Amazing strength
A lot of fresh, exciting things are happening in Dulan, among them, discovering that young women born in the 1980s have a lot to teach us.
One ordinary azure-skied afternoon in the spring of 2009, two young women from the city sat on some scaffolding outside the sugar-mill coffee shop, finishing up painting a small building that used to be a truck scale house. Xiao Fang, who had proposed the project, had insisted on doing everything with her own two hands and had been working on the project intermittently for two years.
As summer arrived, the Little House quietly opened for business, serving tasty breakfasts to customers. Her mission accomplished, after finding someone to take over the cooking, Xiao Fang packed her bags and headed back to Taipei. So it was that Liu Chung-feng began her own "traveler-resident" experience in Dulan, supporting herself with a grant she had received from the National Youth Commission's youth travel program.
Born in 1982, Liu is a veteran traveler. She toured the east coast on a motorcycle many times while a student in the Chinese Department at National Cheng Kung University, camping out in a tent at night. After her graduation, she traveled along China's borders for six months with a companion, and went on to write a book about it (Stories Like Songs, published by CommonWealth Publishing). She came to Dulan 18 months ago at a friend's invitation and was intending to write, but once here she got so caught up in the life of the village that her writing plans went out the window.
After taking over Xiao Fang's cozy little space, Liu got permission from her Amis landlady to turn the old three-bedroom, one-bathroom place into a little hostel. She also wrote a 500-word set of guidelines for "self-service living," the core principle of which is: "If you want something, get it yourself. Treat this place like your home." In practical terms, this means that visitors have to change their own sheets, sweep, and take out the trash. When they leave, they toss NT$300 into a cash box to help keep the hostel afloat.
Too impractical? How about this: Where most backpacker hostels at least have a desk and a "host," Liu's little inn doesn't distinguish between hosts and guests. The "inn resident," who refers to all the guests as "roommates," simply facilitates communications. Sometimes, when the "resident" is out, first-time visitors even get instructions telling them to find the key and let themselves in.
Liu laughs and says that she got the idea in part from her unforgettable experiences in backpacker hostels around China. "The cost per night there was never more than NT$100, and you got to meet people of all kinds from all over the world." Her reasons for pushing such an extreme "self-service" model include the fact that while she likes to meet people, she isn't very good at hosting or cleaning up after them. And then there's the culture of Dulan itself. "The people here are very unsophisticated and hospitable, and they also enjoy sharing," says Liu. "I often go out without locking the doors, and don't worry about someone breaking in."
Since opening last April, the six-person-capacity hostel has averaged 20-30 mostly female visitors a month. Guests have responded to the setting even better than Liu had hoped. In addition to taking care of themselves, they have also helped sustain and add to the inn's amenities. For example, one guest brought a portable music player and favorite CDs. Others guests have created a bulletin board, repaired a broken faucet, and built a chair. One visitor even put together a group to help with a big cleanup.
"The hostel is kind of like a school," says Liu. "The people who come here learn to really trust one another and not to haggle over the effort they put into things." Liu adds that the most joyfully surprising thing she's seen was a woman who gained the courage to realize her dream of traveling through Yunnan after staying at the hostel.
After three months "running" the hostel, Liu passed the baton to "Little Sugar," a woman born in 1984 who sang her way to Dulan. Liu relocated to Hualien to hole up and pursue her true vocation: writing. "Leaving this place behind, not trying to own it, was a way to allow even more people to taste a moment of freedom, to use their own strength to create new possibilities and realize dreams," says Liu.
Your sisters are calling. Whether you've wandered the world or not, you're welcome in Dulan.
Lee Yun-yi, owner of the Other Woman Gallery, says that "the other woman" represents the awakening of the fires of creativity in people's hearts; it's not about biological gender. This photo was taken in a coffee shop attached to the gallery; everything in the coffee shop, including the lamps and window paintings (facing page), was created by the Amis artist Yiming and his wife Rao Aiqi.
Lee Yun-yi, owner of the Other Woman Gallery, says that "the other woman" represents the awakening of the fires of creativity in people's hearts; it's not about biological gender. This photo was taken in a coffee shop attached to the gallery; everything in the coffee shop, including the lamps and window paintings (facing page), was created by the Amis artist Yiming and his wife Rao Aiqi.
The vast and beautiful vistas of Taiwan's east coast nurture a wide-open, liberated atmosphere and have made it a great place for "feminine power" to coalesce and blossom. The photo shows the Dulan Mountains, as seen from the coastal highway, Provincial Highway 11. Go past the bay and you're in Dulan Village.
The generous, outspoken Susu Shin and her Dutch boyfirend(like her an artist but of a different temperament) have fallen in love with Dulan
and have no desire to leave it. (bottom) Susu's Wrapped on display at the Other Woman Gallery.(courtesy of Susu Shin)
The generous, outspoken Susu Shin and her Dutch boyfirend(like her an artist but of a different temperament) have fallen in love with Dulan
and have no desire to leave it. (bottom) Susu's Wrapped on display at the Other Woman Gallery.(courtesy of Susu Shin)
(below) You Lichun and her partner Wang Jiaxiang have grown up together and continue to find their lives together ever more interesting. (facing page) To allow the four-legged members of the family to enjoy a carefree living environment, the two actually live in a mobile houseboat placed in the wilderness.
(below) You Lichun and her partner Wang Jiaxiang have grown up together and continue to find their lives together ever more interesting. (facing page) To allow the four-legged members of the family to enjoy a carefree living environment, the two actually live in a mobile houseboat placed in the wilderness.