The history that Taiwanese people can't forget!
We start departure at 8:30am to a 寺廟(sìmìao) and wait for Jiaxian government members pray for the festival on next Sunday. Zhang Qi introduce us to the Mayor and others people. After that we had breakfast and then head to Xiaoli around 9:30 for the Requiem of Xiaolin incident.
Xiaolin Memorial house was build inside Xiaolin park after the landslide incident 8/9/2009 that destroyed Xiaolin village and buried more than 600 people in the Typhoon Morakot. Typhoon Morakot brought more than 60% of the average rainfall (about 2440–3270 mm) and 85% of the total rainfall in 2009. This excessive rainfall from Typhoon Morakot resulted in a landslide to occur at 6:17 a.m. on 9 August 2009.
The place to remember and mourn.
The Memorial park was opened on January 15, 2012 to commemorate the victim. Every year, the relatives of victim will gather at the Memorial house to pray for them. We also join the pray, listen to the story and share the condolatory with them. In the Xiaolin Memorial park, there are names of people who died in the landslide, for their relatives who still alive can come visit, remember and mourn for the death.
Outside there is a special place that divided into blocks, each block has a newly grow tree with the name of the family, which mean their house for them to come back. In each block also has a long black piece of wood, for the death’s relative when they come to visit, they can sit down, facing the tree, that angle is head to the place where the village once was. They arrange that to allow visitor or relative when they visit, they will sit down on the black wood, and looking at the direction to the old village and remember the old time or their passed away family, relatives.
The pain that all must know and learn from.
Even after 10 years since the catastrophe happened in 8/8/2009, the people in Jiaxian still remember about the incident and mourning for the victim. While taking us around and introduce about the place, we can still see and feel the pain and sad of JingGo when he tells us the story and the past of Xiaolin, he also has lost relative in the incident.
People and the victim’s relatives still hold the requiem and pray for them, showing the pain of their lost. The memorial park also shows the care of other communities and government to Xiaolin people, and I think it will raise people awareness and know more to help them prepare and defend themselves for catastrophe.
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