The traditional practice of harvesting oysters using water buffaloes in Changhua County has become a tourist attraction that in recent years has received international attention.
Tourists flock to Changhua County’s Fangyuan Township (芳苑) to see farmers transport oysters from inter-tidal zones to the shore, with the water sometimes reaching up to the buffaloes’ shoulders.
A local resident and ecotour organizer Wei Ching-shui (魏清水) said the tradition was preserved due to a lucky accident, as local farmers were unable to operate motorized oyster-harvesting vehicles properly and found carriages pulled by water buffalo more maneuverable.
Photo: Chen Kuan-pei, Taipei Times
Wei said he decided to turn the declining tradition into a tourist attraction about 10 years ago and the initiative has helped to increase oyster farmers’ incomes.
To conserve the ecosystem of the wetlands in the southwest of the county, Wei is planning to petition UNESCO to grant the township and its aquaculture landscape World Heritage site status, he said.
A standard oyster-harvesting tour ferries visitors on an oxcart through muddy waters to flat intertidal zones, where visitors, in rubber boots and gloves, gather oysters, fiddler crabs and clams when the tide is low, he said.
Tourists can also help to set up fishing weirs — a traditional method of fishing in which fish are trapped in an obstruction placed during low tide — and visit bamboo shacks on stilts in the water, he said,
After the tour, delicacies made with freshly harvested oysters are on offer, he said.
The township has seen hundreds of visitors from Singapore and Malaysia, with many repeat visitors, Wei said.
Local tourist agency owner Lee Cheng-chieh (李正傑) said group tours are usually conducted once per day, but people who want a place must book in advance as there are only 20 working water buffaloes in the township.
A tourist surnamed Chen (陳) from Taipei said she decided to take her family to visit the township on the recommendation of relatives, and she found the trip worthwhile as she enjoyed the ocean breeze, the slow pace of country life and spending time with her family in a natural setting.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
RSS