Hualien, on the Taiwanese coast, and its mountains, especially Mount Qilai, were deeply inspirational for the young poet author of this book. Of immense natural beauty and cultural heterogeneity, the city was also a site of extensive social, political, and cultural change in the 20th century, from the Japanese occupation and the American bombings of World War II to the Chinese Civil War, the White Terror, and the Cold War. Taken as a whole, these evocative and allusive autobiographical essays provide a personal response to history as Taiwan transitioned from a Japanese colony to the Republic of China.