Wuren Valley’s Fifth Year: Believing in Goodness, Realising Goodness

16 June 2026 marks the fifth anniversary of Wuren Valley. With the rain clearing and the sky fresh, I hurried to the roof to take some photographs. The forecast calls for continuous rain; according to the old saying, this twenty-day stretch—ten days before and ten days after—is the ‘Dragon Boat Rain’ (traditional term for pre-festival downpours). The rainy season typically ends only after the Dragon Boat Festival.

High temperatures combined with plentiful rainfall have the plants at Wuren Valley growing wild. Waking early each day to patrol the garden brings new discoveries; the changes are visible to the naked eye overnight. The dragon fruit I’ve been tending for two years loves the heat. While people wilt in the warmth, dragon fruit blooms. One day it’s just a bud; the next, I look again and the enormous flower has bowed its heavy head. This rampant growth isn’t entirely a blessing, though. Leave the weeds for just a few days and they declare their own independent state; soon there’s no path to walk.

◉In just a few days, the dragon fruit flower goes from bud to full bloom. If the heavens are kind, it will set sweet fruit.

Now at Wuren Valley, I need to buy nothing except salt. In truth, I could go without buying that too. The surrounding hills are dotted with saltbush (Rhus chinensis), whose fruits wear a crust of salt in autumn. If one isn’t fussed about the hassle, you can harvest them, soak them in water, and make your own salt—but I am.

Over five years, I have not only built a self-sufficient one-person farm, but my health metrics have also steadily improved.

From construction to refinement

Looking back on my arrival at Wuren Valley and those initial days of breaking the ground, it was a period of rapid, day-by-day progress. I came here armed with three years of horticultural experience from both sides of the strait, so I was no greenhorn. I had a clear vision for a one-person farm and enough confidence to sketch out a self-sufficient homestead on this barren land.

Yet after a year of digging ditches, shaping slopes, and planting trees and flowers, my first task the following spring was still to hire an excavator. The farming experience I gained in Taiwan and the year I previously spent cultivating land in Dawudi needed time to adjust to the real-world conditions at Wuren Valley. The basic framework—road layouts and irrigation channels—was dictated by the topography and hardly needed changing. But one rainy season was enough to reveal that my understanding of ‘drainage’, as a northerner, was far too superficial. The drainage system had to be replanned and re-dug entirely. Keeping chickens on the roadside hillside was fine, and the surrounding netting seemed adequate enough, but chickens have wings and can fly. Perched on the slope, they would simply flap their wings, clear the lower net, and break free with ease. To raise the netting, I had to call in the excavator again to grade the steep slope into a gentler incline. Later, to achieve a ‘chicken-centric design’ for free-range keeping within a small area, I brought in an ‘excavator, loader, and dump truck’ combination. We hauled in more than ten truckloads of rich pond silt to cushion the slope and improve the soil, planting in designated zones tailored to the chickens’ needs.

Over the past five years, I’ve lived through many similar stories. This year’s minor adjustments centre around the water lily pond. Originally, I had planned for the edges to be lined with blooming roses. Over five years, I’ve spent no less than a thousand yuan on rose seedlings and mature plants of every variety, yet only a handful have survived.

Roses are plagued by too many pests and diseases, and I refuse to use chemicals. Coupled with the heavy moisture around the pond, the environment simply does not suit them. This year, I finally accepted reality and decided to stop replanting altogether, opting instead to circle the pond with daylilies. I originally dug these starters by hand from a friend’s garden and carried them home on my bicycle, so the initial batch was understandably small. Over several years, those first few plants have multiplied dozens of times over and now thrive in full glory at Wuren Valley. Daylilies are tough, easy to grow, and love moisture. Planted around the pond’s edge, they will quickly form a magnificent golden ring of blooms.

◉ The daylilies now growing by the road at my door began as just a small sprig when I first planted them.

This year, the lotus patch in the ditch has finally started to look like a proper lotus pond. Beneath the lotus leaves lie three years’ worth of sunk costs. I began planting lotuses here three years ago; all manner of seedlings and lotus seeds from various places were sunk here. I kept trying despite repeated failures, and it wasn’t until last year that the surviving red lotuses finally began to establish themselves. This year, the white lotuses have finally taken root.

◉Blooming water lilies and daylilies along the bank. The creek is finally starting to look a bit like a lotus pond. It’s a wild ditch where invasive apple snails run rampant, the current turns swift during heavy rain, and it used to be a playground for the neighbours’ ducks – all of which posed a lethal threat to the young lotus leaves. Just managing to keep these lotus leaves safe this year is quite an achievement.

There are also challenges that simply cannot be overcome. Citrus thrives here: pomelos, honey mandarins, jelly oranges, navel oranges… I planted over twenty trees. In spring they bloom, filling the garden with fragrance. Citrus blossoms are white and sweetly perfumed, so fragrant they stir the soul. But inevitably the pests arrive, stripping the leaves entirely bare. As I do not use pesticides, I simply have to tough it out, waiting for the pests to gorge themselves, mate, lay eggs, burrow underground and pupate, until the denuded branches push out fresh shoots.

