Where City Meets Jungle (an article from July - a little late)

A Long Black Rat Snake        

 

A giant gleaming rat snake slinks into a ditch just ahead, crossing bleached grey asphalt and moving steadily downhill. It shimmers waxed black as if just car wash polished. If I look up, hidden just over a few tree-lined ridges, Taichung city, with its two million residents, conducts its midday business. Taiwan's second-largest urban centre is mid-island and 20 kilometres from the Strait of Taiwan, but in Dakeng, the city's eastern hills, the scene is different.

  

At the base of Dakeng, a collection of hills rolling north/south and no higher than 850 metres, the city's clamour, fumes, and concrete end abruptly, and the jungle begins. Single lane hairpin roads swivel upwards. The last coughing four-lane road is 180 meters away as the crow flies, and I cycle uphill. Some sections are steep. Vegetation closes like a green garden gate behind. Stands of wild bamboo tilt overhead and the city is swiftly silenced.

 

Taichung city below Dakeng

                                                

                                                              

The change is striking; sporadic houses, temples, family farms, and orchards poke out of the prevailing foliage but are anomalies. The furious pace below drops off dramatically. Farmers on motorized agricultural trikes putter along, helmets and licence plates optional, while others tend orchards, gardens, and cultivated bamboo stands.

 

There is one deviation from the quiet. Dakeng, tranquil in so many ways, is famous for its four ridge-reaching hiking trails and especially on crowded weekends. But for me, Dakeng's draw is its lower quiet roads, hidden back paths and the chance of discovery. Perfect for cycling. The well-trod hiking trails are much farther up.

 

Each time I cross that city/jungle boundary, I'm astonished because Taiwan sits high on the planet's list of densely populated areas, and below, pollution and synthetic surfaces dominate. Two-thirds of the island is mountainous, so most of the near 24 million inhabitants are tightly packed on the western plains. 

 

city to the left and down

                                                    

Green Curtain Coming Alive 

 

Another day, and my apartment guard waves and smiles as I cycle up Junfu 13th Road in the late afternoon and hit the foot of Dakeng at Ningyuan Lane in seven minutes.

 

The liquid greens and leaf patterns strike me first, then sounds and smells. It's July, and spring rains have replaced the dry winter. Along the road, fresh foliage, newly unwrapped, chases winter's dead-edged brown borders away. Water pushes life from every nook and cranny. During Dakeng's rainless winter, the jungle smells loamy, with a whiff of dry grass clippings. The air feels light. In comparison, the summer air is rain-robust, heavy, and thick. The jungle leans on your shoulders, weighted with strong leafy smells.

  

quiet back road

                                                             
                                                            

I have regular routes and make my rounds frequenting familiar spots and noting changes. Moss creeps onto shady road shoulders and vertically up the rough rock and concrete retaining walls between miniature fern fronds poking out of cracks. This round trip is about 20 kilometres and only takes me one-third of the way up, saving me oatmeal legs at the top. 

 

moss covering a retaining wall

                                                
                                        

House and farm dogs snooze on the pavement, occasionally close to the centre line. Cars and scooters simply slow and detour around them. The dogs don't budge. These dogs are semi guard dogs and pets. They lift their heads slowly for an obligatory glance as I pass but flake back out once they recognize me. From one house, old Taiwanese love songs drift into the relaxing Sunday afternoon.

 

I pedal and glance to my right. Incense sticks in a colossal brass urn send ribbons of scented smoke skyward in front of a tidy little temple. An ancient tree towers above, cradling carefully placed orchids suspended in tree branches. Farther along my route, a bamboo farm with its clusters of tall stalks cascade up and over me. The farmers collect new bamboo shoots from the base mounds. Beyond, a greenhouse is filled with orchid plants beginning to bloom. A few have small felt-velvet textured violet and deep purple flowers. Orchids are popular, and roadside vendors sell the long-lasting plants for under four dollars each.  

 

temple-tree orchids

                                                        

 

Alive With Creatures Day and Night

 

A right turn leads to a narrow back path. The road edges are wet and strewn with decaying vegetation. A little grey lizard scurries back into the brush. Several storm drain covers are missing – pinched for scrap metal. A warm wind moves through thick bamboo stands, and the wide trunks creak exactly like wooden tall ship spars and masts. I can hear my bicycle tires hum, but it is not quiet.

