The setting is the border between Pinghe Village and Zhixue village, located in Shoufeng Township, Hualien—the fourth floor of an apartment building next to a highway. From the elevator, through the hallway and into the room, it is dark and moody. You see only a simple desk, a double bed and a closet in the room. You smell decay and or some other rotten odor from a peephole in the bathroom. Cold sun shoots into the room leftward from a large window. The light shapes the wrinkles of a white bed sheet. Tiny mineral deposits accumulate on the desk due to a nearby sand truck, en route day and night. From afar, outside the window, you can see mountains working up the seashore, vegetation in the valleys, a river, a bridge, a fish farm, a farm house, an elder’s house, a young planted forest, a grocery store, a cemetery, a country road and the empty Highway 11C next to the apartment.
In 2016, I moved away from the village of Wu Chung City after living there for two years. During my time there I would—from time to time—use video recording and writing to trace back over all the surroundings associated with this village.