Salt Field Village modernizes
In the spring of last year, lecturer Lu Chien-ming of the Kunshan Technology University Spatial Design Department (located in Tainan County) was commissioned by the Council of Agriculture to conduct a study of the buildings located in the Ssutsao Nature Preserve, and to formulate a plan for their utilization. As soon as Lu entered Nanliao Village, he was struck by the salt fields with their ceramic-shard linings, the docks, the canals, and the old offices of the salt factory, but as someone ever-mindful of ecological issues, he also recognized the rich abundance of flora and fauna in the salt lands. In this long-neglected place, he saw an unparalleled example of ecological balance, between the salt making industry and the natural environment, and he envisaged a flourishing Salt Field Ecology Village rising up there in the salt fields, free even of a perimeter wall.
"An industry that has bit the dust may yet be able to become competitive once again," Lu explained.
But thanks to Lu's work, the industry and culture of the salt fields will flourish together with a balanced ecology. The traditional salt fields will rise again, phoenix-like. After abandoning the traditional but no longer profitable way of making salt, the salt village culture will become a "Cultural Salt Field."
Don't underestimate oyster shells
Lu Chien-ming actually moved into Nanliao Village last year. He was able to obtain a certain amount of funding from Tainan City's Department of Public Works and the Council for Cultural Affairs to set up the Tianyeh Workshop. He invited 17 salt makers, ten shop workers, and nine administrative staff, including four students whose salaries were paid from funding provided to Lu for a historic preservation project in Pingtung.
In the salt fields, the middle-aged salt workers train under 72-year-old Ting. In the future these workers will become tourist guides for Salt Field Ecology Village. Lu, together with the staff and plant workers, observes how the wild birds construct their nests. They then use material from the silver acacia plant to develop lampshades, lantern covers, flowerpots, and other objects patterned after the bird nests. Furthermore, the materials used in the wood shop and in the weaving shop come without exception from flotsam and jetsam found along the seashore. In the late rays of the evening sun, they pick up along the banks systematically, gathering nuts from beefwood trees that were planted as windbreaks along the shore. They pick up discarded bamboo oyster frames and oyster shells that have been washed clean by seawater.
Back in the factory, the wood shop begins to plane smooth the bamboo tubes. Hsiu-chu, in the weaving shop, after looking over the materials that have been brought in, asks the woodworking shop to bore holes in the oyster shells, and then adds beefwood nuts and small cowrie shells, to string together a door curtain that exudes the salty atmosphere of the salt fields.
"This particular oyster shell, and this stick of bamboo are not your ordinary oyster shell and stick of bamboo. They have been worked over by the waves of the sea. This adds to them the concept of environmental protection. So for me, this is not simply a door screen, but a cultural product," Lu Chien-ming explains.
In Lu's estimation, both the production activity at the salt fields and the men and women who take part in it become cultural products. This group of "cultural workers" are not just those who contribute their labor, but are the vanguard in a campaign to protect the environment. Thanks to the promotion of this kind of thinking, workers who may have originally been drawn to the work for the money alone, now have begun to see their work here as a kind of "religion."
"I've lived all these years and only now do I realize what I'm really doing," says 40-year old Ah Hsiu, who undergoes dialysis three days every week but is still able to contribute his work to the Tianyeh Workshop
In the past, the salt-making process required intensive labor. Men, women, young and old-all pitched in. In addition to taking part in salt-related work, children of the Salt Village would go to nearby areas to learn other trades. Most of them learned woodcarving, and Nanliao Salt Village used to be called "Whittler's Nest" for a time.
Currently, Lu Chien-ming has called back two middle-aged master woodcarvers who model their works on the black-faced spoonbill, the black-winged stilt, and the Eastern ring-necked pheasant, all daily companions of the salt makers. These then become unique products of Salt Field Ecology Village. Other products unique to Salt Field Ecology Village include foot-powered water pumps, "pottery" made by gluing together ceramic shards from the salt pans, and Taiwan's only locally produced table salt.
Making a mountain of salt
After two years of preparation, at the end of last year the national Council for Cultural Affairs obtained a budget appropriation of NT$12,000,000 to fund the Salt Field Ecology and Cultural Village. This is the council's highest level of assistance given so far in promoting its "Local Cultural Facilities" plan. But visitors to Salt Field Ecology and Cultural Village may be forgiven if they wonder where the "facility" is. Lu laughs and responds, "The 350-hectare area you see before you is the site's 'museum facility.' The toiling, sweating salt makers, the leisurely high-stepping black-winged stilts of the salt fields, and the black-faced spoonbills that come in September-all these are our museum facility's 'collection'!"
It isn't that the Salt Field Ecology Village has no facility. On the contrary, its facilities are extraordinarily huge! As far as buildings go, the center is the Japanese-style wooden administration office near the docks. Starting in November, it will become the "Salt Field Museum."
Relegating the development of enclosed spaces to the last stage of the project is typical of Lu Chien-ming. "I hope the salt makers will start their work here first, get a handle on how to use their tools again, pass on their salt making techniques, and only then, as a last step, build a center. I believe that vacated land first needs people. Only when people put their energy into it can there be sustainable success."
In Salt Field Ecology Village, the product is culture, and culture is the "production" of daily life. As for a Salt Field Ecology Village lifestyle museum, so far nothing has been done.
In September of this year, Salt Field Ecology Village will stage its first big event. On Heritage Day, 10 tons of salt will be transported along the old canal to the former premises of the British trading company Tait and Co. in Anping, which was also the Great Nippon Salt Company head office during the Japanese occupation, and will be piled up there. Late this year, at the Salt Village docks, they will pile up a mountain of salt three stories high, 1000 tons of it, thereby creating a cultural landmark that will be visible from anywhere within the broad, flat Anping district.
The resulting salt mountain may be thought of as the sacred mountain of Salt Field Ecology Village. Ten salt makers rise at four o'clock in the morning to come to collect salt. This continues until noon.
An inanimate object only becomes animate as the result of human use. The ceramic shards lining the salt fields are at their brightest and most colorful when trod upon by the salt workers. They make for a curious parallel with the bright smile flashing forth from Ting Tsai-po's sun-burnished face.