Hosted by Professor Tse-Kang Leng at the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica (IPSAS), the academic week included four presentations across three institutions.
← Trip · May 24 – June 13, 2026
Taiwan was the centrepiece of the 2026 sabbatical — three weeks spanning academic presentations, scholarly encounters, and a slow journey down the west coast and up the east coast by train.
West-coast down, east-coast up — Taipei → Taichung → Chiayi → Alishan → Kaohsiung → Taitung → Yuli → Hualien → Taoyuan.
May 24–28 · Brother Hotel, Songshan (arranged by IPSAS)
Hosted by Professor Tse-Kang Leng at the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica (IPSAS), the academic week included four presentations across three institutions.
NCCU Graduate Seminar
"China's Rise: Four Scenarios in Search of Evidence"
National Taiwan University
"Sufficiency for All — Exploring Small-Scale, Low-Tech, Pro-Poor Initiatives"
with Professor Phil Hsu
IPSAS, Academia Sinica
"The Allure of Modernization: Guizhou's Shift from Inclusive Development to Indebted Growth"
NCHU, Taichung
"Sufficiency for All: Exploring Small-Scale, Low-Tech, Pro-Poor Development Initiatives"
with Professor Wan-Yu Liu — full-day workshop including tea garden visit, student presentations, and dinner
Taiwan's academic community proved extraordinarily generous. Key meetings:
May 29
NCHU Forestry
A full day in Taichung that became one of the sabbatical's highlights — tea garden visit, keynote, student lab session, and dinner with colleagues across the rural development system. Liu's 2025 FFTC paper on sustainable resource management and inclusive rural development maps almost exactly onto the Small Steps framework. She subsequently introduced contacts at National Taitung University and the University of Kaohsiung.
May 30
Academia Sinica, Institute of Sociology
A conversation that was 100% consistent with Small Steps. Her research on Taiwan's SME resilience thesis — no hollowing out of manufacturing, persistence of tacit knowledge and flexible batch production — directly challenges conventional narratives. Her just-completed paper on vocational education and the casting industry's self-organisation through industry associations is central to understanding how Taiwan's small-scale industrial base reproduces itself.
Jun 1
Academia Sinica, Institute of Political Science
Beer in the evening. A political economist working on welfare state development, labor informality, and democratic governance in Asia. Her work on economic insecurity and populism in Taiwan connects to the Small Steps argument about the political consequences of precarity and the protective value of livelihood diversification.
Jun 2
NCHU Affiliated Taichung Agricultural and Vocational High School
Two hours at one of Taiwan's oldest agricultural vocational schools (founded 1937, now affiliated with NCHU). A living case study in human-scale workforce development: farm management, forestry stewardship, appropriate-technology machinery, and a 100-hectare practice forest. Conversation covered the decline of co-op programs, the tension between vocational and university tracks, and the six-industry (六級產業化) framework as policy.
June 2–5 · Chiayi → Alishan → Kaohsiung
Chiayi served as the base for the mountain leg. The Hinoki Village — a preserved Japanese-era wooden district — and the Chiayi Cultural and Creative Industries Park (a converted 1916 brewery) offer texture on adaptive reuse of colonial-era industrial heritage.
Alishan — overnight June 3–4. The Alishan Forest Railway (narrow gauge, built 1906–1912, appropriate technology scaled to extreme mountain terrain) runs from Chiayi to Alishan in just under five hours, stopping at Fenqihu for lunch. The railway is a Small Steps case in itself: human-scale infrastructure that survived because it was scaled to the landscape. The surrounding tea plantation communities — small-farm, certified, premium-priced Alishan high-mountain oolong — are a working example of quality over volume. Sunrise from the guesthouse, ten minutes' walk, approximately 5:28 a.m.
Kaohsiung — June 5–6. Baseball at Cheng Ching Lake Stadium (TSG Hawks vs Wei Chuan Dragons). Meeting with Professor Hsing-Hao Wu (Vice President, National University of Kaohsiung) on regional development and sustainability in southern Taiwan. Contact with Renaissance Distillery — a craft rum producer using 100% local Taiwanese sugarcane, founded by Olivier Caen and Linya Chiou, whose story of terroir-based, transparency-first, small-batch production is a direct parallel to the Barbados rum cases in Small Steps.
June 6–12 · Taitung → Yuli → Hualien → Taoyuan
The east coast was the research heart of the trip — slower, less developed, more indigenous, and more directly relevant to Small Steps.
Taitung (June 6–7) — Beinan Cultural Park, Dulan evening arts community, Bunun Leisure Farm cultural visit, Tiehua Music Village. Contacts from Professor Liu's network at National Taitung University — Professor Yun-Chi Yeh and President Hsien-Tsung Cheng.
