The salt field landscape paintings of Yong'an — Awaiting the migratory birds season

Text and photos / Kaohsiung City - Bureau of Information
 
After bidding farewell to the sweltering heat of summer, the cool sea breeze of autumn brings the most comfortable temperature of the season. This time, we headed to Yong'an, away from the concrete high-rises and bustling crowds of the urban jungle. It's a coastal city filled with fisherfolk settlements, where people enjoy the sea breeze and watch water birds. Life here is tranquil and simple, echoing the blessful meaning behind its name — Yong'an, which promises you peace and safety.

The Salt Field Community's painted village is incredibly vivid
The murals depict salt workers carrying salt, salt police conducting inspections, scenes of drying fish in front of homes, as well as barbershops and tofu pudding stalls. In front of the only remaining old grocery store in the Salt Field Community, stools are still placed, and the walls are painted with neighbors chatting leisurely. Nowadays, most houses in the Salt Field Community are ancestral homes. The area around Yong'an Wetland was once called Wushulin, originally a salt-drying site. Salt workers moved here with their families, so most residents are descendants of those who relocated from Beimen, Tainan.

Yong'an Wetland Bird-Watching Season is coming
In the past, many residents of the Salt Field Community worked in salt-drying at Yong'an Wetland, which is located opposite the now-unused Yong'an Branch of Xingang Elementary School (currently the Yong'an Wetland Ecological Education Center). The revitalization of Yong'an Wetland adopts low-impact development along with minimalist design approaches. The surrounding mangroves are the largest pure stand of Lumnitzera racemosa in Taiwan, while trees such as screw pines, bitter melia (Melia azedarach), and sea hibiscus have grown here since the Japanese colonial period. The herbaceous plants along the shoreline are salt-tolerant reeds, nurturing a variety of wild plants in this marshland. In addition to over 140 recorded bird species, the area also hosts amphibians, reptiles, insects, fish, shrimp, crabs, snails, and shellfish.