The Most Beautiful Tribal Light and Shadows in the Mountains of Pingtung – Why Do Indigenous People Live in “Such Places”?

Photo & Text /Taiwan’s Hidden Gems: A Passionate Comeback Plan – OBailai Tsai Fuda

After staying in the mountains of Pingtung for a few days, I descended before the typhoon arrived under the cover of darkness. The road conditions were rough and the drive was bumpy, but perhaps because I had grown used to such journeys, I still enjoyed the slow flow of John Lennon’s music from the speakers.

Glancing out the window, I was captivated by a scene and unconsciously hit the brakes. There, amid the pitch-black mountains and forests, were glowing forms of life—just like the image the elder described to me.

“A lot of people think it’s unbelievable where we live—valleys, by streams, next to the sea. Isn’t it dangerous? Isn’t it inconvenient? Why would you live there?” The elder took a puff of his cigarette.

“Because in the past, our survival depended on what nature provided. The choice of location was based on wisdom. You couldn’t live too far from water, but just having water didn’t mean a place was suitable to live—because when the rainy season came, the river could flood. Were the nearby plants and animals abundant? Was the ecosystem intact? Back then, we almost never had landslides. But now, villages get wiped out during typhoons because many people, influenced by outside ideas, started clearing forests, planting cash crops that damage the soil, or growing beyond the land’s capacity.”

The elder continued, “Didn’t many tribes relocate after the disasters in Taiwu Township? Before the Japanese occupation, it was safe there. It’s only after coffee beans were introduced and the land was misused that this happened.”

I looked at the small settlement shimmering in the distance, wondering how long they had lived there through generations.

Many things we find unbelievable are actually perfectly natural—it’s just that, in the course of our own growth, we’ve been taught a different set of values.

When kindness becomes something worthy of praise, it means the world is already seriously ill.