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Ma Kang Fishing Village in Gongliao District of New Taipei City is Taiwan’s eastern most fishing village. Near the coastline there is a huge area of wave-cut platform with intertidal zones that have nurtured numerous marine life. Most of the residents here live on the sea. Some people’s ancestors had settled here since the Qing Dynasty, and their descendants have lived here for several generations. As hundreds of years have passed, the stone houses still stand strong in different corners of the village. The first row of stone masonry was originally built to protect the village from typhoons. The stone masonry, with some parts as wide as 150 cm, has become one of the most famous local features.
Most of the residents only have the ownership of the houses that sit on the land which is leased from the landlord by paying rent. The leasing relationship has been upheld since the old times until now. In 2018, without knowing that the land had been sold to the land developers, more than 20 households in the village received land reclamation notices from the land developers that requested them to move out of the land they had lived for generations.
Through the stories of four villagers, this film documents their life and interviews with one another. From the story of the fisherman who has lived here since childhood, audience can have a glimpse of the life of the locals who earn their livelihood by going to sea, and can feel the fisherman’s helplessness of failing to take time to participate in the anti-forced displacement protest due to economic factors. By hearing the childhood stories of Wen-Ping Jiang who exhausted her family power to defend her homeland, audience can understand the history of the stone houses and the preciousness of the land and culture. The documentary also shows the story of a couple who bought a house in the village and moved here five years before out of their yearning for freedom, and details the process of how they resorted to all means to protect the pristine and beautiful piece of land.
Everyone is working hard to safeguard their homeland and their memories with their families. Although the villagers' application for recognizing Ma Kang Fishing Village settlement buildings as a cultural heritage site was denied by the Cultural Affairs Department of the New Taipei City, instead of giving up, people have continued to do whatever they can to protect their homeland. They begin to invite more people to learn about Ma Kang area through guided tours given by cultural historians and local villagers. In this process, more and more people have joined the ranks of helping Ma Kang Village, and have provided the most powerful backing to the local residents.
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