The Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation, founded by author Liao Hung-chi (廖鴻基), has invited young people who want to explore the theme of the sea in their literary works to a tour of the nation’s coastal areas, hoping to bring aspiring writers closer to the sea.
Liao also wants to introduce young writers to issues of the marine environment.
According to Liao, Taiwan is significantly behind its neighbors in the development of marine sciences, and that the evident disinterest in the sea — to the extent that think of the ocean only in terms of the food it provides — has led to a great loss in talented young people in the field.
Photo provided by the Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation
Liao says that consequently, the nation has a seafood culture, but has little to no extant culture of the sea.
The foundation has hosted such events in the past with no help from the Keelung City Government and Kaohsiung City Government, Liao said, adding, however, that after starting a similar literature camp on a smaller scale using foundation funds several years earlier, it was able to secure cooperation with the Hualien County Department of Cultural Affairs.
The camp plans to visit fishing villages on the Hualien coast, fishing grounds and other coastal sites such as Cilaibi (奇萊鼻) and Naiotashih (鳥踏石), the foundation said.
Cilaibi had once been the garbage dump of Hualien City and was evidence to the beauty and the sorrows of the Taiwanese coast, Liao said, adding that despite living on an island, all the unwanted zones — landfills, crematoriums and industrial zones — have been placed on the coast.
“We are, as a people, living with our backs to the sea,” Liao said.
“We hope that by organizing this camp, more writers would be able to influence people and bring them back to see the beauty endemic to islands and more importantly, to open our eyes to the sea,” Liao said.
Liao said that whales and dolphins, the “stars” of the sea, have successfully drawn the eyes of Taiwanese to the ocean.
According to department secretary-general Chiang Chia-chen (姜家珍), the event would include talks from Liao, poet Chen Li (陳黎), Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan’s Hualien-Taitung branch director Tsai Chung-yueh (蔡中岳), photographers Chiu Shang-lin (邱上林) and Ray Chin (金磊) and a screening of the movie The End of the Line (魚線的盡頭) with foundation member Lai Wei-jen (賴威任).
The two-day event is scheduled for Aug. 9, the foundation said, adding that it would be accepting 60 applications until next Wednesday.
Liao, the foundation’s founder, started recording whales and dolphins in the coastal areas as early as 1996, finding that 92.4 percent of sightings of whales and dolphins were on the east coast.
He was behind Hualien County’s whale-watching boat tours starting in 1997 and founded the Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation in 1998.
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