Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above

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Beyond Beauty:
Taiwan from Above

Please don't be surprised.

This is our home, Taiwan.

If you haven't seen it like this,

maybe it's because you've never been

this high above it.

Let us become a drifting cloud

or a flying bird.

Together, we see Taiwan.

Together, we witness the beauty

and sadness of this island.

Every boat loaded with a day's catch

is a reward for the fishermen's hard work.

Every field full of crops

is a prize for the farmers' effort.

Our ancestors, coming from different places,

sailed across the treacherous strait

in different times.

But they all had stood in the same fields,

growing rice humbly,

nurturing the crops with their sweat.

They worked day in and day out

just to grow enough food to

build their homes and support their children.

No matter where the field is.

No matter how old we are.

People from all walks of life

have worked as hard as they can in this land.

We not only keep ourselves going

but promise ourselves that

we will create a better future

for our next generation.

This island has been quietly nurturing us

together with other living creatures.

They had lived in harmony

with this land for centuries.

But who disrupted the balance

between all living creatures

and sowed the seeds of disaster?

June 2012.

We were flying along

the coast of Taitung County.

At the time, although it began to rain,

it wasn't too heavy.

But when the helicopter turned

towards Pingtung Plain,

it was hit by the southwest monsoon current.

Heavy rain poured down

and hit the front window hard.

Meanwhile,

currents started to emerge on the ground.

Water flooded the fish farms

as well as the fruit orchards.

During the past two decades,

on average each year,

we have 93 days of heavy rain,

42 days of very heavy rain,

and 13 days of extreme rain.

But during the past thirty years,

the days we have heavy rains

have clearly increased

while the days we have light rains

have clearly decreased.

In other words,

we either have no rain

or very heavy rain.

The total rainfall in Taiwan

hasn't changed much,

but rain falls on fewer and fewer days.

The rain concentrates to such an extent that

the land can no longer bear it.

Take Typhoon Morakot for example,

the rainfall in Mt. Ali alone

was a record-breaking 2855 mm

in just five days.

It was more than the yearly average

rainfall in Taiwan.

Before year 2000,

disasters on such a big scale happened

once every three or four years.

But in the past ten years,

we have had a super typhoon that

caused such serious floods almost every year.

Flying through layers of clouds,

we see Mt. Dawu from above.

The scars left by Typhoon Morakot

remain clearly visible.

In the past ten years,

every time heavy rain

poured down in the mountains,

similar disasters happened.

Hundreds of tons of

mudflow and fallen rocks

remind us

how scary a natural disaster can be.

Taiwan is a small mountainous island.

Mountains make up

almost three fourth of the surface.

Moreover, most of it is very steep.

Landslides, tremors,

and mudflows often happen.

Now after the 9/21 Earthquake

disasters take place even more frequently.

The driftwood washed down

from the mountains

were once the big tall trees in the forest.

Now, lying silently in a pile on the riverbank,

it looks like a jumble of

abandoned dead bodies.

Building a highway through the mountains

was once regarded as a symbol of

the iron will of mankind.

In fact,

it was the beginning of the end of the world.

Men arrogantly drew the shortest line

across the mountains and forests.

By doing that, men destroyed

the natural structure of the land.

As a result,

the road slides every time it rains.

In order to keep it in position,

containers are used as the supports.

Cars keep running on the road day and night

just because no one

sees the terror right below.

Most people cannot see

the injuries we inflicted on our land.

One after another,

cars go up to the mountains.

People in the cars often have no idea that

the trip is more like

an adventure than a tour.

This is Zhushan Train Station in Mt. Ali.

A popular spot for watching the sunrise.

Every day it's crowded with tourists.

But most people are unaware that

what lies right underneath their feet is

a large area of landslides.

When a disaster strikes,

even gods cannot protect themselves,

let alone humble creatures like us.

Only when we see from above,

do we realize this mountain village

is sandwiched between collapsed slopes.

It looks like a lonely island.

The roads that could be blocked at any time

are its fragile lifelines.

There are many mountain villages

like this in Taiwan.

People don't want to leave.

It's their wish to protect their homeland

and to stay with their ancestral spirits.

But the biggest problem is,

in fact, no one can

guarantee them resource and space

needed in life when they leave home.

This is a mountain in our land.

It was the home of broad-leaved forests.

Their deep roots held the soil

tight and keep the rainwater.

Nonetheless,

they grow so slowly that it takes them decades,

even centuries to become big trees.

How can trees like this

compete with betel trees

that bring men tons of money every year?

As we now live in a time

when everything is valued by

how much profit it brings,

the trees grown in the forests for generations

have been mercilessly cut down.

What replaced them were the betel saplings

that grow money on them.

Now from above,

we see the excavator working on the ground.

It's making more space for another crop.

Tea. High mountain tea.

The trees here were mercilessly felled as well.

Oh, no, you can't say "mercilessly".

In a time like this, we should say,

they were felled "effectively".

It's the same with the cabbage fields.

Cabbage has always been grown in the plains.

Just because some gourmet said,

"The higher it's grown, the better it tastes."

People began to grow cabbage on hills

and turn forests into farmland.

What we can see is a process of

how beautiful mountains turned ugly.

But what we cannot see is even more terrifying.

When the trees

whose deep roots held soil and water

were pulled out of the ground

and replaced by crops with shallow roots,

it was,

in fact, the beginning of a tragedy.

Roads are built higher and higher

up in the mountains.

Our footprints go deeper and deeper

into the forests.

Bungalows with corrugated iron roofs

are built in the woods.

Baths made of cement are added

next to the valleys.

Wires and water pipes not only

cut across the rivers

but divide the sky in an arrogant manner.

Tall buildings rise up in conservation areas.

Hot spring hotels stop the flow of rivers.

What is left in the valley is a narrow stream.

When it pours down with rain,

the water has nowhere to flow.

But when our lives and properties

are threatened,

we always blame Nature

instead of ourselves.

We keep building fancy castles on the hills.

We refuse to admit

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