Rural and local creation 17 "Why is the pool full of charm? Good local autonomy drives economic happiness

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(Chung Yi-ting, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica)

Chishang has been a rural area in recent years where many arts and cultural activities are promoted for local residents, which makes many people envious, not only large-scale performances or music activities, but also music appreciation or performance training activities for local school children during winter and summer holidays. Chishang, which began to actively promote geographical brand certification and organic farming more than ten years ago, has made farmers earn money and make people happy through unique autonomous regulations, attracting young people to return, and the whole rural area is full of vitality and vitality.

In addition to financial support, external resources are more important than "people". Chishang Township Mayor Chang Yao-cheng was originally a Taipei native, but he chose to serve in Chishang after he was admitted to the civil service. Unlike most people who think that he will use the countryside as a springboard to wait for his transfer to the city one day, Chang Yao-cheng decided to establish a family in Chishang and become a Chishang native, and actively participated in and promoted matters beneficial to Chishang society as a whole.

From the point of view of a person who is not of rural origin, there is a comparative point of view in which the value of the countryside is seen. For example, farmers can see the rice paddies every day, and they don't think there is anything special about them. The young village chief who returned home also said that he had seen the mountains, clouds and rice paddies on the pond every day since he was a child, and felt that there was nothing special about them. However, it was not until he left home to live in a small house in the city that he realized that the scenery of his hometown was not everywhere, and then he would miss it.

Through the eyes of outsiders, we can see the uniqueness of rural daily scenery.

When we ask rural residents,"Do you think your community is distinctive and attractive?" they usually think long and long and then respond,"Nothing special." They think that the rice paddies, old houses, mountains, or even flowing clouds they see around them every day are nothing special.

But what they didn't expect was that many people went to the countryside to see the most common scenery in the countryside, which was also the tourist target of many tourists to Chishang. Through the eyes of outsiders, local people re-understand where they live every day, and have the opportunity to recognize and establish the value and uniqueness of their lives and places.

The niche of Taiwan agriculture is not to produce a large amount of cheap food, but to produce high-quality food on the premise of maintaining the rural environment, and on this basis to develop diversified income opportunities such as processing, leisure experience and catering.

From Chishang and other especially dynamic villages, we can see that the countryside can be transformed from traditional family composition to new community forms. The key lies in giving new migrants shelter and integrating into local society. The new and old relationship networks form strong local identity. It is not impossible to create a vibrant and livable rural society if this is combined with the active promotion of local self-government. We can learn from these cases in Taiwan's own rural areas and carry out learning and experiments, hoping that we can develop our own local creation model in Taiwan.

(In order to deeply grasp the rural development and local creation in the context of Taiwan's reality,"Upstream and Downstream" cooperated with the "Foundation for Rural Development Foundation" on "Rural Development Special Topic" to explore the current situation in Taiwan and Japan's policy trends in a series of articles. Please click here to read the full series of articles)

Local Creation in Japan Special Topics <$Regional Revitalization Cooperation Team & Migrants

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