Around Daliao
I have eagerly followed the local Taiwanese news and I’m especially interested in news associated with our local township Daliao(大竂). Unidentified toxic gas releases at the local industrial park have kept Daliao to the national headlines recently. If you take a quick look around it is not difficult to see why this type of news item is indicative of the area in Taiwan we have chosen to live.
Night time view across the small pocket amongst which we live.
Fongshan Military Academy This covers a huge tract of land. Though reasonably benign, it is an important military training ground that is a continual source of small arms practice fire. And surely a target of one of the 1400 odd missiles China will use one day. Let’s hope they are accurate enough to miss our place
Mental asylum Not in itself a threat, but placed between the military academy and the land-fill it an indication of the quality land use of the area.
Daliao landfill Or should that be “land-full”. A large hill now exists where a valley once was. They are now filling a valley right next to the full one. This is uphill from our house and not more that 500 metres away.
Traditional grave sites These are a common sight all over Taiwan. Hills are auspiciously good locations to place a grave. Grave sites are auspiciously bad to live near. And we live near hills full of graves
Christian cemetries Approximately 5% of Taiwanese are Christians. We live just one kilometre from 100% of Kaohsiung Christian graves.
Kaohsiung airport This was once a very busy and noisy airport. Now with the high speed rail much of the old noisy regular domestic flights have gone. Daliao covers the take-off flight path for the airport.
Daliao industrial zone This is where chemicals are concocted, boats are made, sewage discharged, recyclables recycled and poisoned residents ignored.
*China Steel refineryThe largest is Taiwan. Located adjacent China Shipbuilding, Taiwan’s largest shipbuilder. The source of much of Kaohsiung’s air pollutants.
Missile silos The Sky Bow missile placement that has been pixelled out in Google Earth. If the military academy is not a Chinese missile magnet, this installation certainly is.
Petrochemical plantsThe source for all sorts of odours. Environmental groups have successfully restricted development of this zone recentley. It has (rightfully) been the source of much local protest over the years.
Linyuan Oil refinery This is part of the larger chemical and steel industrial area. When passing through Linyuan you can constantly whiff the hydrocarbons.
View from the top of LinYuan hill adjacent the missile silos. Looking across to the Gaoping river, petrochemical and oil refinery plants
Brings back memories (minus the hillside graves and missile silos) of Yokkaichi, Japan, where we lived for 18 months. From our apartment balcony, we had a view of the mountains looking one way, and a skyline made up of oil refineries and chemical plants in the other direction. My wife would feel sick at times from the odors in the downtown area. No wonder she said it all reminded her of Kaohsiung!
Stephen reply on January 25th, 2009:
Interesting, both Japan and Taiwan are land-constrained and it is inevitable that big populations end up living right next to toxic industries. A view of mountians looking both ways would be ideal. There are lots of places in Taiwan where you can find such living, I hope you have found one.
[...] fire for its poor handling of the case and a protest by locals turned violent. Shan Ding Lu has a photo essay of the town showing the impact of human activities on the town's environment. Posted by David Reid [...]
Mention the name “Yokkaichi” to most Japanese, and the first thing they will think of is a respiratory disease (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokkaichi_Asthma)!
Actually, we do have a nice view of the central mountains from our apartment building in Fengyuan…on a clear day. When I first moved to Taiwan, I lived in Taichung. I was there for about two weeks when, one day, the smog lifted, and it was only then that I realized there were mountains on the outskirts of the city!
Stephen reply on January 25th, 2009:
I had exactly the same revelation 3 months after living and working in smog filled Kaohsiung. One clear day during a roof-top BBQ I looked across and saw the majestic 3000m Beidawu mountain range not 30 kilometres away. More shocking than me taking 3 months to discover it was when I asked my friend, now wife, she was also surprised and amazed at its sight. Things are no better these days, we see those mountains about 1 day in 7. Many weeks never at all.
Hi Steven ,
On Kaminoge , during 2000-04 i also taught English in Koahsiung . During that time i shared an apartment with a mate from Canada & South Africa , living near Chen Chin Ho & the Koahsiung’s Baseball stadium i never got tired of waking up at 6am seeing a mountain range disappear by 9pm covered in smog i guess ???
All the best with living in TW ,
Brad Geyer
Broken Hill , Outback New South Wales .
Stephen reply on January 26th, 2009:
You are right Brad,
The mountains are often visible for an hour os so after dawn. Not a time of day I, or most Kaohsiungites, see unfortunately.
Kaohsiung has not changed much in the past 5 years. You can enjoy clean NSW in the comfort that Kaohsiung is still the bustlying, busy, friendly, smoggy, dusty city of before.
They have almost got rid of all the old smokey two-stroke motor-scooters though!
[...] Shan Ding Lu has a photo essay of Daliao, site of the recent poisonous gas leaks. [...]
I posted a photo essay from Daliao several years ago on my Teaching English in Taiwan website:
http://www.michaelturton.com/Taiwan/taliao.html
That was a fascinating photo essay. Very enlightening. I lived in Taliao at the end of the 1990s and it was without question the worst place I’ve ever lived.
Michael
BTW, as I recall there is an unregulated waste incinerator on the grounds of Fooyin University there in Taliao.
When I taught English there, in the evenings we had adult extension classes. The school was right next to the Kaohsiung garbage dump you’ve pictured above. When the trucks rolled in at the end of the day and disturbed the trash, the smell that wafted over the school was unbelievable. Sometimes on rainy days they would set the trash on fire, and flakes of ash would rain down on the city, obscene gray snow.
Taliao. Brings back memories.
Stephen reply on February 1st, 2009:
Thanks for the link and info Michael,
Your photo essay covers our very streets. Even the billboards are the same, albeit more faded and dirty. Daliao has hardly changed. The old KMT soldiers miltary housing has been demolished (thankfully), the furnaces slowed down (a little), the working class chaos and disorder… all the same.
But there are some gems around here too. Another photoblog sometime.
[...] is very working class. It sits right on the industrial saturated rural edge of Kaohsiung [...]
Great posts and a nice a site