 

Above, the trees and sky are busy with birds: gregarious Black Bulbuls with bright, orange traffic pylon bills and feet mob the canopy, a Crested serpent eagle calls, easily corkscrewing higher on thermals thanks to wingspans five and a half feet wide, and shy Oriental turtle doves with beautifully scalloped, paisley wings, burst into flight in loud puffs. 

 

Oriental turtle doves

                                                      

Clasping trees, hordes of cicadas vibrate their roaring electric buzz. Nephila pilipes, Giant wood spiders, seven inches wide, wait in enormous webs.
Still, the sounds are not intrusive. Nature's sound-rowdiness is still soothing compared to the air horn blasting eighteen wheelers below.

  

I flick on my bike lights as twilight moves to evening, and the jungle noises change. Frogs and toads take over. Dakeng is packed with hopping amphibians. Baseball chubby toads plop along. Tiny chirping and gulping frogs serenade. Some frogs yodel like they have swallowed pianos, while others sound like squeaky door hinges, and the uncoordinated compilation bursts from jungle branches, streams, and ponds. Big and small all call for mates and stake territorial claims, but Dakeng's snakes listen too. Frogs are on the menu.  

 

tiny frog snack!

                                                      

Slender emerald bamboo vipers wait in roadside ditches for frogs. One of several venomous snakes in Dakeng, bamboo vipers are shy and retiring. They hover coiled on a fallen branch or twig just off the ditch bottom, waiting for an unsuspecting frog to hop underneath. If successful, they may not eat for a month and retreat to hide in a tree. 

 

a bamboo viper waiting for a frog or toad

                                              

Unfortunately, with so many frogs, toads, and snakes on the move, roadkill is enviable. Flattened amphibians and reptiles are squashed on hill roads. Frogs and toads splayed spread eagle and snakes resembling long swerving smudges are not unusual. Happily, most amphibians and snakes hop and shimmy safely across the road. 

 

The mosquitoes are out now, huge black and white striped tigers that chase me down the hill. I spin to the hill bottom, all the while watching for hopping blobs and ditch destined snakes.  

 

I'm soon back in the city. Dakeng's hills are awake tonight, but the eighteen wheelers have gone to sleep on Junfu 13th Road.

 

 

 

 

Under the Smokestacks’ Shadows

Sulfur wafts in the sea breeze.

Coasting down a slight decline, with my scooter engine off, I freewheel quietly on a path between low marsh and tall grass in the relatively unknown Linshui Wetland. The wind twirls the grass blades side to side, bending them over. The blades flex but straighten as the gust moves on, parting more wetland grass.

 

Straight ahead, to the west and less than 900 metres away, four multicoloured smokestacks tower overhead like giant crayons. Circling each column, dozens of playfully painted shorebirds add to the irony. A few hundred metres south of the stacks, pollution cakes evergreen needles into clumps resembling breaded chicken. 

 

The four towers are anchored to a behemoth of a power station that is anything but playful. Beneath the Taichung Power Plant in Longjing, adjacent to the Strait of Taiwan, is the planet's largest emitter of carbon dioxide from any coal-fired power station. It produces roughly 40 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. Not without its many Taiwanese detractors, much of the island's population still depends on its electricity, as it supplies central Taiwan and Taipei with energy.  

 

Longjing's four power plant smokestacks

                                

Remarkably, next to this power station, Linshui Wetland exists almost by accident. Strangely, this secretive place expresses both despair and optimism.

 

The power station is a heartbreaker, and ten minutes into my visit, a dull, pollution headache begins. The wind is blowing steadily inland. The wetland is nothing fancy; it is neglected and shabby but miraculously filled with birds. It offers proof of nature’s ability to adapt. These polar extremes give me a sliver of hope and fill me with triumph for the birds.

                                                                          

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Linshui Wetland is a patchwork of government property, private farmland, fish ponds and fallow fields of roughly 200 hundred acres. It is invisible on the internet and only familiar with local birders.

 

A gravel pit sits next to a fish rearing pond, which in turn, sits next to a square pond surrounded by hordes of roosting egrets and herons in trees. The modest wetland is crisscrossed with tidal and freshwater canals, many small enough to step over. Meanwhile, barefoot farmers on smokers’ cough motorcycles putter through the marsh tending their fields while fishers hunch over private fish ponds waiting.

