In recent years, the Ershui International Water Running Festival and the Pink Shower Tree Railway have significantly boosted tourism visibility for Ershui Township. On November 2nd, twenty teachers and students from a Singaporean secondary school visited the township for a cultural exchange and hands-on experience. Their itinerary included a visit to the Tung Tso Luoxi Stone Inkstone workshop to understand traditional craftsmanship and an exciting guava picking experience. In the evening, they savored traditional Taiwanese cuisine at a retro-style restaurant. The visiting group uniformly praised the experience as a unique and enjoyable travel opportunity not available in Singapore.
The annual Ershui International Water Running Festival series and the beautiful Pink Shower Tree Railway have introduced the Ershui Township to many domestic and international tourists. The newly completed Ershui Station has also become a popular check-in spot. Efforts will continue to develop Ershui into a key tourism highlight, blending folk celebrations, rural leisure, and Jiji Railway sightseeing.
For most of the Singaporean teachers and students, this was their first trip to Taiwan and their first encounter with the traditional craft of inkstone making. The founder, Tung Tso, invited the students to craft inkstones made from stone sourced from The Jhuoshuei River and to try using a calligraphy brush, experiencing the traditional culture of Chinese calligraphy. Since Singaporeans are particularly fond of Taiwanese fruits and rural landscapes, the students were thrilled to see the golden waves of ripening rice fields glowing under the setting sun.
The tour then continued to a guava orchard, where the students eagerly participated in fruit picking. The students were very excited, but upon hearing the sound of a train at the Jiji Line railway crossing, they all ran to watch it. Tourism doesn't always require grand mountains and seas; rather, it's about allowing people from different environments to experience diverse lifestyles, ecosystems, and agricultural environments.