A single photo my sister sent me made me decide, without hesitation — it was time to go home.

My name is Basagala (Hsieh Cheng-yi), a member of the Rukai people.

After graduating from elementary school, I left my village for the city to study — from junior high to university. I first studied hospitality, then switched to business. After graduation, I joined the military and served for seven years, eventually becoming a sergeant. The pay was stable, life was comfortable. I thought I had found my path — until one day, a photo from home changed everything.

In the picture, my mother was kneeling in the field, harvesting millet.
Because she couldn’t afford fertilizer, the soil was weak and the millet grew short — she had to kneel to pick it.
That moment struck me deeply — not only out of heartache for my mother, but also as a silent question to myself: What am I really doing with my life?

So, I decided to go home.

At first, my family called me du-pau — a “city indigenous person.”
They couldn’t understand why I’d give up a stable city life to return home and farm.

I gave myself three years to start from zero.

I borrowed two plots of land from my grandmother and made a promise: no pesticides, no chemical fertilizers.
For the first six months, I focused only on healing the soil — treating the land with care and respect.
I learned not just from books, but from the vuvu (elders), listening to how they used to farm when they were young — how crops once grew naturally, how the soil used to smell and taste.

When my first batch of peanuts was harvested, my grandmother took one bite and wept.
She said, “This is the taste of my childhood.”

In that moment, I knew — I was on the right path.
I told her, “When you farm organically and kindly, the peanuts have a sweetness that returns to you.
Crops grown with chemicals may look fine, but they have no soul, no taste.
If we take care of the land, the land will take care of us.”

Later, together with Wusaan, I co-founded LI.KA CAFE — not just a coffee shop, but a space to share the power of sustainability.
From farm to table, every drink tells a story — whether made with prickly ash, maqaw, or roselle — each sip carries the truest flavor of the land.
And through it, more people have begun to support small farmers who practice eco-friendly farming.

Last year, with the help of the Tse-Xin Organic Agriculture Foundation, I brought baking classes into local schools.
But this wasn’t just about baking — it was about helping children rediscover their cultural roots through food.
I wanted them to reconnect with traditional flavors, to plant a seed of curiosity about their culture and the land.
Someday, whether they stay or leave the village, I hope that when they talk with their families or remember their childhood, they’ll recall these tastes — and where their roots come from.

I’ve always believed that education is one heart influencing another.
Through each workshop, a small seed of cultural awareness is planted

Every visit to a school feels like a journey home —
each step, each taste,
piecing together a fuller sense of self —
rediscovering connection to the land,
and reclaiming that pride of once again standing barefoot upon it.