 

Initially, the wetland was created not for wildlife but as a series of wastewater treatment ponds decades ago for an adjacent industrial park. There was anticipation that future industrial expansion would add to the importance and growth of the waste ponds, but that never materialized. Once the initial wastewater was pumped into the ponds from the industrial park, the effluent settled, turned black, and stunk terribly.

 

Longjing’s residents complained over the stench, and now the wastewater is diverted through a smaller water treatment plant, and the ponds are left vacant. The wetland has received some attention. Wood fences shield a few sections of the wetland, but several planks are missing. A few discard pieces of furniture rot in the weeds. Still, the marsh supports birds.

 

An active estuary system surrounds the north and west boundaries of the wetland. Linshui's rivers empty into the larger Dadu River to the south. At this point, Dadu River is an estuary itself and part of the larger and better known Dadu Estuary Important Wetland with a total area of over 9,400 acres.   

 

Back in Linshui's estuary rivers, hundreds of colourful crabs scurry out of their burrows during low tide. Introduced Sacred Ibis with curved black bills and black heads probe the mud for arthropods. Silky white egrets poke between the exposed mangrove roots for snacks.

 

In the wetland, sandpipers and plovers, along with ducks and Little Grebes, tilt vertically, searching the bottom for food. A large, wading flock of Black-winged stilts with long pink legs stride through the ponds, oblivious to the nearby stacks.

 

Black-winged stilt feeding in the wetland

                               

            

Above the fields, a Black-shouldered kite hovers, with a perfectly motionless head focused on prey with piercing red eyes. The fields and brush have dozens of smaller species. Dadu Estuary Important Wetland, less than a kilometre away, has recorded over 200 bird species, so we can assume many visit the Linshui wetland too.

 

My visits here have given me great birds, but my biggest takeaway is how birds endure human intrusion, destruction and survive. It's a true feathered triumph in the Linshui wetland.

Scooter Civet

 

An older photo I took of a Masked palm civet waiting patiently at

a red light; "How else am I supposed to get around this town?"

Park Furniture and Guerilla Gardening

Slowly, I ride my scooter through my neighbourhood. I'm on park patrol. Nonchalantly, I peer into a small green space. Circling the park, I want to observe unnoticed and verify if what I saw months earlier was what I actually saw.    

Slowly, I ride my scooter through my neighbourhood. I'm on park patrol. Nonchalantly, I peer into a small green space. Circling the park, I want to observe unnoticed and verify if what I saw months earlier was what I actually saw.   

I'm unsure specific rules exist for how and what is allowed on municipal land in Taiwan. Still, the Taiwanese people and government officials view public space differently than in the West. In Taiwan, public land is very communal and more. In the West, public property is to be used and left unaltered, and even then, you might get asked your purpose if you linger too late.

In Taiwan, public property gets used by individuals for their own purposes and no one minds. Bits and pieces of unused public land get filled with plants and creations. In addition, personal belongings find their way into city spaces.

                                                          ***  

Along with larger parks in Taichung, Taiwan's second-largest metropolis, the city is dotted with countless smaller neighbourhood parkettes well under an acre and tucked into established neighbourhoods. It is the same across the island. These tiny fragments of land are essential and central to local communities. The parks are adopted and modified by area users like Jiangong Park near my house. It was this park I was investigating before my embarrassing crash.

They also have something seldom seen in North America. Occasionally, the locals haul their old leather or Chinese wooden sofas out into the park. Leather and wood hold up better to the wear and tear of typhoons. Now and again, the sofas are accompanied by their matching lounge chairs. People arrange them under protective roofs the municipalities built with the parks, or the sofas are placed under large shady trees.   

Park furniture is popular with seniors, but kids enjoy them too. Multiple generations living together is common in Taiwanese culture, so it is not surprising to see grandparents caring for grandchildren in parks.  

These intimate parks are like communal backyards and in continuous use. They provide a sense of connection with families and neighbours.  

Daybreak brings out the morning walkers, tai chi practitioners, and the callisthenics grandpas and grandmas. The Monday to Friday daytime users are primarily seniors, young mothers, and preschoolers.  In the early evening, the nine-to-five working crowd joins in. Later, seniors return for more socializing, exercise, and even scheduled dance practices. Portable stereos blare out rhythm for the activities morning and evening. Lastly, during the late evening, a few people slip out for a last smoke, and friends enjoy a beer together from the 7-11 before bed.   

