On a midsummer’s morning we cross the bridge from Ershui in Changhua County to Linnei in Yunlin County, on a quest to learn about the culture of the Zhuoshui River. These two rural townships border the river along its narrowest stretch. From the bridge we see boulders, yellowing weeds and occasional clumps of green grass on the exposed floodplain below. The first planting of rice has just been harvested in adjacent rice paddies, whose muddy bottoms provide a dark contrast to the sunlight reflecting from their watery surfaces.

Three hundred years ago, under Qing-Dynasty rule, Shi Shibang (1671–1743), a cousin of Shi Lang (1621–1696), the Chinese admiral who had ruled Taiwan as a marquis, moved to Changhua and built the Babao Canal irrigation system. Completed in 1719, it was Taiwan’s earliest large-scale network of irrigation canals. Drawing water from the Zhuoshui River to irrigate Changhua’s farms, it has long provided a huge boost to agriculture in Taiwan.

“Apart from feeding Taiwanese, the rice grown here and exported to the Chinese mainland via Lukang earned money for Taiwan,” explains Lee Youe-ping, director of the Fourth River Management Office of the Water Resources Agency (WRA), who is proud of the impact of the river’s irrigation water.

After the construction of the original Babao Canal, Huang Shiqing built the Second Babao Canal to irrigate central Changhua. Then, during the Japanese era, the colonial government took over and enlarged the privately owned Cizai­pizun irrigation canal system to bring water from the Zhuoshui to Xizhou Township in Changhua. And in 1924, the civil engineer Yoichi Hatta constructed the Jia­nan irrigation system, which drew water at the southern bank of the river to support farming in Yunlin.

Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau and the Changhua County Government jointly organize the Ershui International Water Running Festival, which reenacts traditional water channel rituals. It encourages people today to value the work of forebears who dug canals to irrigate the land. (courtesy of Changhua County Cultural Affairs Bureau)

Supporting fertility

From its source on the southern slopes of Mt. Hehuan near the Sakuma Pass (Wuling), the Zhuoshui River runs for 186 kilometers, with the river and its tributaries flowing through Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin and Changhua in Central Taiwan before reaching the sea. The copious water it provides is rich in organic soil particles, which bolster soil fertility.

Lee explains that the Zhuoshui watershed averages 2,500 millimeters of rain annually. Spread over an area of 3,156.7 hectares, that amounts to 7.5 billion cubic meters of water. Because erosion-prone slate, shale and sandstone predominate in the upper and middle reaches of the watershed, the river water has high turbidity and sediment content.

“Which is more turbid, the Yellow River or the Zhuo­shui?” This rhetorical question is posed by Chang Su-bing, a professor in the Graduate Institute of Taiwan History at National Taiwan Normal University. She explains that the Zhuoshui used to have the highest sediment content per unit surface area of any river in the world that originates at an elevation above 3,000 meters.

From the Bizitou Gap in Ershui, the river spreads outwards to form an alluvial fan. Spanning 40 kilometers, the delta is Taiwan’s largest. The organic-rich sediment that created it has turned the area into Taiwan’s granary.

During the Japanese colonial period, dams and reservoirs were built on the upper reaches of the Zhuoshui River to harness its water for hydroelectric power. (courtesy of the Fourth River Management Office, WRA)

Lee Youe-ping, director of the Fourth River Management Office of the Water Resources Agency, is responsible for management of the Zhuoshui River watershed.

A temperamental river

Ocean waves lift boats but may also capsize them, and likewise the Zhuoshui both nourishes crops and causes nightmarish flooding.

“Taiwan’s rivers tend to be steep and fast-flowing, and the Zhuoshui is no exception,” says Lee. A water droplet flowing from the foothills of Mt. Hehuan via the Zhuoshui River takes only two or three days to get to the sea under normal conditions, he explains, and during a typhoon it can rush to the sea in as little as nine hours.

Early on, residents of the river basin used gabions to guide the river’s flow. Bamboo strips were formed into conical baskets that were taken to riverbanks, where they were filled with stones, with straw stuffed into the gaps. These gabions were used to divert water flow for irrigation and drainage. The craft of making them became a profession in its own right.

Chang Su-bing, who grew up eating rice grown with Zhuo­shui River water, describes the Zhuoshui as “highly temperamental.” The river changed course many times as a result of sedimentation, with severe flooding occurring in 1898. Consequently, the Japanese colonial government undertook a bank revetment project, which established its current course.

Before the revetment project, downstream residents held Taoist rituals to invest talismans with flood-suppressing powers, and in the seventh month of the lunar calendar they demonstrated their reverence for the river by holding a “King of the Stream” ceremony.

In his youth Tzeng Chi-yung, now 80, was a professional maker of bamboo gabion baskets.

Yunlin’s Linnei Township has been putting on an annual Water Fight Festival. In the muddy fields, contestants race with gabion baskets, gaining a sense of what their ancestors experienced fighting the perilous whims of the river.

Mother of agriculture and industry

In addition to its large quantities of water, the river also features major drops in elevation. The Japanese colonial government built hydroelectric dams on it, laying the groundwork for Taiwan’s industrialization. “Thus the Zhuoshui is also the mother of Taiwanese industry,” says Chang. The WRA notes that when the hydroelectric plant at Sun Moon Lake was completed in 1934, it was more than just a triumph of civil engineering in Taiwan: It was the largest hydroelectric plant in all of East Asia.

