In 2001, Mr. Xu Jin-Cai, director of the Mucha Literature and History Studio, happened to see the book “The People of Mushan: Life in a Taiwanese Village” with a collection of photographs taken and collated by Mr. Howard Rusk Long, a visiting professor at the National Chengchi University, and decided to found the Mucha Literature and History Studio to collect some visual and audio records of this land.

Professor Long spent eight months photographing the village thrice each week, taking more than three thousand photos, out of which more than one hundred and fifty were selected for this book and furnished with annotations to express his opinions on the countryside of Taiwan of the time. This book was published in 1960 by the University of Missouri Press.

In these old pictures, the sights of the string noodles baking in the sun and of the workers hanging noodles on the racks serve as a window through which the readers can view the noodles production site of the time, and given the scarcity of pictures of the noodles workshops, this collection of pictures is precious evidence.

Information sources:

• Mucha Literature and History Studio Wenshan Indigenous Education Net  http://mucha.myweb.hinet.net
• The People of Mushan: Life in a Taiwanese Village: A photographic record of life in Mucha of the 1950es.
  by Howard Rusk Long Taipei Nongovernmental Association for Promotion of Community Universities 2004