雲上初秋
● 展覽介紹 Exhibition Statement：
1960年代初期，政府在梨山地區成立武陵和福壽山兩座高山農場，安置闢建中橫公路的國軍退除役官兵，並在1973 年招募160 餘位退伍官兵前往距離福壽山農場5公里的華崗地區，開墾原始林種植溫帶水果。這是華崗第一批移民。華崗夏季易起霧不適溫帶果樹成長，但卻適合種植高麗菜，因而吸引許多平地農民到華崗種菜，由於高山地形崎嶇起伏，少有平坦土地，因此需要大量的勞動力從事農作，高額工資又吸引許多失聯移工來此工作，成為華崗人口最多的住民。50年來的華崗，先是榮民進駐，而後是平地農民上來，再來是東南亞失聯移工，不同世代的出外人在海拔2000公尺的高山農業區，在深山中的深中，構築一個迥異於平地，平行的台灣。僅存的兩位老榮民心繫中國原鄉，說台語講客語的農民老闆與山下生活無異，為數最多的東南亞移工，更是過著自外於台灣社會，獨立運行著沒在打折扣的越南和印尼的生活文化，他們的飲食、娛樂、信仰與遙遠的故鄉呼應，與台灣社會幾無連結。深山裡的異國、破敗的山村、豐產的高麗菜、形形色色的出外人交織成荒謬的、末世感的高山社會，就因著名為「初秋」的高麗菜！
In the early 1960s, the Taiwan government opened two alpine farms, Wuling Farm and Fushou Mountain Farm, to place the veterans who have built the Central Cross-Island Highway. In 1973, the government recruited more than 160 veterans to turn the primary forest in the Hua-Gang area, which is about 5 KM from the Fushou Mountain Farm, into orchards that grow temperate fruits. These veterans were the first batch of settlers of the Hua-Gang area. The summer season in the Hua-Gan area tends to be foggy, which is not an ideal growing condition for temperate fruit trees; however, it is ideal for growing cabbages. As a result, many farmers in the plains trekked up to Hua-Gang to grow cabbages. The terrains in Hua-Gang required a large number of laborers to turn them into farmlands; many migrant workers were thus attracted to this area. They later became the largest group of residents in Hua-Gang. Over the past 50 years, Hua-Gang has seen first the veterans, then the farmers from the plains, and later the migrant workers from Southeast Asia. Generations of “outsiders” have lived in this alpine agricultural area, at an altitude of 2,000 meters. Altogether, they have constructed a parallel Taiwan, in the deepest part of the mountains, that is very different from the Taiwan that we know. The very last two senior veterans are still thinking about China, where they were originally from. The farmer bosses, who speak Taiwanese or Hakka, lead a life that is not at all different from the one in the plains. The Southeastern Asian migrant workers, whose population is the largest in the area, are living in a lifestyle that resembles the ones in their home countries such as Vietnam or Indonesia. What they eat, how they entertain, and how they practice their religions, still echo that of their homelands and are not at all connected to the society’s norms in Taiwan. Because of the famed “early fall” cabbages, the exotic cultures hidden in the mountains, the dilapidated mountain villages, the cabbage harvests, and the generations of outsiders are intertwined into an absurd, apocalyptic alpine society.