Chishang → Yuli (June 8) — The East Rift Valley. Chishang's rice cooperative and Farmers' Association certification model is analytically central to Small Steps: community-organized, quality-certified, price-premium, ecologically managed. The bicycle ride through paddy fields along the Xiuguluan River is the landscape made legible. Yuli for the Walami Trail and the Iron Bridge.
Hualien (June 9–11) — Taroko Gorge full day. National Dong Hwa University (NDHU) as a potential scholarly hub — the College of Humanities and Social Sciences houses relevant units in sociology, public administration, economics, and Asia-Pacific Regional Studies. Phil Hsu (NTU) facilitated introductions to NDHU scholars working on indigenous poverty and rural development.
Research thread — indigenous communities: A sustained engagement with the question of poverty among Taiwan's indigenous peoples — trends, government policies, and their effectiveness. The Council of Indigenous Peoples' 2021 survey reports indigenous household income at 0.63 times the national average. Community-based approaches — cooperatives, traditional land management, Presbyterian-linked social networks — may be doing what formal state programs cannot. Smangus (司馬庫斯), the Atayal income-sharing cooperative rooted in Presbyterian faith, was identified as a highly significant case but not visited on this trip — a priority for a return.
Some of the sabbatical's most memorable moments were unplanned.
台中路146巷2號之6, South District
Stumbled in on the way to a meeting. One man, every brewing instrument known to humanity, two cats, a harpsichord upstairs, and coffee sourced from around the world. Fifteen minutes to brew and describe a single cup. The antithesis of Starbucks.
Taichung Central District
The same Miyahara group that converted a 1966 bank building into one of Taichung's most extraordinary ice cream and coffee experiences. Adaptive reuse as cultural economy.
Discovered in a Taichung liquor shop
Taiwan's sugarcane history stretches back to Dutch colonial rule in the 1620s; the state Taiwan Sugar Corporation once operated 42 factories. Renaissance Distillery, founded 2017, produces craft rum from 100% local Taiwanese cane juice, winning international medals while refusing to compromise the island-aged character of the product. A Small Steps case in spirits form.
Taichung
End-of-day IPA while waiting for the train to Chiayi. Taiwan's craft beer scene as another register of the small-scale, quality-over-volume argument.
Taiwan's manufacturing SME sector did not hollow out as predicted. Tacit knowledge, flexible batch production, and industry association self-organisation sustained clusters that economists said couldn't survive globalisation. Michelle Hsieh's work is essential here.
The co-op programs linking agricultural and industrial vocational schools to SMEs were the hidden infrastructure of Taiwan's small-scale economy. Their partial decline after the 1990s — as university aspiration displaced vocational identity — is a cautionary case for the Small Steps argument about human-scale workforce development.
Taiwan's adaptation of the Japanese concept (1×2×3=6: primary production × processing × services) is the policy language for keeping agricultural value-added in rural communities rather than letting it flow upstream to processors and distributors. The case studies from the 2015 expert roundtable — Chishang rice, Taitung fruit ice pops, Puli community development associations — are living examples.
The gap between official policy and community reality in Taiwan's indigenous areas is substantial. Formal welfare programs reach some needs; Presbyterian church networks, traditional land stewardship, and cooperative models do the rest. Smangus is the exemplary case.
Professor Liu's work on the Satoyama Initiative Taiwan Partnership — harmonious coexistence of human activity and biodiversity in socio-ecological production landscapes — is the closest Taiwanese policy analogue to the Small Steps framework. The Alishan tea landscape, Chishang paddies, and east coast indigenous community land management are all Satoyama in practice.
| Dates | Accommodation | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| May 24–28 | Brother Hotel, Taipei | IPSAS arranged |
| May 29 | Hotel Euphemia, Taichung | |
| May 30–31 | Papersun Hotel, Shilin | |
| Jun 1 | Hotel Euphemia, Taichung | |
| Jun 2 | Chiayi King Hotel | |
| Jun 3 | Applause In The Mountain, Alishan | Cash only |
| Jun 4 | Chiayi King Hotel | |
| Jun 5 | The Grand Hotel, Kaohsiung | |
| Jun 6–7 | Traveller-Inn Tiehua, Taitung | |
| Jun 8 | Forest 3030 Hostel, Yuli | |
| Jun 9–11 | Cozy House Hostel, Hualien | |
| Jun 12 | Holiday Inn Airport, Taoyuan |
A gallery from Taiwan — Alishan sunrise, Chishang paddies, Hualien gorge, Taipei evenings. To come, once I gather the images from phone and laptop.