The Origin

Sweet potato is not afraid of leaving the soil and becoming rotten, it only asks to pass on to the next generation with leaves and branches.Sweet potato sprouts quickly. It doesn’t need too much time until it can spread and grow toward the direction of the sun. Such strong vitality is just like the incarnation of the people in Taiwan, having the same vigor and full of brightness and hope. Sweet potato is very meaningful to Taiwan since it has the homeland memory that everybody living on this island is deeply attached to.

During the days having sweet potato chips, getting barefoot, and playing with bareback, our ancestors sweated and worked hard to cultivate this barren land. It was they who pioneered this wilderness so that we can live on it easily today. Sweet potato also took root on this beautiful island for years and handed down for over several hundred years. When sweet potato blooms, you can see small white trumpets all over, dispersing purity, simplicity, and fragrance mixed with the smell of mud. Taiwan certainly lives up to the beautiful name of 「Formosa – a beautiful island」.

'In early days in Taiwan when 「One sweet potato stick is worth three pieces of rice 」. The price of rice was expensive at the time, and sweet potato became one of the important livelihood commodities. It was also the main dish for the poor. Therefore, sweet potato played a very important role in farming villages. As time goes by, sweet potato has become one of the most popular snacks because it smells so good and tastes so sweet and it can be cooked or roasted as people like. The ration of poor families has turned out to be the healthful agricultural product good for people’s stomachs and intestines. People have realized its nutritional value. All the above have triggered the popularity of sweet potato.

We are of the opinion that, if we desire to know more about sweet potato, we must know the history, culture, philosophy, folklore and customs of the people. Therefore, we chose「The Story of Sweet Potato」as the topic. We hope to expand our perspective of humanity, and to further empathize things from the perspective of sweet potato.

This research project on exploring sweet potato provides us a perspective of humanity. Through the perspective, the trading characters of the Taiwanese people, the interactions among all tribes and groups, and the history of Taiwan from barren land to agriculture and to commerce are vividly presented.