Accompany the people in the mountains home! Kaohsiung Muzi Torch Festival, the fire lights up the way home.

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Each person held a torch in his hand, forming a long queue of more than 600 people, like the Milky Way in the night sky stretching between the hills of the Alishan Mountains to Kaohsiung.

Kaohsiung's Shanlinli was originally a small mountain village where no one came in after 7 p.m., but on the night of October 10, an unprecedented carnival took place. Whether tourists from other places or tourists who haven't returned home for a long time, everyone meets to pick up torches and happily tour the village, recreating the past days without street lights half a century ago.

Although there are few traces of fireflies in autumn, and no stars in the mountain trails at night, the light and shadow of torches accompanied by laughter, singing, and the sound of gongs and drums have made Muzi one of the happiest rural areas in Taiwan on National Day night.

A remote place where time stops.

Compared with Dhaka Nuwa in Namasha or Meishan in Taoyuan, Muzi in Shanlin is not at all marginal. It only takes ten minutes to drive from Muzi to Shanlin Street, and it takes less than half an hour to drive to Meinong Street and Qishan Old Street. However, Muzi gives the outside world a very remote stereotype, and even chain pizza and delivery services from franchised beverage shops are unwilling to come here.

Hou Wudai, former director-general of Muzi Community Development Association, said that Muzi Li is located in the three-no-care zone, located in the mountainous area at the junction of Shanlin, Inner Gate and Jiaxian. It is divided into five tribes, including Baishui Spring, Hongmao Mountain, Muzi, Qiahu Lake and Wutan Lake. The only external road is Industrial Road Gao 129.

Hou Wudai, former chairman of Muzi Community Development Association, is the key figure of Torch Festival. (Photo: Li Huiyi) The mountain road curves, preserving the uniqueness of the place.

Chen Chao-hung, director general of the Small Rural Community Volunteer Alliance, describes it this way: "People who enter Muzi from the outside for the first time often feel that the mountain roads look very similar, thinking that they will arrive at the next turn." But after a turn, I realized that there was still a long way to go. When I opened it, I started to doubt my life."

However, restricted by traffic and geographical location, Muzi retains more local uniqueness. Scattered villages and scattered farmhouses are scattered among pineapple gardens, garden parks, banana gardens and papaya gardens. The bamboo clusters that surround the waist of the hill sway in sync with the southward northeast monsoon. Farmers work at sunrise and residents rest at sunset. Although there are few people on the streets, laughter continues in the fields and gardens. Time seemed to have stopped.

Pineapple garden among mountains and earth gong of tending garden, this is the most common idyllic scenery of Muzi. (Photo: Li Huiyi) Population aging serious primary school abandoned police station to be abolished

According to information provided by the Household Administration Office, Muzi currently has 313 households and 734 people, but less than half of the people actually live here. Chen Zhaohong said: "The resident population is only more than 300 people." Community volunteer mother, Sister Ye Qianzhi, who is also in charge of visiting the elderly in the community, added a paragraph, saying that the difficulties of development in Muzi are exhausted. "More than 40 per cent of the people staying in Muzi are elderly people aged 65 or above," she said."The number of elderly people living alone who have received regular visits from us in the past year alone has reached 126."

In the past 30 years, young people have gone out to work and settle down, and the aging phenomenon of Muzi has become more and more serious. First, 20 years ago, Muzi Elementary School was abandoned and merged into Shanlin Elementary School. A few days ago, on October 7, the police station announced the news of holding an explanation meeting. Ye Qianzhi said: "I heard that the police station will also be abolished..." For residents, the world seems to throw them away bit by bit.

In order to defend the homeland, Muzi mobilized the whole village to raise fire

In fact, as early as the end of 2017, honest and taciturn community cadres had found a small township community volunteer alliance because they wanted to promote community work. Zhang Shujing, executive secretary of Xiaoxiang, recalled: "When community cadres came to talk, they wanted to do something, but they didn't know how to start, so they wanted to find Xiaoxiang to provide some experience, because Xiaoxiang had great experience in caring for the elderly."

Hsiao Hsiang began accompanying the Muzi community in conducting fieldwork, setting up a care center for the elderly, and further establishing visits to the elderly in the community. In the process of cooperation, the two sides even discussed the bold idea of holding a "torch festival."