Taiwan’s working-age population has long flowed out of the countryside and into our cities in search of better opportunities. But this trend has begun reversing course over the last decade, with many rural areas seeing the return of familiar faces.

Jiang Shen­feng is a cameraman who worked on the film Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale. A graduate of the theater program at Tai­pei Hwa Kang Arts School who comes from a farming family, ­Jiang moved to the city to pursue his education and spent years there after graduation shooting films and documentaries. Even so, he never really adapted to urban life.

In 2003, he moved his family back to ­Miaoli to give his kids a chance to grow up in a more natural environment and to bring all three generations of his family under one roof. Unfortunately, he soon discovered that the farming village he remembered from his own childhood no longer existed. The clear streams and fireflies were gone, and the fields themselves were played out, exhausted by the long-term use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Three years ago, he decided to take to the fields himself, hoe and camera in hand, to make his way as a farmer-­photographer.

“Home” means different things at different stages of life. The reverse migration of urban workers back to their rural hometowns is giving rise to fascinating stories all over Taiwan.

Jiang now grows two varieties of rice that he sells online and in person under the ­Jingmi Suo brand name.

The only problem is that his one hectare of rice paddy generates only a bit more than NT$40,000 per harvest, which means he still makes the bulk of his living with a camera. During the shooting of Seediq Bale, the film’s mainland Chinese martial arts choreographers used to buy rice at the local supermarket to cook in their rooms. After Jiang persuaded them to give the Taiwanese rice variety Taikeng No. 9 a try, it became so popular that each carried 30-some kilograms home with them when they finished work on the film.

Rural Yun­lin likewise has its own stories of young returnees to tell. Wu Yong­xiu, head of the Wu­kuai­cun Community Development Association in Yun­lin’s Yuan­chang Township, built a “reading hall” to forge ties between the village’s elderly citizens and its children.

Wu moved back to Yun­lin in 2002 to be near his elderly mother after years spent working for Shih­lin Electric and Engineering Corporation in Tai­pei and then running his own Hsinchu-based contracting business installing lines for Taipower.

Wu became involved with community redevelopment work in 2009 after the government began promoting the revitalization of agricultural villages. Elected president of the Wu­kuai Community Development Association in 2010, he moved forward with a project he’d been thinking about since he first moved back: building a library.

Wu had long been bothered by the lack of educational resources in his hometown. Having seen idle classrooms filled with junk at his old elementary school, he thought it would be wonderful to fill them instead with books that would introduce the children and community at large to the broader world.

He and his wife rolled up their sleeves and went to work, running all over town sponsoring a variety of activities and competitions for community residents. A local farmer known as Uncle Ah-Ming was deeply impressed by their efforts, and when the “reading hall” project needed money for bookshelves and flooring, he generously contributed NT$120,000 out of his own pocket.

Liang Yulun and her husband Zhong Shunlong returned to Hualien County to take over his mother’s fried-peanut business. They’ve since enlisted the help of local seniors and farmers in crafting their products.

Naturally, the benefits from all these people returning home don’t run just one way. While some individuals are busy reinvigorating their hometowns, others are learning life lessons for themselves—like husband-and-wife team Zhong Shun­long and ­Liang Yu­lun, creators of the “Goodeats” peanut brand.

Liang Yu­lun, born in 1978, pursued a master’s degree in arts management in the UK after completing her undergraduate degree in economics at Soochow University. On returning to Taiwan, she went to work at Hua­shan 1914 Creative Park as an exhibition planner. Her husband, ­Zhong Shun­long, took a job as a photographer with Apple Daily after completing his master’s degree at the University of London.

When ­Zhong worked in Tai­pei, his mother Liu Xiu­xia would often mail him peanuts from Feng­lin Township, his Hua­lien County hometown. But when Taiwan joined the World Trade Organization in 2002, Feng­lin’s peanut growers couldn’t compete with imported peanuts and began letting their fields go idle. The Zhong family, which made its living renting farm equipment, suffered as well and Liu began frying and selling peanuts to earn some extra income. Her efforts happened to coincide with an international sculpture festival sponsored by Hua­lien County. The festival, the goal of which was to promote unique local products from each of Hua­lien’s townships, helped garner attention for Liu’s products.