Last year the hibiscus put on a spectacular display, and I assumed this year would be just as lavish. I was clearly over-optimistic. This year the pests beat the flower buds to it—a breed of large red bug I hadn’t seen in years, blanketing the leaves in thick clusters. There was no other option but to tough it out. To be a plant in Wuren Valley is to forgo pesticides and train in resilience alongside me. Those that endure stay on this soil; those that falter are left behind.

The broad-scale adjustments took three years, after which the work shifted to fine-tuning. In truth, Wuren Valley reached a basic level of self-sufficiency by its third anniversary, once the core infrastructure for both living and growing areas was in place. The next task was to shift from “construction” to “refinement”. From year three to four, the focus of refinement was on polytunnels. From year four to the present, it has been about “harnessing sunlight”, specifically by upgrading the trellis system.

All living things grow by the sun. Last year, I erected a trellis over the main path for entering and leaving the farm. It proved to be a clever solution: plants compete for sunlight to thrive, while humans seek shade and avoid the heat, making it a perfect win-win. The pumpkin vines on the trellis flourished last year. I started early this year, carefully refining the hastily erected structure so it was no longer a messy makeshift job, but neat, straight, and orderly. The pumpkins grow unencumbered, a joy to behold—another win-win. Now the pumpkins have entered their vigorous growth phase. In a month’s time, the vines will blanket the trellis, heavy with fruit.

◉The left image shows the trellis grid at the entrance, photographed on 16 June just as the skies cleared after a long stretch of rain. Ten days later, it had transformed into the scene on the right.

Wuren Valley has long since finished its major projects. Beyond planting and harvesting the main crops, days now follow a steady rhythm of routine maintenance, such as weeding. It is something I do every day, year-round, and it feels endless. But so what? Every weed pulled is a small improvement. Although the change is hardly visible to the naked eye, without it, the place would quickly be choked with rampant weeds, perhaps making it impossible to put a foot down. In a way, this kind of labour is a form of self-cultivation—a practice driven by “belief”, the quiet conviction that I am slowly making things better, one small step at a time.

Five years, bit by bit, and Wuren Valley has gradually softened, growing ever more suited to me, like an old cotton shirt.

No longer living as a modern person within the industrial food system

Pumpkins entered an ‘era of never running out’ last year. This year’s new crop is already here, while dozens of last year’s keepers—large and small—still wait. I absolutely love this feeling of having a household full of pumpkins; it feels so abundant, almost luxurious. Whenever the pumpkin-eating crew cuts open a new one to taste, a slight difference of opinion sees it promptly tossed to the chickens. This year’s daylilies are following suit; endless buds promise a season that will surely be drowning in blooms.

The initial decision to find a place to run a self-sufficient one-person farm was, of course, largely driven by ideals and a philosophy of natural living; there was a goal ahead pulling me forward. But there were also reasons behind me that I wanted to flee. As a modern person navigating everyday life, reaching my forties and fifties, I realised this body had accumulated its share of problems. The one-way street of life had already turned downward.

Around the age of forty, symptoms began to appear: fatigue, indigestion, restless sleep… Nothing catastrophic, but a constant string of minor ailments. I visited doctors and took prescribed medication, but there was no real improvement, nor did things worsen. The doctor attributed it to “perimenopausal symptoms”. Looking at people my age, it seemed we were all dealing with the same thing; the doctor also remarked that modern urban ailments were a widespread condition, which did sound plausible.

I was deeply concerned about this downward spiral getting out of control, and I wanted to see whether I could truly take the helm of my own life. So, at the age of forty, I resigned from my public sector job and moved north at a relatively late stage in life to work in the charity sector. I believed life should be governed by personal choice; one ought to be the master of one’s own fate and could choose to move upward. But at fifty, my immune system collapsed, and my body and mind sank to rock bottom. I even found myself thinking of Stephen Hawking, acutely aware that I lacked his formidable willpower. If I could not break free from this state of helplessness, I would certainly have chosen to end it all myself. When I wanted to steer upward but my body refused to cooperate, the priority became simply halting the decline.

In reality, I ended up taking a third path. After two years of farming in Taiwan and finding true love, I discovered that despite having zero rural experience, I was practically a natural-born farmer. Once I started farming, the backaches vanished, the stomach pains faded, and sleeping became effortless. I stopped wrestling with existential questions about life and death, and my mind became entirely occupied with the practical matter of how to live better.

Back then, I used to think that a farming novice like me could survive in the countryside only because the conditions in Shengou Village in Yilan—widely regarded as Taiwan’s first organic farming village—were simply too favourable. The area boasted a comprehensive support network made up of more than two hundred local farming neighbours. I wanted to take on the challenge: to find a new place, start from scratch, and see whether I could survive purely by making a living off the land with my own hands, without that surrounding support network to fall back on.

