Last August, I was for some weeks again in Taiwan and spent most of the time in Taipei. Taiwan is full of amazing trees. I could not stop taking pictures. At some point I had to tell myself that I cannot take a picture of every tree. I had also some free days and I spent some days visiting places which are known for its sacred forests and trees, like the sacred trees in Alishan and Xitou.
Trees which are over hundred years old are commonly known as “tree lords” in Taiwan and worshipped at the same level as local village gods. According to a 30 year old article of Taiwan Panorama, the Department of Agriculture & Forestry catalogued more than 800 sacred trees. They are called tree lords, because of their longevity and firm roots. The parents of a sickly child may introduce such a tree as “father” to the child, in the hope that it will help him to grow up equally strong and long-lived.
Inside the park of xitou
Deep in the heart of Taiwan, and the mountains, you can find Xitou. After I took a high speed train from Taipei to Taichung, I found a local tourism bus that took me in two hours to Xitou. I had booked a room in the Ginkgo Hotel where I combined remote work with visits to the park.
According to Wikipedia: “During the Japanese rule of Taiwan, the forest was used as an experimental forest for University of Tokyo students. Later after the handover of Taiwan from Japan to the Republic of China in 1945, the forest was declared a nature reserve and named Xitou Nature Education Area in 1970. The main objective of the forest is the promotion of natural education of nursing natural ecology. The forest is located within a valley of mountain on its three sides and consists of many bamboos. It also has Ginkgo biloba garden. It is located at an average altitude of 1,150 meters above sea level and spans over an area of 2,500 hectares. The highest mountain peak within the forest reaches 2,025 meters above sea level, which is Mount Lingtou. It has a cool climate all year round with average monthly temperature ranges from 11-28°C and average monthly of 16.6°C. The average annual rainfall is 2,635.18 mm. The forest is home to more than 70 species of bird.”
There were a lot of people, but I was the only white-looking person. There is almost no English information available in the park; and I think this place is not visited often by westerners, so I understand they do not provide English information. In general in the past week, I did not see many westerners, compared with Japan of Thailand for example. I only know 3-4 Chinese words and can read only a few kanji (for example Mountain and Forest). But I was there to wander and wonder about the beauty of this landscape. I do not always need to learn new names and ideas ;). Just observe.
Little stories about care-for-trees
In Xitou, you have also the Monster Village. I am not sure, but it reminded me to Japanese tourist attractions. I had some nice talks with a tea vendor who made me drunk on tea. Yes, I do not know how, but every time I am in Taiwan I manage to get drunk on drinking a lot of shots of tea, and ending up in interesting conversations.
Was this a sacred tree? I took a couple of times the local bus and we passed this tree. One time I managed to take a photograph of it.
Japanese colonialism, vines and other entanglements that you cannot ignore
After some days in Xitou, I took the bus back to Taichung, took a train more southwards to Chiayi, which also has a rich forestry (and Japanese colonialism) history, with museums on forestry and logging. I stayed for two nights in a hotel close to the train station. I found also a nice coffee bar where I spent also some hours reading.
You can take this historical train to the mountains, but there are some troubles with it, and also stories about fatal accidents. So I took an early morning bus to Alishan. Alishan is probably the most well-known place for visiting holy trees. However, there is a strong entanglement with the Japanese Occupation back then…
I do not say you have to accept occupations, even if they are finished. Still, today, many people are feeling the scars of imperialism. How do we work with these traces and entanglements? I do not know, but I feel it is important to remember that there are no ‘pure’ places which are 100% Taiwanese, 100% Norwegian, or 100% Belgian. I know that digging into histories of places can promote a right wing agenda which talks about purity of soil, land and blood, but there is no such thing as purity. We are all ongoing mixtures of stories. I start to doubt if my own labels on this blog where I classify stories according to country are the right thing to do. I want to contextualize stories, but not promote nationalism and isolationism.
WE ARE ALL A Product of many processes
Apart from the tree lords, there are other amazing trees that fascinated me with even more stories about entanglements, showing that they, that we all are products of many processes. This park has more English information boards, so I could read about the relationship between old cypresses and fungi that eats them from the inside. The damp environment helps to create these thick layers of ferns and mosses on the different shapes of dead trunks.
There was something about wandering on my own in these lush environments full of stories about spirits, fungi, mosses and amazing huge trees. I can imagine why the Taiwanese people call these trees lords. I felt very safe in these areas, but also very humbled when I realised again I am just a drop in the ocean, part of a bigger web of life, a subject in a big kingdom.
I wished I could wander around there for days, just losing myself in the landscape and the mists… and finding myself at the same time.
Stories from the Wood Wide Web 