Wild lotus comes out of the village! Pay tribute to the counterattack of rural food in post-WTO, an exclusive interview with Zhong Yongfeng, the lyricist of Shengxiang band

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In 2002, on the eve of Taiwan's accession to the WTO, local tobacco leaves fell to the ground, and Meinong, a major tobacco town, bore the brunt. Jiaogong Band published "Chrysanthemum Night March," and Lin Sheng-hsiang sang a sad song of rural transformation, in which songwriter Chung Yung-feng wrote deeply about farmers' lamentations. Eighteen years later, Lin Shengxiang and Zhong Yongfeng created "Wild Lotus out of the Village" again, paying tribute to the rural areas in the post-WTO era.

The protagonist of the album, "Wild Lotus," was originally an aquatic wild vegetable in the lake, and the Hakkas ate petioles under the surface of the water. Because of the domestication of farmers and the decline of tobacco aid, it occasionally went from the popularity of the Kuitiao shop in Hechang to the fast stir-frying shop in the whole Taiwan. from poor wild vegetables to a new main cash crop to replace tobacco.

In "Wild Lotus coming out of the Village", Zhong Yongfeng tries to take food and plants as the main body of folk ballad creation, but the overall image background is still concerned about rural life and farmers' feelings. Through the penetration and connectivity of food, connecting the experiences of different generations separated from urban and rural areas, and the delicate transmission of gender and kinship, listeners can see a picture of plant ethnography based on the daily life of rural areas in the relationship between food and people.

Shengxiang Band launches its new work "Wild Lotus out of the Village"

From these rural food and solar life, and the wild vegetable eating habits accompanied by rice culture and the memory of reclamation, we can vaguely see Zhong Yongfeng's attempt to depict food and plants rooted in the local culture. Through the singing of folk songs, Taiwan society has once again confirmed that 18 years after joining the WTO, the vitality of rural areas is still tenaciously resisting free trade through local diet.

At a time when Lai Limei Pig is about to open up, pig farmers once again face the grief and indignation of the opening up of the market. "Wild Lotus out of the Village" through the album, once again reflect on the value of "Agriculture and Land Culture" to Taiwan.

The following content will be dictated by the first person interviewed by Zhong Yongfeng.

"Wild Lotus coming out of the Village": a rural epic with aquatic wild vegetables as the protagonist in the post-WTO era

Wild Lotus is the song I most wanted to write after I finished the Chrysanthemum Night March, and I spent the most time, because wild lotus meant a lot to Meinong, especially after joining WTO, farmers stumbled all the way to find alternative crops and tried coffee and chrysanthemum. Later, because of the efforts of peasant associations, they achieved some success in white jade radish and small tomato, but wild lotus involved a wider range of contemporary issues.

Wild lotus was originally grown in the middle of Meinung, and is regarded by farmers as a "famine-saving dish for summer tables." After the 1980s, farmers domesticated wild lotus began to grow professionally, after the complete withdrawal of tobacco, its planting ability became stronger and stronger, but the first problem was the shortage of labor force.

In the early years, the tobacco economy relied on the family job change system, but when it came to the wild lotus, it was because the foreign brides were married, and the visiting helpers of the Vietnamese in-laws made up the labor force in the wild lotus pond to a certain extent, and then the immigration office took place in 2017.