From Hsinchu, Yi-zih and I took the high speed train to Meinung in the south. The train station area in Hsinchu was farmland until recently. There are massive new apartment buildings with many empty apartments. Amidst the new buildings the open areas look neglected and weedy, marking time till the developers come. The train was on time, clean and fast with spacious seats. Whizzing past, I glimpsed the countryside – in mountainous areas, little villages with intense plantings of palms, tea, rice paddies. On the plains and wide river basins – more rice paddies, onions, fruit. Large areas of shaded crops – Yi-zih said it was papaya. No wasted space. Houses and factories with rice fields right up next to them. A few small corn fields. A dairy – animals under sheds. A man with no protective clothing spraying a crop. A lone person hoeing. A crew harvesting. Plastic greenhouses, a field of uncovered hoops. Low tunnels. A cemetery. Poultry – also entirely under sheds. In the Meinung area – large plantings of bananas and papayas and what I thought were palm trees, but Yi-zih explained were beetle nut trees