{"id":23617,"date":"2025-01-19T22:59:22","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T03:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/?p=23617"},"modified":"2025-01-20T12:04:40","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T17:04:40","slug":"alishan-national-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2025\/01\/19\/alishan-national-forest\/","title":{"rendered":"Alishan National Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>       We visited the mountains of Alishan during our trip and saw a variety of beautiful scenes, from 15-foot-wide trees to mile-wide valleys. What I found most interesting about this forest was the culture and reverence surrounding it. In Alishan, many of the trees are considered sacred and are thought to bring nourishment to the land and its people. There were numerous trees in this forest, ranging from 500 to even 1,100 years old. It felt different from national parks in the U.S., as there was a palpable sense of respect from all the visitors. There was no trash, no loud noises, and no distractions from the sanctity of the trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-8-768x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23574\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-8-768x1024.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-8-225x300.png 225w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-8-1152x1536.png 1152w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-8-300x400.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-8-850x1133.png 850w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-8.png 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>       Within the forest, we encountered a different type of temple than any we had seen in Taiwan so far. Unlike the \u201ccity\u201d God temples we had visited, this was a \u201cforest\u201d God. The forest God prioritized the animals, plants, and the health of the forest, whereas the city Gods focused on protecting people. This belief led to the construction of a shrine within the forest, as the locals thought they needed to ward off mischievous and destructive spirits that the forest God couldn\u2019t touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-21-768x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23620\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-21-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-21-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-21-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-21-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-21-300x400.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-21-850x1133.jpeg 850w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-21-scaled.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>       Overall, Alishan felt very different from the Redwood forests of California. There seemed to be a shared respect and reverence for the forest, a feeling I\u2019ve rarely encountered in my travels around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"774\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-22-774x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23622\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-22-774x1024.jpeg 774w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-22-227x300.jpeg 227w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-22-768x1016.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-22-1161x1536.jpeg 1161w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-22-300x397.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-22-850x1125.jpeg 850w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-22.jpeg 1179w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 774px) 100vw, 774px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We visited the mountains of Alishan during our trip and saw a variety of beautiful scenes, from 15-foot-wide trees to mile-wide valleys. What I found most interesting about this forest was the culture and reverence surrounding it. In Alishan, many of the trees are considered sacred and are thought to bring nourishment to the land&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":933,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[421],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-taiwan-field-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/933"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23617"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23623,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23617\/revisions\/23623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}