Forest, Riverbank, Home

The hills surrounding Taipei have had an indescribable mixed feeling to them. The trees, weeds and the faint scent of betel nut are mixed with the smell of the pesticides Carbofuran, Paraquat, Organophosphorus. The low-slung mountains that track Sanxia’s Heng River have a similar feel. They are both of the city and Mother Nature. On route North 110 you can see agricultural freight cars as well as stylish motorcycles. The industrial roads in the mountains splay out like a spider web, leading to abandoned mines, graveyards, betel nut plantations, and factories. Remote communities are always accompanied by tea plantations of Bi Luo Chun green tea, remnants of the Mitsui Zaibatsu tea plantation of days past.

If you factor in the struggles and the blood and tears between the Han and the Indigenous peoples in the mountains, even the air around the area begins to smell salty.

—Excerpt from Kao Jun Honn’s work: Llyung Topah: Searching for the Guardlines and Remaining Topah of the Topah Tribe Incident


Among the Atayal Takekan Group, the Topah was the tribe who lived nearest to the emerging Han settlers. From 1900 to 1906, the Topah Tribe fought a running battle against the development of their traditional forests and the invasion of their home. Altogether, they fought seven battles against the Japanese police and military. Following Topah Tribe Incident, the Topah and their lands disappeared from Sanjiaoyong. Their ancestral homeland lost to them, the remaining Topah integrated with the Msbtunux.

More than half a century later, Taiwan’s economy had undergone rapid change. The urban centers of northern Taiwan had begun to attract Amis from the east coast of Taiwan who called themselves Pangcah. Many of these new arrivals found entry level work in the area’s manufacturing and service sectors. With housing prices unaffordable and the dense urban cityscape far removed from their former water-based lifestyle, a few of the new arrivals searched for riverbanks that straddled the divide between city and nature. There they used their ingenuity to build houses and farms to gradually build settlements.

Others who lived scattered across the city instead met regularly through community activities to learn songs and their mother tongue. They looked to find identification with the culture of their parents and find connection, step by step, through songs.