July 22, 2009, WeiFu's Group

This morning, we toured a rice farm and processing plant that specialized in yue guang mi, a special rice strain originating from Japan that is grown with minimal light pollution from such as traffic lights. A curious sight, apparently common in Taiwan, was the presence of a multitude of inedible snails in the gutter. Well, I guess that it is a given that the snails are inedible as if they were edible (and free, seeing as they were in the gutter), there would not be any left. After seeing the gutter, we were shown the rice field. We learned that the reaping of rice is now mechanized; the person driving the machine even has air conditioning! Right beside the field was another field that was currently being allowed to rest. Though it was technically resting, it was overgrown with an inedible plant sowed there by farmers; the plant fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere, storing it in little balls in its roots. At the plant, we were shown what unprocessed rice looks like, a coarse, brown grain. We learned that drying rice was kept cool to lessen the impact of insects and mold. After being processed, it is kept at 15 degrees Celsius to slow the metabolism of the seeds, keeping the rice fresh. What happens to the rice husk? There are actually two husks. The outer layer is inedible and used for fertilizer whilst the second layer is edible, though only really as a last resort, and is used as pig feed. At the sales/display area of the plant, we mostly saw the usual kinds of rice seen at Asian supermarkets (in the United States), though there was a novel (to me) item: a bag of rice used as a gift at a wedding in lieu of the tea or other sort of stuff normally given by the bridge and groom to the guests. After the tour, we were given a chance to try making zhong zhe from rice, meat, and bamboo leaves. Unfortunately, most of us failed miserably at this exercise. We were also allowed to use a rice husking machine to fill small bags of rice. Before lunch, we were given a question and answer session where we learned several interesting things. One was that the average age for farmers is about 55 years. This of course begs the question of who the farmers will be after this current generation. We also learned that imported rice is cheaper, albeit less fresh, than local rice. I’m not sure why that is, seeing as the imported rice must factor in shipping costs, all the way from the United States in some cases, and possibly tariffs as well. A third thing was that the average income for farming is only 130,000 NT for a normal field of 100 meters by 100 meters.
After lunch, we were given an opportunity to taste an excellent shaved ice before we arrived at Taroko National Park; of course, we took it. At Taroko, we a had a knowledgeable volunteer from the park as our tour guide. Running through the park is the 58.4 km Great River. There were numerous small waterfalls, and the water we saw ranged from muddy to crystal clear, depending on our location. If I remember correctly, we learned that the construction of the central cross island highway took a steep toll in human lives: 200 dead and more than 200 injured; shrines were built for them. We passed by the Swallow Grotto; unfortunately, it was closed. We were warned about falling rocks as the combination of recent rains, recent earthquakes, and current sunshine made likelihood of falling rocks incredibly high. We were introduced to the paper mulberry tree, also called the deer tree as it is used to feed deer, and taught to differentiate male and female paper mulberry trees by the male trees having a single long strip as its flower. At the same observation deck, we were shown the inspiration for the park symbol of a tree in a v-shaped valley. On the way to our hotel, we were told that Taiwan had an amazing 450 species of birds and 400 species of butterflies. That night, we had a sumptuous dinner that included roast pig (perhaps even wild boar from the mountain) followed by a performance by the local children.