Xinshe

Xīnshè (新社) is a rural Hakka district spread across a series of river terraces in the hills east of Taichung. Its name, short for “new Indigenous village”, recalls the Kaxabu and other Plains Indigenous peoples resettled onto these terraces in the Qing dynasty era. In the 1930s the Baileng Canal (白冷圳) was cut through the mountains to provide irrigation water for the seasonally dry terraces, tunnelling ridges and bridging ravines on its way from the intake on the upper Dajia River. Relics of the aqueduct survive at the Baileng Canal Memorial Park, near the colonial era agricultural research station it was built to supply. The well-watered terraces now grow flowers, fruit, and mushrooms, drawing crowds each autumn for the district’s celebrated Sea of Flowers (新社花海).