With steadily increasing water use by agriculture, industry and residences, the government developed a new water usage plan in 1990. Along the middle stretches of river, they constructed the Jiji Weir, with intake points set up at both ends and connector aqueducts to supply water to irrigation canals. For the Sixth Naphtha Cracker Plant in Yunlin’s Mailiao, a dedicated channel was constructed from the octagonal pond in Linnei, which distributes water from the Jiji Weir and from its own river intake to different users.

In 2010, the government drew up plans for Phase IV of the Central Taiwan Science Park at the Erlin Industrial Park, which included diverting water from the Cizai­pizun irrigation system, Changhua’s second largest, for industrial use. The plan met with strong opposition from farmers, and the environmental impact assessment took nine years to complete.

“No Taiwan river has been more intensively managed than the Zhuoshui,” says Chang. Long tied to the development of Taiwan’s agriculture and industry, the river has traditionally been seen as a political dividing line between north and south. According to legend, unusually clear water in the Zhuoshui River signifies an impending change in the party in power.

The Zhuoshui River basin has also served as a cradle of literature. Writers born there, including Chang Su-bin, Wu Sheng, Topas Tamapima and others, have shown great concern about water conservation.

The Japanese civil engineer Yoichi Hatta built the Jianan irrigation system, bringing Zhuoshui River water to nourish the fields of Yunlin.

Professor Chang Su-bing of National Taiwan Normal University has dedicated 20 years of her life to researching the evolution of the Zhuoshui River and the battles for its water between agriculture and industry. (courtesy of Chang Su-bing)

River ceremonies

The Nile, the world’s longest river, floods every year. The fertile soil this flooding leaves behind contributed to the rise of one of history’s greatest classical civilizations. Egypt celebrates the Nile with a festival during the last two weeks in August. The festival provides an opportunity for people to express their gratitude for their blessings and in particular for the river’s gift of fertile soils. Similarly, in Taiwan the people express their thanks to the Zhuoshui in various ways.

In 1995 the Council of Cultural Affairs (now the Ministry of Culture) began organizing the Ershui International Water Running Festival, which highlights traditions such as “water running” and the Canal Gate Ceremony at the Mr. Lin Temple and the Babao Canal in Changhua. It is held the first weekend in November, when fall harvests are traditionally being stored for winter. In recent years it has included a road race. Participants run along the Babao Canal route and learn about older generations’ efforts to create the canal. The event has attracted many international participants.

When the canal was first dug, attempts to divert water into it by Shi Shibang and his associates repeatedly failed. According to tradition, an elderly man surnamed Lin drew diagrams and taught them how to make gabions and build structures to guide and trap the river water, at last enabling them to successfully fill the canal for irrigation. His contributions are memorialized at a temple next to the canal in Ershui, named in his honor.

Tradition has it that the origins of the Water Running Festival lie in a local ritual that arose after the canal was built, whereby every year when water was released into the canal, people would honor the river god by running along the canal bed ahead of the water. These runners would often be drowned by the swiftly advancing torrent. Today’s festival preserves this cultural tradition by encouraging people to be grateful for the water that sustains their lives.

The abundant water and rich black mud of the Zhuoshui River nurture abundant agricultural products, including “Zhuoshui River rice,” which is famous throughout Taiwan.

People engage in a tug-of-war in the black mud of fields in Ershui’s Yuanquan Community, experiencing God’s gift of sticky “Zhuoshui River soil.” (courtesy of Yuanquan Community Development Association)

Getting close to the river

Residents of the Zhuoshui River basin likewise seek connections with the river in their own ways. Take Lai Zhaoxu, former chairman of the local development association in Ershui’s Yuanquan Community, who launched a project to revive methods for crafting bamboo gabion baskets in consultation with area elders. They went on to develop these into distinctive local cultural and creative products. Lai also organizes muddy tugs of war in his paddy fields.

Across the river in Linnei, Lin Jian-an, secretary-­general of the Wutu Community Development Association, has been organizing the Water Fight Festival since 2016. People run races through the fields carrying gabion baskets, much as their ancestors did when they waged perilous battles against the raging river.

The Nantou branch of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Agency of Rural Development and Soil and Water Conservation focuses on highlighting rural culture and heritage along the Zhuoshui. They have designed 20 river-related trips within the river basin, inviting visitors to explore its rural villages and experience its distinct culture.

We stand on the Xiluo Bridge amid the lingering glow of the setting sun. Spanning the river from Xizhou to Xiluo, the bridge was once said to be the Far East’s longest. Gazing out over the river and adjacent lands, we survey the cultivated windbreak forests, the areas of grassy marshland, and the gently trickling streams. The grandeur of the old river may have faded a bit, but a faint sea breeze still whispers a soft melody. Today, we harness technology to maximize our exploitation of ­water resources, but do we truly know our mother river as well as we should? l

The lower reaches of the Zhuoshui River form a natural boundary between Changhua County and Yunlin County. When the Xiluo Bridge opened in 1953, it facilitated transit between Changhua and Yunlin counties and cut travel times between northern and southern Taiwan.