Part 1

The night leading up to the journey I was like a middle schooler right before their field trip, not being able to sleep from excitement. But, I wasn’t the same middle schooler girl anymore. So, of course, my excitement was accompanied by a clinging feeling of anxiety and an inevitable tiredness coming from trying to do a week's worth of schoolwork in two days leading to that night.

Thanks to my overwhelming anxiety, I was easily awake at 6.30 AM to get ready and be at the train station at 8.10 as requested by Prof* earlier in the week.

As an over-preparer, I already had my bags packed, and my outfit chosen so it took me literally 15 minutes to get ready. I still waited to leave at the time I initially planned to, as I was too stressed to change my plans even though it would mean I would arrive there earlier. When I arrived at Beimen station the first flaw of my plan was evident: the Beimen MRT station and High-Speed Rail Station were not connected. I was rushing through the streets with all the scenarios in my head about how Prof would think of me as irresponsible because I was too late. Worst-case scenario we could even miss the train! As scenarios rushed in my head, I didn’t even realize how drizzle was starting to get heavy (it would later be followed by a typhoon but fortunately we would be already kilometers away from it).

After arriving at the station at exactly 8.11, I learned that Prof would be a little late. I was relieved that I wasn’t the one who was late but also slowly realized how I joined this trip without knowing any of the plans. Prof was using the subject ‘we’ in all his messages but I had no idea who was coming or where we were exactly headed other than the ‘south’ of the island. Trying to spend time people-watching in the busy station, I was perplexed by myself being this calm while going on a trip with people I didn’t even know.

When Prof arrived with his family — his wife and daughter —I was definitely surprised to see a family with a little kid instead of a research group and slowly started to wonder if the ‘trip’ would be too different than I imagined even though I had no expectations whatsoever. Was it going to be a touristy family tour instead of academic research? Apparently, they were late because the 5 years-old daughter had stomach issues and was throwing up all morning. After hearing that, I remember scribbling these words in my journal: ‘Let’s see if the trip will be worth missing 3 classes.”

Believe me, it was.


Part 2

We arrived at Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung County around 11 am. I had learned where we were going from the ticket Prof handed me rushing as we were already an hour behind the initial plan. When we met with the research assistant in the project and the one who had planned most of the trips, I was relieved that the trip wouldn’t be just me tagging along with someone else’s family.  On the road, I was mostly quiet trying to use as little space as possible so they wouldn’t regret inviting me. In the car, Prof gave me a quick overview of the itinerary and background information on the Dache people, who immigrated from the Dachen Islands in the south of China in 1955 after the Chinese Civil War.  Dachen people were replaced in villages all over Taiwan by the military after the evacuation from the Islands, according to their occupation. For example, fishermen were placed in coastal villages while farmers went to villages in valleys. Our first destination was one of these villages in Kaohsiung County.


Part 3

We were invited by a family of 4, three generations, father, two daughters, and one granddaughter. The research assistant had met one of the daughters, Mrs Y, through a Dachen organization she encountered on another research trip. The research assistant had requested her time for a short interview on why she decided to come back from the US after 13 years and take great care of the village’s only temple. Lots of Dachen villages are currently empty because even though the Taiwanese government at that time considered villagers' occupation to place them in places where they could continue work and sustain themselves, the vastly different weather and soil conditions made it impossible for Dachen people to continue their occupation. They fell into inevitable poverty and uncertainty. So, they decided to try their chances in the country of endless opportunities: the USA. Mrs Y was one of those people who went to the US during the 1960s with her husband and children to create a new life. According to her, they were successful too. Similar to many Dachen Islanders, they opened a Chinese restaurant in New Jersey and were able to make enough money to sustain themselves and their children.

Mrs Y spoke of her life in the US quite fondly, so I was perplexed as to why she decided to return. It turned out, it wasn’t her decision after all. After years of quiet struggle with immigration —she did not give many details about that part — Mrs Y and her children were able to gain permanent residency while her husband’s application was rejected, meaning he had to leave the US as soon as possible. For Mrs Y it wasn’t a big deal at all: while she and her children stayed in the US, her husband could reapply for a visa in Taiwan. However, she could not dare to make her opinion count against her husband’s flying fists. In the end, the whole family returned to their village in Taiwan.

Even though I couldn’t fully understand what she was describing due to the language barrier, Mrs Y’s eyes emitted disheartenment combined with a strong light of endurance.

Her story was not composed of words as most would assume; her body had become the story itself. Every subtle twitch of her eyes, movement of her eyebrows, and trembling of her hands was the story, not the words. She told us that she was severely depressed after returning to the village. She saw no future for herself, nothing to keep her occupied, nothing to give her a sense of reason to live…

The next part of Mrs Y’s story might come across as a cheesy one. You might say it is too unrealistic but I invite you to listen to the emotions behind it rather than what happened itself because what happened does not matter. What matters is that Mrs Y found her devotion that she could hold on to stay in this world.

According to Mrs Y, on one of those nights that she toyed with the idea of letting go for good, a group of spirits visited her in her dreams. They advised her to keep the village’s temple, which was on the verge of becoming an abandoned pile of stones, running. “Keep our home alive,” they told her. She listened. That message was the only thing she needed to hold back on to the rope that carried her up to brightness again. After that night, Mrs Y spent the majority of her time renovating the temple, then keeping it clean and encouraging more visitors. Even long after her husband passed away and her children moved to bigger cities, she did not give up her foremost responsibility. And that day with us, she continued her role as the caretaker of the temple by sharing it with the Prof and his team so The Department of Education could record the temple as a religious diversity location and officially protect the place.

There are a lot more tears, courage, and bravery in Mrs Y’s story that my words cannot capture. Among all things, I was mostly impressed by how she was willing to open herself to make sure her story and the temple’s story were heard. She knew that the only way to keep able to take care of the temple, which was her responsibility given by the higher forces themselves, was to be vulnerable to those who wanted her to help preserve it.


Part 4

Later that day, another local professor joined us. I was overjoyed to be able to witness their conversations full of passion and dedication to preserve cultural and religious diversity. Those conversations, they are whole another story…

The next day we went through mostly by visiting numerous temples to record their location without any interviews. I got to learn the true diversity of Chinese Popular Religion through various architectural details of temples that once looked all the same to me.

Looking back after some time, I am slowly realizing how incredibly lucky I was to come across Prof W, his family and coworkers who had no ego at all. All those times in the long car rides, I had never felt inferior. The ego-free atmosphere of the group was so welcoming that I got rid of that girl who was trying to cover as little space as possible to become the one who confidently asked questions, shared her opinions and her own life story.

Leaving this trip, I was feeling confused about how a group of foreigners, us, had the power to record stories of those people with true impact on the world. How big of an honor is that?

Isn’t that what we humans do: live, share, and preserve…

Now I know that I want to leave my mark in the world through other people’s stories. I don’t need my name to be in headlines, I just want people to sense me through lines of lives that are worth remembering.


The end (for now).



*The full names are omitted to protect privacy of individuals. This story has my interpretation of the stories witnessed and might unintentionally include incorrect or incomplete information.