At the back right corner of Jiangong Park, sofas surround a chunky wooden table under a large Chinese pavilion-style roof. On most pleasant afternoons, a group of retired neighbourhood men concentrate on a game of Chinese chess. Two play while the rest watch. One observer reclines smoking, flip-flops off, one leg folded, with a heel propped up on the sofa's edge. Others speculate on the best next move. A four-wheel electric mobility scooter sits on the grass next to an ancient bicycle. 

At the park’s opposite corner, next to a well-used community bulletin board, two large bar style umbrellas are permanently anchored over park benches. One umbrella gives shade to elderly Taiwanese watched over by their Indonesian caregivers. At the same time, the other umbrella keeps an entrepreneurial woman’s freshly picked vegetables cool for morning sale. Plastic stools of different colours and sizes offer extra seating between the benches. The park has the feeling of a huge, extended, outdoor living room.

                                                       ***

In another example of land use laissez-faire, people create lovely pocket flower gardens and small vegetable patches on unused pieces of city property.

People even plant next to the city's canals. The plots are left in peace, and city workers and authorities seem unconcerned.

Plants are placed directly into the ground, or if the space is paved, people use flowerpots, buckets, Styrofoam fish boxes or large, plastic bathtubs. But canal gardening is tricky.

 

papaya tree in a bathtub next to friends

The waterways have belly high safety fences, but people climb the stainless steel barriers or stepladder over and garden the soil to the edge. Taiwan's city canals are broad, and their banks are sheer and high. Scarcely a foot of water flows along many of the city's riverbeds 10 to 20 feet below, so canal-edge gardeners must be nimble.

Some canals have natural riverbeds, and some are entirely encased in concrete. Many of the city's central, more expansive canals with concrete beds have a deeper, main channel a few feet wide to keep water moving.

A 50-foot wide canal looks like overkill for such a modest water flow, but they have a purpose. A powerful typhoon or heavy rains can turn the trickle into a torrent. The quickly developing rapids can chew banks away and roll boulders downstream. Violent rain events can dramatically alter the watercourse of natural canal beds, and construction excavators are often in canals redirecting water flow.       

I've seen that narrow strip of soil along the canal filled with sweet potatoes, lettuce, and tomatoes all hovering close to the drop off point. Gourd vines loop along the terrain, double back from the edge and climb the safety fence. Banana plants and papaya trees grow freely in commandeered green zones. Fearless gardeners water, weed, and harvest, and no one thinks it is out of the ordinary.

 

sweet potatoes in the afternoon sun

vines weave through a canal fence

At the end of one tiny park, someone grew and pruned shrubs that became a topiary animal garden. The city maintenance crews simply cut the grass around the bushes, and the zoo continued complete with CDs for shiny animal eyes.

                                                     ***

It's Sunday afternoon, and I sit on a bench near the back of Jiangong Park. Kids swing from the jungle gym while their parents joke with family and neighbourhood friends. The parents and grandparents of those friends look on. It's heartwarming to see neighbourhood families who have known each other for years together. Those grandparents probably saw those new parents as toddlers and now watch another new generation enjoy the park.

The caregivers and elderly Taiwanese are out. Some people are on their phones strolling; while families picnic. The park can't be more than 50 metres by 50 metres, but it is filled with trees providing excellent canopy cover. Behind me, a mural painted wall runs the length of the park and blocks out sound. Across from the park and also to my right, cosy townhouses and low rise condos line the streets. To my left, across another small street, a farmer's bamboo stand runs the length of the park. Quiet surrounds us.

Closer on my left, I hear the click of Chinese chess pieces move across the board. I enjoy the friends' camaraderie. Someone wins, and gentle laughter rises. In Taiwan, it is common for elementary school friends to remain friends for life. I watch them for a while and smile. They are easy and relaxed in each other's company. One of the friends smiles back at me, offering me something. I crane my neck and see he is offering a cigarette. I smile but shake my head. He grins back. No offence taken. Later, when I pass, I thank him. He waves and gives me a wonderful, open smile.

In this friendly and quiet park, almost hidden in the chaotic city, there is comfort. And safety from lurking lampposts in the street.   

I think I'll stick to the park paths a little more.