Taiwan’s first Minister of Culture Lung Ying-Tai recently spent four years as a resident in Dulan Village. The textures of life in this ruggedly beautiful, ethnically diverse corner of southeastern Taiwan and her lyrical descriptions of its lush yet harsh natural landscape deconstruct and advocate for new perspectives on coexistence.

When she relocates to Dulan Village on southeastern Taiwan’s Pacific Coast, former Taiwan Minister of Culture Lung Ying-Tai makes experiencing “life” and its manifold subtleties a primary goal of her time there. Lung sees in the natural environs of her new home a museum without walls, viewing coastal mountain cliffs and star-filled skies as its permanent exhibitions and earthquakes and rainstorms as special exhibitions. In taking from nature a more humble perspective on life, Lung ponders how our relationship with other species might change if humanity were to cede its singular control over world affairs.


Beyond providing a record of a life in the “wilderness”, Lessons from Dulan delves into some of the thorniest issues challenging both contemporary ecological ethics and our own long-term sustainability as a species, with extant threats from water shortages and pesticides providing a lens into our self-imposed alienation from nature. Through vivid descriptions of watching wild boar cross a mountain valley, experiencing a hornet sting, crossing paths with a snake, and socializing over drinks with her newest “old friends” in the village, Lung shows how embracing the contours of life can transform anxiety and fear of the unknown into new understanding and respect.


Lessons from Dulan delivers a lively, poetically written narrative of the author’s lived experience in Dulan, with thoughtful insights and the philosophical framing given to observations of nature creating a story for both the mind and heart.