I wanted to see whether someone approaching sixty could still steer their life in an upward direction. If a person like me can clear a patch of land and build a self-sufficient home from the ground up, then surely most people can too.

Five years ago today, I arrived at Wuren Valley. Five years on at Wuren Valley have yielded more than just a self-sufficient one-person farm; my health markers are steadily improving, too. It would seem that lifestyle can reshape the physical well-being of modern people.

Two years ago, my blood test report came back with three arrows flagging out-of-range values: total cholesterol was slightly elevated, while my HDL was high and my LDL low. The doctor explained that as long as HDL is high and LDL is low, there is no cause for concern; cholesterol is an important “building material” for the body, so a slightly higher level is not a problem.

When I had another check-up recently, my total cholesterol had actually dropped. The change is likely down to eating more eggs. I used to be advised to stick to a maximum of two a day, with the restriction based on the cholesterol content in the yolks. However, a fair amount of recent evidence suggests we need not be so restrained; since the body synthesises most of its own cholesterol anyway, eating more eggs can actually help lower it. There are even documented cases of people consuming over twenty a day for long periods without issue. I do not go to such extremes—I eat five or six home-laid chicken or duck eggs daily, and if the supply dips below four, I supplement with protein powder. My most immediate reason for eating so many eggs was simply that we had a surplus, and it would have been a pity to let them go to waste. Coincidentally, this habit seems to have borne out that latter theory.

These days, I happily manage the crops and the chickens, enjoy every meal, and feel in top form. I have got “straight A’s on all four health report cards”, with check-up results better than twenty years ago. Ageing does not inevitably spell physical decline, nor do modern people have to be riddled with modern ailments. Even amidst the myriad pitfalls of contemporary living, we still retain our agency; we can shape our own lives through the choices we make.

In an era where food systems and lifestyles have been thoroughly industrialised and commodified, those living within them must at least recognise the problems before they can hope to make a different choice. Wuren Valley allows me to shut the gate and make a living off the land, deliberately stepping aside from the elephant in the room: the modern industrial food production and distribution system. Yet, having finally achieved self-sufficiency here, I feel no smug relief in watching the rest of the world burn from a safe distance. Instead, I am constantly driven by a sense that I must do something.

This year, alongside the ongoing refinement of various details at Wuren Valley, I fulfilled another modest wish by taking on a task that is not exactly my forte: writing a series of reflections on the modern food system. The pieces highlight the risks while offering practical examples and methods to avoid them. I covered everything from refined vegetable oils and refined carbohydrates to sugars, beverages, snacks, and fruit, concluding the series with an examination of “food additives”. I believe that in the real world, people seeking to maximise their wellbeing and minimise harm can indeed make a difference through daily habits and the food on their plates. I have done what I can; what readers take away from these words, how they choose to change, and what impact it has on their lives, will depend entirely on their own journey.

I shall settle back into Wuren Valley and enjoy my quiet life within my comfort zone. These days, I cut myself a great deal more slack, having learned to let myself off the hook in many areas.

◉“Ploughing and daydreaming; no visitors” — this is the sign hanging at the entrance to Wuren Valley.

Meeting hooliganism with a calm disposition

Another significant matter over the past year: a malicious smear campaign from Baidu AI.

Baidu AI “sentenced” me to ‘extortion… ten years and three months’ imprisonment’. I have to admit, I initially lost my cool. The fabrication laid bare my origins, hometown, charity work, and published writings, parading them in public alongside the false charges.

When a dog bites you, you don’t bite back like a dog, but you can’t let those without limits act with impunity either. So I hired a lawyer to take Baidu to court.

Suing a company as unscrupulous as Baidu is a deeply trying ordeal. Facing down a hooligan who proudly stirs the muck is nauseating for anyone. As we approach the one-year mark, Baidu has refused to admit fault, offer an apology, or pay compensation. Instead, they’ve manufactured fresh lies to keep the smear campaign alive.

Fortunately, I’m holding up well—my mind is at ease and my emotions are steady.

I have to admit there was a rough patch when I couldn’t eat or sleep. I knew I couldn’t let their tactics ruin my life, yet I found myself inexorably pulled into the maelstrom. Thankfully, I’ve weathered it, returned to normal, and filed a new lawsuit over Baidu’s latest fabrications.

This year I’ve juggled the legal battle with my usual farm chores—spring planting and harvesting. I gathered around six kilograms of rapeseed and nearly twenty kilograms of wheat, and put in maize, peanuts, soya beans, black beans, and other pulses. The peanuts in the garden are thriving now and should be ready for harvest in another month. It was on the day I harvested peanuts last year that I first came across Baidu’s lie. Throughout this past year, alongside the lawsuit, I’ve taken on a few new side pursuits, such as filing complaints and reports with the relevant authorities. Thanks to Baidu, I’ve spent my sixties unlocking new skills once again.

Reflecting on this year’s bizarre turn of events, I’m fairly pleased with myself. Despite encountering such absurd circumstances, I still believe in goodness, and I’ve kept my capacity to create it.

– This is Foodthink’s 820th original article –