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Mei Nong Taiwan's Beautiful Farms Area Standing here on the top of Lion Mountain in southern Taiwan, you can see the area of Mei Nong, or Beautiful Farm. As you look over to the other side of the valley, you can see the southern end of the mountain range that stretches along the eastern side of the country, forming beautiful seashore areas where, in some places, there is a sheer drop from the mountains to the Pacific ocean. Here in Mei Nong the mountainsides are home to a variety of wildlife, including monkeys who shake the trees in the morning as they settle down to breakfast. This farming area is now being turned into a haven for the newly rich, as the old farm houses built by a Chinese ethnic group known as the Hakka give way to hacienda style houses that look like encampments, some with large metal doors and surrounded by stone walls. Mei Nong includes a smaller area called Long Du, or Dragon’s Belly, where two hundred children have been born who have later ear...