THE WHITE WATERS

The film interweaves the daily life and the sensorial scenery in Taiwan to create an immersive experience for people to conceptualize their lives as immigrant women.The film extensively captures and utilizes ambient sounds, poetically exploring an abandoned village—a multicultural place where collective memories and hopes are stored.

The abandoned fishing village “The White Waters” lies bleached like paper, its landscape adorned with oyster shells exposed to the sun over half a century, now calcified into hills. Only the elderly residents remain in the village, accompanied by their daughters-in-laws who migrated for arranged marriages 30 years ago from Indonesia, Vietnam, and China. Hua, from China, is the breadwinner of the family, dedicates years to oyster farming, leaving her past behind out of necessity. Huang, from Vietnam, missed her parents’ passing while taking care of her ailing in-laws, finding solace in planting a garden with seeds from her homeland. Juan, an Indonesian, turns to YouTube videos to learn the ukulele, seeking brief respite from overwhelming family responsibilities. Despite enduring laborious work and uneasy marriages, these women, who share a similar fate, cling to hope, and actively contribute to home-building as more than just wives, mothers, and daughters.