Erjie Barn: rice brought the whole family

Erjie Barn has a wall of wooden boxes full of Chinese characters containing 米, rice. In the museum's photograph, a guide points and visitors lean in: 糧, 糖, 粥, all crammed together. The plain rice on our plates apparently never travels solo. It brings the entire family.

Work on this old granary in Wujie, Yilan, began in 1928. Being right beside the railway wasn't a favour to future exhibition-goers. Rice was milled here and sent towards Taipei, or out through Keelung harbour. Local residents fought to keep the building; county heritage designation followed in 1998, and it reopened as a rice-farming museum in 2011. The Da Er Jie Cultural Foundation now keeps house.

An April 21, 2026 announcement introduces the refreshed permanent exhibition 藏穀跡心. Its grain-bin displays are packed with material worked out over more than a decade of conversations with local elders and small farmers. Irrigation, transport, even finance squeeze in alongside the rice. A model of the Lanyang Plain is surrounded by agricultural-season panels. Across the room, food grows into our mouths and our language on the rice-character wall. Farmers working here today also get the floor. Nobody has politely stuffed farming into the drawer marked “Things Our Grandparents Used to Do.”

The same photographs catch a crowd around a big red rice cooker outside. Finally, after all that knowledge, Taiwan's god-tier domestic appliance gets a turn. These are records of the museum's exhibition and activities, though. A ticket does not guarantee unlimited rice descending from heaven.

Hop off the train for a look

Take a local train to Erjie and walk about four minutes. Google estimates 264 metres: practically next-door neighbours. Still, use the road and wait at the crossing. Please don't invent a death-defying shortcut over the tracks.

Open 09:00–17:00, last entry 16:30, closed Wednesdays. General entry is NT$60, including one designated drink; seniors 65+, children 4–12 and valid volunteer-honour-card holders pay NT$50. Children 0–3, eligible local residents, and visitors with disabilities plus one companion enter free. The owner's linked visitor page has the full eligibility rules.

171 Sanxing West Road, Wujie, Yilan. Telephone 03-9600277 or 03-9501680. Only parts of the building have air-conditioning. For the rest, arrive prepared to test the theory that inner peace keeps you cool.

Photographs: Erjie Barn / Da Er Jie Cultural Foundation, from the refreshed-exhibition announcement.