Budai Salt Fields Introduction
Bùdài began developing salt fields during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. In the third year of the Daoguang era, the wealthy salt merchant Wu Shangxin further expanded the salt fields, establishing the foundation for Bùdài's salt production industry. During the Japanese occupation, the salt fields in Bùdài matured, making the then Bùdài Port an important salt transport harbor, exporting Bùdài's salt to China and Japan. The bright white salt fields once held a "platinum" level of industrial status. Like other regions' salt fields, traditional salt workers have largely been replaced by mechanized salt production, leading to the decline of Bùdài's salt industry. The vast salt fields no longer showcase scenes of sun-drying or salt harvesting, and the small trains that once traversed the salt fields are long retired. The entrance monument to Bùdài Salt Mountain, titled "Millennium Bùdài," is a work by internationally renowned sculptor Li Liangren. After two months of design and several returns to his hometown of Bùdài, he infused creativity inspired by nostalgia and memory. Standing nearly seven meters tall with a base width of five meters, this sculpture is composed of copper plates arranged in wave patterns, hand shapes of sails, and streamlined wings, symbolizing the ocean, sunshine, passion, and life. The copper sculpture contains abstract representations of Bùdài's specialties such as fish, salt, oysters, and crabs, as well as the sun that crystallizes seawater into salt. The light and shadows created by the hollowed parts of the sculpture infinitely extend the viewer's imagination and perspective. (Source: new idea, issue 190, Article by Wu Deliang) Taiwan Salt Industrial Corporation Third Factory.
