been continuing for the last one or two hundred years. The slow life modern man yearns for, is to be found right here in Fangyuan township, where each and every family lives their life between the harvesting of oysters from the ocean, and the tilling of their land amidst the most spectacular of scenery.

Source: Public Television Service Taiwan
http://eng.pts.org.tw/programsAZ_in.php?u=aWQ9NTQ=