Dalun Community Introduction
Dalong Community is located on the west side of the Shui-Shang Interchange of the Zhongshan Highway, specifically 500 meters along the Jia-Pu Highway (County Road 168) towards the direction of the Chiayi County Government. It is an intermediate rural community situated between urban-type and traditional agricultural settlements. The residents' reliance on the land stems not from material demands for economic sustenance, but from a psychological attachment to their homeland. This sentiment has motivated the community's elites to actively engage in community work, collectively striving to create a high cultural standard, focusing on environmental protection and health vitality, with the goal of achieving a beautiful community environment and an ecological organic home for sustainable community operation. Community environmental landscape features - The "Water Reservoir," an essential irrigation facility during the time when water resources were underdeveloped in rural areas. Currently, the community retains two large public ponds, and the adjacent public land has been designed and constructed into a beautiful community nursery garden and Dalong No. 3 Eco-Park by community volunteers in years 92 and 93. The "Community Nursery Garden" was initiated by the community team, establishing a "Garden Mutual Aid Association" that emulates the ancient Chinese spirit of mutual exchange. Utilizing six weekends, they completed a nursery garden spanning over 100 ping. Following this, the original women’s team expanded as many husbands, fathers, and sons joined the community development team, providing a solid human resource foundation for Dalong's community-building work. This strong community consensus has facilitated the smooth success of various activities promoted by the community. The "Dalong No. 3 Eco-Park" is primarily designed with ecological methods. Beyond leisure pavilions and eco-friendly surfaces, it also features composting bins for kitchen waste, demonstrating home-based organic composting methods, with the intention of making the space educational and entertaining. Additionally, the "Dalong Sugar Cane Transfer Station Park" is another significant landscape feature of the Dalong Community. The "Transfer Station" served as a transport hub for sugarcane, which holds an important place in Taiwan's sugar industry culture. In earlier years, the Taiwan Sugar Corporation's "Wufenzi" train used to transport raw sugarcane to the Nanjing Sugar Factory, passing through Dalong Village, which led to the establishment of the Dalong Transfer Station. After the train service ceased, the transfer station fell into disrepair and became a site of neglect until it was rehabilitated through collective efforts of the community. In 2004, the "Dalong Transfer Station Community Exchange Center Establishment Project" received an NT$850,000 subsidy from the Council for Cultural Affairs’ New Homeland Community Building Plan, utilizing ecological construction methods and community participation to clean up over 20 years of buried tracks, rebuild a standard Wufenzi platform, and complete ecological greening and visual beautification work, while also restoring a rare foot-operated water pump. To present the history of the "Transfer Station," they purchased original "raw sugarcane carts" and "molasses carts" from the Taiwan Sugar Corporation to be displayed in the Transfer Station Park. This green, ecologically rich cultural space embodies both spatial regeneration and cultural revitalization, adding a multifunctional community recreational park covering 1,200 ping to the plains of Chiayi County. Dalong Community is a large natural park exclusive to its residents. The community team adheres to the development vision of “Green fills the pond with butterfly dances, Dalong Garden, the homeland of water,” embodying the three principles of making Dalong a garden: mutual aid through labor exchange, ecological construction, and waste reuse, crafting each beautiful corner of the community by hand. When you visit in person, please take the time to enjoy the gorgeous Dalong Garden, where butterflies dance amidst the greenery!