In 2009, when the 60-something Liu began thinking about retiring, ­Liang and ­Zhong decided to move back to help her run the business. On hearing of their decision, many friends said they thought it a shame. “Everybody believes that leaving Tai­pei means giving up, but I think it was a gift,” says ­Liang. “I got to learn to fry peanuts and listen to neighbors share their knowledge of farming. That’s been great. And then there’s experiencing the creativity and imagination that go into making fried peanuts. The labor really is only a small part of the work.”

As sales have grown, ­Liang has recruited neighbors in their 60s and 70s to help shell peanuts and contracted nine farmers to grow Taiwan No. 9 peanuts.

The couple are even planning to rent an old-fashioned san­he­yuan courtyard residence. Their hope is to develop an “agricultural products workshop” that will demonstrate how the traditional drying yard combined work and play. Their efforts are slowly revitalizing Feng­lin, which has been aging as a result of its young people moving away for work.

Liang Yulun and her husband Zhong Shunlong returned to Hualien County to take over his mother’s fried-peanut business. They’ve since enlisted the help of local seniors and farmers in crafting their products.

People move back to rural communities for many reasons, but those looking to escape the frustrations of their lives in the city are unlikely to find it a cure for all their woes.

“You face a lot of pressure from your family when you move back to your hometown,” says Hong Zhi­jie, executive director of the Nan­tou Youth Society Group. Hong makes no bones about it: seniors think moving to the city is the only way to succeed in life and that coming back means you couldn’t hack it. Communities wanting to encourage their young people to return need a change of attitude. If young people are to realize their potential, communities need to treat those working in the fields and those at a desk equally.

The 41-year-old Hong, who left his job as a legislative assistant in 2008 to move back to Nan­tou, has seen a recent wave of returnees to his hometown. For example, the founders of Sunny­Hills, the popular pineapple cakes maker, and chocolatier Feeling Eighteen, are returnees who have become successful entrepreneurs, creating companies that have spurred local job creation and tourism.

Hsin Ping-lung, a professor with National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of National Development, says that with Taiwan experiencing an economic plateau after its period of rapid economic development, there’s nothing impractical about choosing to abandon the pursuit of success in the city and returning to one’s hometown to seek opportunities there. In his view, this return to the countryside to start a business or farm represents a diversification of the workplace.

But Hsin also reminds us that neither the government nor individuals should regard this “back to the country” trend as an overarching solution to Taiwan’s unemployment woes.

After returning to Tainan’s Guanmiao District to farm, Yang Yufan came to the conclusion that the only way to get more young people into agriculture was to resolve the distribution problems of Taiwan’s farmers.

He says that most of the entrepreneurial guidance programs from the likes of the National Youth Commission, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Council of Agriculture (COA) focus on financial assistance, but argues that the keys to getting local businesses going are domestic demand and better business planning and orientation. You might be able to run a local business for a time without these, but if you are depending entirely on local consumers, you’re going to have a hard time expanding demand.

Yang Yu­fan, a 27-year-old farmer, became an overnight sensation with a blog post entitled “Dear Ying-jeou, Could You Please Listen to Me?” that shared the lessons he learned going back to the countryside.

Yang graduated from Tai­nan First Senior High School and went on to study in the economics department at National Cheng Kung University. Before completing his degree, he transferred to the Department of Graphic Arts and Communications at Tai­pei National University of the Arts. In March 2011, he decided to go back to Tai­nan to become a farmer, growing pineapples on three hectares in Guan­miao District that had belonged to his grandfather.

With no experience in farming, Yang’s approach was eclectic. For example, instead of the chemical fertilizers recommended by the local agricultural improvement station, he used a liquid fertilizer mix of his own made from pineapple enzymes, water, and sugar. He also didn’t buy into the usual practice of removing the weeds from his fields and instead permitted them to flourish.

