Sketch of Archilife Study Tour, October 2020
2020年10月份見識之旅縮影 ![]() For the study tour of October 17, 2020, Ms. Lu Ming-yun led 9 ARF interns and their parents on a rural green energy exploration tour to the Tungkuang community in Yuchih Township. At the start of the day's activities, team leader Ms. Lu Ming-yun reminded everyone about things to note and what to observe, and gave the interns some background knowledge. ![]() This tour featured a visit to the Tungkuang community in Nantou, with Mr. Tsai Hung-ming, Executive Secretary of the Community Development Association, acting as a tour guide. The first stop on the itinerary was at Cuilin Farm, where Mr. Tsai explained that we were located in the center of the island, with an average annual temperature of 19.3 degrees Celsius, making it a pleasant place to live. Then we turned our attention to a simple water wheel for power generation on the side. The Tungkuang community is a demonstration area for water conservation. To put water sustainability into practice, the owner of the farm assembled hardware and discarded bicycle wheels to draw water from the Muchilan River and solar energy as a source of power, generating enough electricity for a single street light at the farm. Afterwards, we went to a micro-hydropower green energy generation area where Mr. Tsai introduced a facility that uses the stable water volume of the Hsiang Tien Canal as a basis for power generation, and that is still on trial run and is slated for public electricity consumption in the community. Hsiang Tien Canal is a water bridge set up by a headrace tunnel in the village of Wujie to cross the Muchilan River. Its water is drawn from the Zhuoshui River that originates from the Hehuan Mountain. The soil and stone in the catchment area are soft and the sediment is susceptible to being washed by the stream, so the sand content is particularly high and the water in the channel is therefore rather turbid. The water in the valley below the bridge was crystal clear and the group was taken on a guided tour of the river. ![]() In the afternoon, we set out on a visit to a community by going on foot to the old house of the Tsai family, which was originally a sanheyuan with seven kaijian in width, with an intricately carved wooden veranda set in an ancient style. Only the main hall and the right wing survived the ravages of the 921 earthquake, but both of which were damaged. While the roof tiles of the main hall that had been displaced were slightly repaired, the right wing was severely ruined, and the Tsai family could not afford the cost of restoration, despite their desire to preserve it. And then we moved on to the community's butterfly corridor, where Mr. Tsai used the land around his house to grow nectar plants, thereby creating a butterfly ecological corridor nearly 100 meters long, attracting purple crow butterflies, blue tiger butterflies and plain tiger butterflies to forage for food. In addition, the butterfly area is equipped with a cable car for interns to have a ride. At the end of the trip, we had a DIY session on a key ring made of How-dah-pu Tanoak(Lithocarpus corneus), and Mr. Tsai introduced How-dah-pu Tanoak, which looks like an old-fashioned pipe bowl, so it is also known as Pipe Lithocarpus, the core of which is so hard that if you want to eat it, you have to take a hammer to crack it open first, and due to cost factors, it is not produced in large quantities. Then Mr. Tsai cracked the kernel with a hammer for everyone to have a taste of it. At this point, the day's itinerary came to an end. Everyone took a group photo before heading back and looked forward to the next study tour. |