Lin Yi-bei

The interior of Owl Workshop, located in the shopping area by the pier in the lakeside village of Ita Thao in Nan­tou County, is filled with key rings, quilts and carvings of stone and wood, and the far wall is covered with paintings of Taiwan’s 12 owl species. “Collared scops owl, long-eared owl...”—one by one, Lin lists the owls she’s painted. Her father stands at the front counter, explaining the origins of the Thao tribe’s owl legends to a Singaporean customer. In the shopping street, filled with eateries and imported art, you can see a large rustic woodcarving of two owls in front of Lin’s shop.

Figures of owls created by Lin Yi-bei. These ­adorable, rustic ornaments are favorites with ­tourists.

“Work is a ‘bitter pill’ to people of the older generation, but to me, returning home to work was an easy matter. I like it, so it’s not bitter at all,” says Lin Yi-bei, who grew up on the shores of Sun Moon Lake.

Sun Moon Lake is one of Taiwan’s most celebrated scenic areas, and each year nearly 7 million tourists flood into this township of less than 20,000 residents. Lin, who grew up in this little tourist town, left her native place for Shu-Te University in Kao­hsiung to study interior design. Later, because of her work, she spent a spell in Tai­nan, and then moved north to Tam­sui. Lin moved ever farther away from her hometown, but her idea of returning home never died.

In 2002, after finishing a construction job in the Si­cao Community of Tai­nan, Lin heeded the advice of a friend and took a position in a design company in Tai­pei County (now New Tai­pei City). At that time, the company was searching for an on-site supervisor for the construction of the Che­cheng Wood Museum. With her background in architecture and having grown up in Nan­tou County, Lin thought she would be stationed in Che­cheng, but didn’t realize that since she was a newbie, the management worried she was unable to take over as supervisor, instead keeping her in Tai­pei drawing blueprints every day.

Used to the wide open spaces of the countryside, Lin always felt that Tai­pei was too crowded. “I studied architecture, so I’m especially sensitive about space. In Tai­pei, people are tightly crowded together. Some may feel safe, but I feel crowded out. In the countryside, when people get this close to each other, if it’s not to hug, it’s to fight,” she says.

Figures of owls created by Lin Yi-bei. These ­adorable, rustic ornaments are favorites with ­tourists.

After a year, the company’s project in Che­cheng was still ongoing. Lin, yearning to go back home, once again requested a transfer to Nan­tou. This time, she finally got her wish.

While working in Tai­nan, Lin had noticed someone observing a short-horned owl perched in a nearby ecological park. Unaware that owls also live near the seaside, she leafed through field guides. After returning to Nan­tou, Lin was driving on the road that circles the lake, and happened across a wounded mountain scops owl, which she rescued. After this fortuitous event, she became enamored with the owl’s big eyes and lovely round body, and fell right into the world of owl art.

Combing through information, Lin discovered another kinship between the owl and Sun Moon Lake. It so happens that the owl is a religious totem of the area’s Thao Aborigines. According to legend, an unmarried pregnant girl was banished from the village for violating ancestral teachings. After she died, she was transformed into an owl. Each time a member of the tribe becomes pregnant, the owl flies to a nearby branch and hoots with a low voice, serving as a guardian spirit for the pregnant woman, and thus is seen as a herald of glad tidings.

In 2004, after she went back to Nan­tou, Lin suddenly had time and room to spare. Seeing pieces of wood left over from the construction of the museum, Lin, who had once instructed some residents in Tai­nan in handicraft making, couldn’t resist picking up the discarded materials from the construction site and using it in her art. Once she finished her first art work, Lin couldn’t stop. Even the hoods of her friends’ cars were soon painted with owl motifs.

Her work, at first created purely for interest, soon became the center of Lin’s life after her return home. “After getting off work, I used to go home and rest. Working up north for over a year, I didn’t even visit anywhere but the historic parts of Tamsui. Only after coming back to Nantou County could I find pieces of bamboo everywhere to make works of art with any time I pleased,” she says.

Figures of owls created by Lin Yi-bei. These ­adorable, rustic ornaments are favorites with ­tourists.

To hawk the products she makes, Lin asked her mother, who had a shaved ice dessert store in the shopping area in Ita Thao, to clear some store space for her art. The area in front of Lin’s little work table was often crowded with customers, and even though she only sold her crafts two days a week, she was able to make an extra NT$20,000 each month. Based on this, she succeeded in persuading her parents to close their business and turn the shop into the Owl Workshop. Her parents, initially hesitant, became employees of their daughter, drawing in customers with knowledge they had gained about owls.

Even though Lin didn’t plan on all this, the owl-motif art work has transformed Lin, her parents, and the appearance of the Sun Moon Lake shopping streets. Lin, who grew up in this scenic area, observes that the souvenirs sold in shops large and small in scenic areas throughout Taiwan tend to be copycat products, with no character.

Unlike the products sold in other souvenir shops, each piece Lin sells comes with a card that explains the inspirations of the work. She hopes that her insistence on handmade owl ornaments can inject originality into this otherwise dull shopping area.

The prices of the ornaments for sale in her shop range from NT$100 to beyond NT$10,000. Since its opening, Owl Workshop has made revenues of NT$200–400,000 a month. As business grew, Lin found nearly 20 residents nearby with skills in handicrafts, patchwork and carving to do some part-time work for her, bringing together villagers from the nearby townships of ­Shuili and Cao­tun who had no stage to exhibit their artistry.

In 2008, Lin rented a 350-square-meter workshop in Shuili, a 30-minute drive away from the original workshop, and recruited fellow aficionados of architecture and art history.

“My current works only make up 1% of my target, and I still have many ideas not yet completed,” says Lin, who hopes to have a place to show customers the Owl Workshop’s production process, so they can participate and get hands-on experience, and get to know owls more closely.

To learn more about the habits of owls, Lin joined the Wild Bird Rescue Institute of Tai­chung (WBRIT), going into the wilderness in person. On a rack in the Owl Workshop are copies of Owls of Taiwan, jointly published by Lin and the WBRIT. Currently, the ­Shuili workshop, besides being a base for creative work, is also a place to take in wounded owls to be looked after by the WBRIT: outside there are two metal rescue cages, one a meter tall, the other three.

“Owls are migratory birds,” says Lin. Like birds flying south, first Lin came home, and then her brother decided to do the same. Having graduated from Tai­pei Physical Education College and worked as a rowing instructor, her brother Lin Cong­wei returned to Nan­tou County in 2005, and in 2008 started to work with his sister.

Just as an owl perches quietly on branches transmitting its power to the surroundings, Lin conveys her creative power in her hometown. Like the owls she loves, Lin wants to open her eyes wide and protect her hometown.

Lin quietly brings change to the shopping streets in the Sun Moon Lake Scenic Area through her endless creativity.

Figures of owls created by Lin Yi-bei. These ­adorable, rustic ornaments are favorites with ­tourists.