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Dalun Community

2021-07-19
886-5-3711194
Dalun Community lies on the western side of the Chiapu Highway (County Road 168) at the Shueishang interchange of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway—about 500 meters after exiting the interchange toward the Chiayi County Government. It is a rural settlement that sits between urban and traditional farming villages. Residents’ attachment to the land is less about economic necessity than about the emotional need to stay close to soil and kin. This love of home has inspired local leaders to devote themselves to community work, jointly creating a cultured, eco-conscious, healthy, and vibrant environment. Their goal is a beautiful neighborhood and an organic, ecological homeland, ensuring sustainable development for the community. A distinctive landscape feature—the “storage pond”—was once an essential irrigation facility when water management was rudimentary. Two large public ponds remain; the adjoining public land was transformed in 2003–2004 by community volunteers into an attractive community nursery garden and Dalun No. 3 Eco-Park. The “Community Nursery Garden” originated with the community’s innovative “Garden Co-op,” inspired by the old “labor-exchange” tradition. Six holidays of shared work created a 100-plus-ping (330 m²) nursery. The team then expanded from its original women’s group to include husbands, fathers, and sons, giving Dalun’s community-building a solid manpower base. Thanks to this strong consensus, every community initiative proceeds smoothly. “Dalun No. 3 Eco-Park” relies on ecological engineering. Besides a leisure pavilion and eco-friendly paving, it features a kitchen-waste compost bin demonstrating household organic composting, combining recreation with education. Another landmark is “Dalun Sugar-Station Park.” “Sugar-station” (zhecheng) was a transshipment point for sugarcane, vital to Taiwan’s sugar industry. The narrow-gauge “five-cent” trains once hauled cane to Nanjing Sugar Refinery, passing through Dalun, so a station was built. After service ended, the site fell into disuse—occupied for crops and littered with trash. In 2004 residents secured an NT$850,000 grant from the Council for Cultural Affairs’ “New Hometown” program. Using ecological methods, community labor, and locally purchased materials, they uncovered tracks buried for over twenty years, rebuilt a standard five-cent platform, greened the space, and restored a rare pedal-operated water pump. To showcase the site’s history, two vintage cane cars and a molasses tank were bought back from Taiwan Sugar and displayed. This 1,200-ping (4,000 m²) multifunctional park—lush, ecologically rich, and historically resonant—adds a new leisure space to Chiayi’s plains. Dalun Community is a vast natural park for its residents. Guided by the vision “Butterflies dance o’er ponds aglow—Dalun, our floral home,” they follow three gardening principles: cooperative labor exchange, ecological engineering, and waste reuse, crafting every beautiful corner with their own hands. When you visit, pause to admire the butterflies fluttering above the emerald ponds of Dalun Garden!
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