Interview with Taihe Village's headman
Time: 2:00 pm, December 12th, 2012
Location:Taihe Village Residents' Activity Center
Content :On examining information about the Tiaomi Trail on the web, we discovered that the Taihe village headman, Mr. Lin Zheng-yi, had spared no effort on the trail's reconstruction work and promotion. Just when we wanted to meet with him, and went walking straight through the door. Teacher Wang Zhe-fu, who helped us translate the names of our web pages, told us the headman lived downstairs from his house. Teacher Zhe-fu contacted the headman for us and the headman agreed to meet with us right away. As the village headman has a heavy workload, the first time he saw us, we only had time to meet for a few moments. This time we had arranged the time and could go to meet the headman in his office at the residents activity center. The headman had prepared a video of the Tiaomi Trail for our enjoyment, and also answered many of our questions.
Team Records and Experiences:
Man-ching:Today is the day we went to Taihe Village to visit the headman, Lin Cheng-li. After seeing the introductory film, I felt as if I had become a 'Tiaomi Trail expert'. The film covered the trail in fine detail, from diagrams of the trail, down to the kind of snail you could see on it. Also, this video was the result of the collective efforts of every member of the headman's family, a real achievement! Inadvertently, I noticed that not only were the walls of the headman's office covered with photos of the headman joining in activities with local residents, the whiteboard had a reminder written on it to make a taro cake with some of the residents. It seemed that the village headman had not only put a huge effort into letting the world know about this back garden of Taihe village called the 'Tiaomi Trail', and worked hard on physical exercise activities related to the trail, but also managed to maintain good relations with local residents at the same time. This visit left me deeply impressed by Mr. Lin Zheng-yi's in-depth knowledge of the trail, and I have a sincere admiration for him. It's precisely because of this dedicated Headman Lin that the community's activities are so colorful.
Pei-lin:I think that the Taihe Village headman, Mr. Lin Zheng-yi is a smashing person; he promoted the renovation of the Tiaomi Trail. I'm part of the team researching this historical trail, we've been on historical trails many times and each time there's been something new to learn and experience, the trails are truly great. The village headman, who renovated the trail, let us watch the video he worked so hard on creating, and we gained a better understanding of this trail from this. He's a good headman, full of energy and enthusiasm. You can also go to visit him -- he's certain to give you a warm welcome and let you know all about the Tiaomi Trail.
Yi-ting:On Wednesday afternoon, Teacher Ah Ching took us to visit the Taihe village headman at his office, to talk about the Tiaomi Trail, and also provide some information about this web-page competition. The teacher arranged for us meet up at the Plum Flower Pond, and when it was time, we went on to Taihe Village. On the way, the teacher took some photos with us, we walked and walked without paying attention to the time, and before we knew it, we were there. When we arrived at the office, the headman warmly invited us to drink tea, and gave us a look at a video, which was about the renovation of the Tiaomi Trail. The video went into great detail about the Tiaomi Trail, covering all aspects of it very thoroughly. After watching the it, the teacher asked us if we had any questions to put to the headman. The students all felt the film was so detailed it had already answered all our questions. Finally, we had our photos taken together with the headman and said goodbye. I feel I learned a lot from this activity.
Ming-han:We went together to visit Taihe village's Headman Lin Zheng-yi, who let us watch a video about the Tiaomi Trail. It was a long film, 25 minutes altogether, but very rich in contents. I also saw Mr.Su, an Wuxing Elementary School teacher. Teacher Su is a retired Wuxing Elementary Nature Studies teacher. He is very familiar with the Tiaomi Trail, and during the video he explained many things about the history of the Tiaomi Trail, which gave me a clear understanding of it. Today has really opened my eyes; the Tiaomi Trail really is a path which people carried rice along in the past. I had previously imagined the Tiaomi Trail may have been just a path with a lot of rice upon it. But that's impossible, the Tiami Trail could not possibly be just a trail with rice, don't let yourself be as confused as I was, whatever you do!
Kai-zhe:This time we visited Taihe village headman, Lin Zheng-yi, who told us many wonderful and interesting stories about the Tiaomi Trail and showed us a 24-minute video. The video introduced the 'Tiaomi Trail', which is located at the end Alley 600, Lane 100, of Sanjangli's Wuxing Street. It's a path which farmers of the area took to and from Nangang, Shenkeng, and Mucha in early times. In the past, people had to carry rice along this path, and that's also a memory of hardship for those people. The village headman said Taihe Village had retained the feel and flavor of olden times with its beautiful scenery and quaint old communities. It's the third largest village in Xinyi District, and you can also see the bright light of fireflies here at night. 'Dexing Mine' was once one of the most productive coal mines in Taiwan.
We climbed up what seemed at first glance to be an easy climb, but it turned out to be a very steep slope. Arriving at the Tiaomi Trail entrance, we took a group photo of us all together, and then we slowly climbed up to Dexing mine in single file. The mountain air is very fresh, and there are many explanatory boards there. On the ground we saw a diagram in the tiles, but we couldn't make out what it was.
Going down the steep slope I almost slipped! This visit to the Taiomi Trail, made me realize how hard it was for people in times gone by, and they had to carry their rice as they walked along this long trail. Of course, I would also like to thank the village headman for taking the time to accept our visit even with his busy schedule.
Zi-xuan:Today's video mentioned that the Tiaomi Trail may have previously been used by aboriginal people, and also that there was a burial ground on the trail, and that some farmers let their homes be used as private schools, and invited teachers there to teach, so that their children were able to study. We feel that this information is very valuable. Originally I had hoped that the headman would lend us the video so we could take it back and study it more fully, but we didn't like to insist on that, so we just took down the more important parts, to look into further on the Internet at home. But unfortunately we didn't find anything further that way; perhaps we need to find the aboriginal teacher in the video in order to know the true story.
