September to January is the persimmon season in Taiwan, and one valley in Hsinchu has become a mecca for photographers and tourists thanks to the beautiful sight of thousands of golden persimmons drying in the sun during the winter. The dried persimmon industry languished for almost two decades, but now, with the revival of traditional techniques, tourist farms are thriving as never before. Our Sunday special report. This persimmon orchard contains 200 individual trees. Visitors can enter for free, and feast their eyes on the branches heaving with fruit, while enjoying a detailed introduction from the tour guide.The guide is the farm owner’s sister, Liu Chuying, who retired from a government job a few years ago to return to her home town and sell persimmons.Guiding another group is Liu Chenchu, her younger sister, who once ran a bicycle factory in Tainan, before also coming back to the family home, eight years ago.The man moving the drying racks nearby is their nephew, Lu Icheng, who used to work in an electronics company.The family business has survived 160 years and been handed down over four generations. But it’s sometimes been a hard and winding road.Lu IchengDried persimmon tourist farmThis place is called Hankeng village, which means drought pit! Because it doesn’t rain much, it’s dry, and it’s a valley. When the September winds come through they rattle around here. It’s a wonderful natural environment for producing dried persimmons.Liu ChuyingDried persimmon tourist farmIn our grandfather’s generation, the persimmons were a sideline. When the busiest farming season was over, we’d plant lots of persimmons and if there were too many to eat, we’d dry them and then sell them to Taipei. Then in my father’s era, dried persimmons were really popular for a while. Every year, when the dry, chilly September winds start to whistle through the area, the persimmon farmers begin several months of frenetic work.Voice of Liu ChenchuDried persimmon tourist farmWe used to peel them by hand. We’d get up at two or three in the morning to peel them, to get it done before the first rays of light. Only when it was done, toward 8am, could we head off to school.All the work is done by hand, from the openair drying and pressing during the day, to the indoor drying and roasting at night. The laborious process takes seven to nine days. But in the late 1980s, the dried persimmon market began to decline.Liu ChuyingDried persimmon tourist farmAfter the invention of the drying machine, my dad told me, the problem with the drying machine is, although it’s quick and convenient, it produces more sour persimmons. It’s not so good at removing the tartness. The whole market became very tart dried persimmons. Nobody liked them anymore.China flooded Taiwan’s market with cheap persimmons that were larger and rounder than Taiwanese persimmons. They sold for the same price, but the Chinese fruit only cost an eighth as much to produce.Taiwan’s persimmon producers threw in the towel one by one, and the younger generation gradually gave up their centuryold family businesses to look for work elsewhere.This great persimmon orchard was left entirely to Lu Icheng’s father, Lu Lichien, to maintain singlehandedly. He had to take on odd jobs to support the family.Voice of Liu ChenchuDried persimmon tourist farmThings were very bleak for a long time. Then my younger brother started to dry persimmons here, quietly, without telling anyone, and he dried them in the sun and roasted them on a woodfire, all by himself.Then starting a few years ago, photos of dried persimmons drying in the sun began appearing in major photography exhibitions all over Taiwan – and winning prizes.Photography teacher Chen Chunlung is on a perpetual hunt for private idylls around Taiwan where he can take beautiful shots. And he has turned out to be a godsend for the dried persimmon industry in Xinpu.Chen ChunlungFreelance photographerAs photographers, we need to chronicle the stories of these most traditional and authentic, and friendly, fruit farmers’ lives. So I made my way everywhere through the winding lanes of Hankeng in Xinpu, searching, and when I found this place, I realized it was the most warm and friendly.Many photos taken here have won prizes, and as the family are so welcoming to photographers, they get more and more pilgrims at their door.Chen ChunlungFreelance photographerTheir house was a simple barn, and some of the photographers wanted to take a photo from high up. They were up there on the roof taking photos when one fell off, and smashed a hole in the roof in the process. Lu Lichien was distraught. I could see he looked so worried, and he asked the photographer, “Are you okay?” He wasn’t at all concerned about his damaged roof.After this accident, Lu Lichien forked out for metal railings and a rain shelter to protect other photographers’ safety...