On Yunlin, the county of clouds and trees

Plus, an exuberant, multilingual, and interactive opera organized by Shine Arts

As we mentioned last month, we recently spent a wonderful weekend in Yunlin, a part of the country foreign even to Albert, who grew up in Taiwan. In preparing for the trip, we asked a Taiwanese friend if he had any impressions of Yunlin. The friend paused for a long while. “It’s flat?” he answered.

It’s no coincidence that for most people, Taiwanese included, Yunlin registers as a blank. It’s one of the poorest counties on the western coast, due to decades of “northern migrations” (北漂)—a shorthand for the hollowing out of rural populations. In 2002, more than 190,000 people left to look for jobs in other areas. From 2000 to 2010, Yunlin lost more than 10 percent of its population, the most in the country.   

But it wasn’t always this way. The area has a long history. Han Chinese pirates once used Yunlin as a harbor. Years later it became key to the Dutch, who used it to fortify their control. During the Qing rule of the island, governor Liu Ming-chuan valued the area enough to designate…