Interested in taking a short vacation and biking across fascinating views? For the project, Discover myself, JK will be arranging bike tours in Taiwan, with the hopes of offering a memorable biking experience for the JK community. As Taiwan is known for its natural beauty, this is a great opportunity for bike lovers to tour across beautiful scenery with JK designed bikes. Nature is the best place to recuperate. It can reduce stress, fight depression, enhance immunity and healing power. There are more than 800,000 Taiwanese indigenous people, and these indigenous tribes are located all across of Taiwan. Indigenous people are children of the mountains and seas, natural healing is an important part of their life. During the tour, you will be able to meet and learn about the lifestyle of Taiwanese indigenous people. Titled Discover myself, our JK Bike Tour emphasizes on getting to understand ourselves better through exploration.
Check out photos of our JK Bike Tour here.
Bicycle Bootcamp
Since this is a bicycle focused tour, it is important to have an adequate amount of bicycle knowledge to achieve the most optimal riding experience. Thus, the trip will begin with professional instructors teaching everyone the basic knowledge and theory behind bicycles and cycling, as well as how to maintain and repair your bicycles. Whether you are a beginner or veteran rider, these instructors will compromise to the level of your skill, which means all types of riders are welcomed!
Bike Tour
Once the bootcamp is completed, the exploration will begin. For JK Bike Tour, the location we have selected is Yuli Township, which has beautiful designated bicycle sites for bikers to explore. In Yuli, there are two main indigenous tribes, Amis and Bunun. Amis is the largest indigenous group, taking up approximately 37% of Taiwan’s total indigenous population. During the tour, you will have the chance to experience Amis’ food culture, which is special because of their natural environment. The three main features of their food culture is their love for seafood, rich knowledge of edible wild herbs, and special salted raw meat. Similar to other cultures, Amis also have their unique music and art forms, such as slab woodcarving. While cycling and enjoying the views, these are the small things you can experience throughout your journey from JK Bike Tour.
Charity
While picking the JK Bike Tour location, we found out about the story of Yves Moal, a 79 year old priest from France who has ran a Catholic Church in Taiwan for many decades. Moal moved to Taiwan when he was still in his twenties, and he has dedicated a large portion of his life to help those who are disadvantaged. In addition to running the church, Moal also works on several projects such as organizing the recycling center and a secondhand store to sell donated used goods. These projects offered the disadvantaged a place to contribute and become impactful, opportunities that weren’t given to them from society. We were touched by his kindness and loving heart, which is the reason we decided to donate a portion of the earnings from our bike tour to help his Catholic Church.
discover myself
News report on TANA Culture and Joseph Kuosac Bike Tour (English Subtitle added)
Read articles about this project:
Article by Keng Sheng Daily News (written in traditional Chinese): http://www.ksnews.com.tw/index.php/news/contents_page/0001407706
Photo: Tana Culture Co-working Space leading the route-exploration bicycle team through the Batongguan Traversing Trail Bicycle Charity event. The income generated from the event will be donated to Yuli Catholic Church.
Bicycle Brand and Local Studio Cooperation
Introducing Batongguan Traversing Trail Through Biking
Also Hiking on the Waravi Trail
Report by Yi Ling Liu
Joseph Kuosac, a luxury bicycle manufacture brand, has joined Tana Culture Co-working Space, a local Yuli studio, for the “Biking for Humanity” event, held on the 23rd and 24th of August.
The event was intermediated through Ah-Lang of the Bunun Tribe from the Zhouxi Township, Joseph Kuosac supplies 20 bicycles, and Tana Culture Co-working Space plans the entire charity event. All proceeds from this event will be donated to the Yuli Catholic Church.
Rev. Yves Moal Prays for Safety
Tana Culture Co-working Space has shared that Rev. Yves Moal has been praying for the safefy of the event sine day 1. Starting from the Batongguan Traversing Trail east entrance, Biking for Humanity introduces the Batongguan Traversing Trail, the Yuli Japanese Shrine, Yuli Veteran Memorial, the Taluk Tribe Memorial, and the Excavation Memorial through bicycle touring. Upon arriving the Waravi Trail, the group begin hiking, entering Bunun Tribe’s Bear Country.
After 1.6 kilometer of trail hiking and the immersion of natural forest, the group goes onto the Shanfong Suspension Bridge 2. The guide then proceeds to explain the Bunun Tribe’s culture and tradition, their relationship with nature, as well as the plantation and folklores. The event participants have learned much about Zhuoxi and Yuli’s history through biking, making the experience much more enjoyable.
Day 2 begin with Yuli’s Biking Trail, possibly world’s only trail resting on the boundary of two continental plates. Tana Culture Co-working Space explains that the biking trail used to be a locomotive track, it grows two to three centimeters in height every year due to Eurasian plate and Philippines plate colliding. Therefore, when the Taiwan Railway updated the locomotive routes in 1989, this locomotive track has since been changed to a bicycle trail.
Taiwan Bike Association’s bicycle coach, Ming-Yan Chen, leads the event group with professionality, correcting each participants’ riding posture as the event goes. Chen would explain that being sore is the result of poor posture. Riders can learn the proper posture as they ride, this is also Biking for Humanity’s goal.
Article by Seoul Shinmun (written in Korean and translated to English below): https://m.seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20200827500104&cp=seoul#csidx42c5043c0b560d0bc7573dd0f9cf12b
Taiwan is one of the countries where indigenous culture coexists. Leisure activities in the outdoors are in the spotlight due to concerns about the corona 19 infection in an enclosed space, and Taiwan is showing tours that utilize indigenous culture.
“Joseph Kuosac,” a premium professional bicycle parts company, has planned a trip to explore an indigenous village on a bicycle. Indigenous peoples of different languages and cultures give an exotic feel even within the same country. The trip to explore the villages of the Amei and Bunung in the Hualien region in eastern Taiwan is conducted by bicycle. The tour travels through Taiwan’s nature and old, but affectionate villages, and the tour proceeds are donated to a local Catholic church.
What is special about this trip is that you can also meet a small number of natives in Taiwan. It is known that Taiwanese natives make up only 2.38% of the people. Consisting of a total of 16 tribes, the Amei make up about 37% of all tribes, and have the largest population.
▲ JK (Joseph Kuosac) tour team listening to the explanation of Father Eve Moal of the Catholic Church in Hualien.
The people of Taiwan are made up of natural people, foreigners, and indigenous peoples. The intrinsic person, who is called Taiwanese, refers to the Han Chinese, and the foreign person refers to the people of the Kuomintang party who came to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek after the Korean Civil War in 1949. And the people who lived there before they moved to the island of Taiwan are called natives.
Malay indigenous people lived on the island of Taiwan, and the Han Chinese migrated during the 17th to 19th centuries, and the natives became Han Chinese. Indigenous peoples were divided into indigenous peoples living in the plains and indigenous peoples living in the high mountain areas, and the indigenous peoples living in the plains were united into the Han Chinese through marriages with the Han Chinese. They have their own language and culture, and they have maintained their own culture to this day.
Overseas travel is difficult due to Corona 19, and not only Taiwan but also countries are discovering travel products that utilize domestic resources. If the Corona 19 pandemic is over, you might be able to travel around the world with more fun. At that time, why don’t you go to meet the natives of Taiwan?
Writer: Kang Kyung-min
Joseph Kuosac 