Goodness is fortune
Relying on the enthusiasm of middle-aged moms and ageless heroes, Yungle has transformed itself from an insignificant farming village into a renowned model for other rural communities in Changhua County. There are now community revitalization movements underway in 20 of the 22 villages in Puyen Rural Township, a number of which are working out very well.
Yang Tsu-chiu, a secretary in the township government, relates that planners from the rural township government and the county government have worked together to select unique features that each village can focus on. For example, while the heart of Yungle is in its people and their activities, the Punan Community has been turned into an environmental protection area. A number of butterfly species have been successfully propagated for its Butterfly Park, and it has been listed as one of the country's top ten environmental protection zones. Nanxing Community, to take another example, is still largely untouched by development, and several hundred species of indigenous vegetation have been transplanted into the local park. Hsinshui Community, still in the planning stages, will be a center of vegetable production, and become the central transshipment node for vegetables for the surrounding region.
Besides providing inspiration for a wave of community activism, Yungle has given concrete aid to the two Changhua County communities of Wangkung and Shihpai. Moreover, since the September 21, 1999 earthquake, it has been common to see members of the Ageless Heroes in Nantou County's Changching Community, helping its mostly elderly residents escape from the shadow of the disaster.
As it so often happens, those who are active in self-help or who help others reap unexpected rewards of their own. Whereas Yungle's population was previously shrinking, the revitalization of the community has attracted many young people to come back. This in turn has saved Yungle Primary School from its likely fate of being closed.
"Schools are always very important to community life in small towns," says Shih Jung-hsin, director of administrative affairs at the elementary school. He is not a Yungle native himself, but as a result of the community's increased interaction with the school, and the school's realization that it could play a greater role in the community, he also feels a part of Yungle. The primary school has been playing a quite supportive role ever since the earliest days of revitalization in Yungle, and it is currently responsible for the community website. If the school needs help with anything, on the other hand, the principal needs only make a single call and dozens of Ageless Heroes will be available to lend a hand. The school is never short of teaching materials for classes in local culture, either, because the arts-and-crafts heritage revived by the elders-bamboo-tube firecrackers, traditional music, bamboo weaving-are all priceless cultural assets.
The Changhua County Bureau of Education now closes any elementary school with less than 50 students, and three years from now will close those with less than 100. Yungle Primary School, which formerly saw steadily declining enrollment, has since the beginning of the revitalization of the community stabilized at around 140 pupils. Keeping the school open could be considered one of the major accomplishments of the movement, thereby also keeping the memories of childhood school days alive for elderly residents as well.
Ending a stroll around the community, the sun has begun to set, and kids from the primary school pass by on their way home. The croquet club has already gotten the action rolling on an open lawn, while steam from kitchens where the evening meal is being prepared floats out of the farmhouses, and elders who have finished looking over their fields gather in an open-air pavilion to chat about crops. Uncle Fair points to a dog that sits in the center of the pavilion, waving its tail at everyone around, and says: "It followed my son home from who-knows-where last month, and now won't go away. I guess it must like the way Yungle looks."
A sense of contentment floats on the cooling breeze.
The group of elderly volunteers known as the Ageless Heroes made the Grass Academy out of bamboo. Slices of bamboo, hung on the pillars, make a pleasant click-clack in the breeze.