Wu Yongxiu (front row, third from left), head of the Wukuaicun Community Development Association in Yunlin, returned to his hometown in middle age. There he set in motion the construction of a library intended to connect community members to the larger world.

Passionate about farming, Yang laments the difficulties Taiwanese farmers face selling their crops. His three hectares can produce roughly 8–10,000 catties of pineapples over an 18-month growth cycle. If he then sells his crop for NT$40 per catty (0.6 kg), he’s left with about NT$300,000 after costs. That’s an income of less than NT$17,000 per month.

While the COA does have a program that guarantees a minimum income for young returnee farmers, Yang feels that it fails to address the root problem.

Under the COA program, young farmers selected by their local farmers’ association who meet a given set of criteria, grow competitive grain crops such as maize or wheat, and fail to earn the minimum wage of NT$18,780 per month, are eligible to have the shortfall made up by the COA.

But Yang believes that the government’s efforts to encourage young people to farm shouldn’t be limited to subsidies. He argues that it needs to help them open up sales channels for their produce and help consumers recognize that it is fair that pesticide-free produce is more expensive.

Young farmers are often willing to use more laborious growing methods because they see themselves as stewards of the land. As such, policies aimed at supporting them need to address the sustainability of agricultural development.

Jiang Shenfeng, who worked as a cameraman on the film Seediq Bale, is using camera and hoe to bring back the firefly-lit fields of his childhood. The photo was taken in Miaoli during location filming of The Triangleland, on which Jiang worked.

In the spring of 2004, 34-year-old Lai Ching-­soong finished his graduate studies in Japan and took up farming in his wife’s Yi­lan hometown. He and a couple of friends leased a plot of land and began farming it using agroecological practices. They have since become media darlings.

“We’ve been so lucky to attract so much attention and participation in such a short time. When I cut my first handful of rice under the broiling July sun, I honestly felt totally grounded and at peace.”

In March 2012, 40-year-old Wen Zhong­liang published a “Letter to Young People Returning to the Countryside” in the newspaper. Wen, who holds an advanced degree in city planning from NCKU, used to work for the Tai­pei City Government, but decided to return home to Mei­nong in Kao­hsiung in 2002 because he didn’t like wearing a suit. Typical of the first generation of “young returnees,” he became secretary-general of the Mei­nung People’s Association and began working on protecting irrigation channels as part of an effort to forge a new kind of Hakka farming village.

“I’m very uncomfortable with the expression ‘young people returning to the countryside.’ Perhaps it’s the expectations I associate with being a ‘returnee’ or just who I am, but I often find myself wondering if I really qualify.”

His thinking is, given that you can travel Taiwan from end to end and back again in half a day, how big a difference does being in Tai­pei versus Mei­nong actually make to his work, his lifestyle and his thinking? If it doesn’t make any difference, what does “going back to the countryside” really mean? Does it reflect anything more than the location of your physical body?

The choice between working in a big city or returning to the countryside is a difficult one for every generation.

In Western nations including the US, the UK, New Zealand and Australia, a discussion over the concept of “downshifting” has been underway since the 1990s. In practical terms, this has meant growing numbers of people becoming “downshifters” who leave the rat race to seek lower-paying, low-stress work.

In a piece entitled “To Those of You Who Don’t Want to Go Home,” well known blogger Liu Wei­lin wrote that many urban office workers felt that even if they had job opportunities nearer their hometowns, they wouldn’t see them as a first choice. Their reasoning is that our social values require men to aim for the top and big cities offer greater opportunities for this kind of worldly success. Interestingly, the very achievement of “success” can make it more difficult to “go home.”

Liu suggests that we can reframe the problem. He argues that the boldness and ambition of people today shouldn’t be constrained by geography, and notes that even relatively remote townships have Internet access connecting them to the larger world. “If you really are that massively ambitious, being at ‘home’ won’t hinder you in the least.”

With the cry to return to our hometowns again ringing out, people passionate about pursuing their dreams are heeding the call. Putting shoulder to wheel to promote change, they are bettering their hometowns and bringing meaning to their own lives. All they are saying is give “home” a chance.