Taiwan–Malaysia Fuxing Local Revitalization Exchange Begins | From a Three-Party MOU to Youth and Local Collaboration
On 19 September 2026, PLUWFUN / Yi Qi Fei Future Design, the Fuxing District Office, and Malaysia’s P Lab signed a three-party MOU. The exchange marks a beginning: cooperation will move toward youth, local industry, professional accompaniment, and cultural exchange. A follow-up exchange in Malaysia in 2027 has been confirmed, while format, schedule, participants, and activities will continue to be coordinated. An initial makau and spice idea was also raised; it remains an exploratory concept, not a confirmed programme. Local support is being passed forward into accompaniment for the next generation of youth.
From youth exchange and local industry to professional accompaniment, Fuxing and Malaysia began discussing what they might do together next.
On 19 September 2026, at the Fuxing Youth Music Market, a Taiwan–Malaysia local revitalization exchange formally began.
That day, PLUWFUN / Yi Qi Fei Future Design, the Fuxing District Office of Taoyuan City, and Malaysia’s P Lab signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
For us, finishing the signing was not the most important end of the day.
What actually mattered was:
After the signing, what can we do together?
So from the morning exchange and MOU signing through the afternoon walk into youth and local sites, both sides began to move the conversation from getting to know one another toward a next step.
From local teams and government to professional partners, the exchange let different roles start building a working relationship in the same place.
Start with local youth, and find what two places can actually do together
Both sides started from local youth, community development, and industry accompaniment, and discussed cooperation that could truly begin after the MOU.
Taiwan and Malaysia have different local environments. In the exchange we still found that many of the questions are close.
How might young people find a way to stay in place?
How can local industry reorganise what is distinctive about it?
Beyond resources, what kind of professional accompaniment do young people need?
Can government, civic groups, schools, and professional teams form a more useful way of working together?
We therefore did not rush to define a large international programme first.
We would rather begin with things that can actually start.
That includes online exchange, youth dialogue, case sharing, and real visits in both directions — so that people from the two places can first truly get to know one another.
A follow-up exchange in Malaysia in 2027 has been confirmed, while the specific format, schedule, participants, and activities will continue to be coordinated by the partners.
Exact dates, operating format, participants, itinerary, and detailed collaboration activities are not yet finalized.
It does mean both sides have moved from:
“we could cooperate in the future”
toward:
“how do we start the first step?”
Perhaps it can begin with a taste of place
During the exchange, participants also raised an initial idea around makau and spice-related cultural or local-industry exchange.
Malaysian partners shared that they too have many spices and food cultures with a strong sense of place.
That led people to wonder:
If Atayal makau, already familiar in Taiwan, met Malaysian local spices, what might happen?
It could, one day, become a cooking exchange — that is only a possibility for now.
It could also become an experience that young people develop together, if the idea is later taken forward.
It might even begin with plants, flavour, and food, and become a way for the two places to exchange cultural stories. None of this is contracted, funded, launched, or scheduled.
So:
local spice × food culture × youth co-creation
It remains an exploratory concept rather than a confirmed programme.
We hope future international exchange is not only visiting a place.
It is finding one thing both sides already know, and that belongs to their own land — then actually doing it together.
Not only a visit: walking into the places where youth already work
International exchange walked into the sites where young people actually work, starting from present conditions in order to understand the support they really need.
In the afternoon, both sides also walked into sites where Fuxing youth are already developing their work.
There the conversation began to change.
It was no longer only an introduction of:
“this is what we are doing.”
It became a direct discussion of:
what problem is actually in front of us now?
On site, professional partner Chen Jiaping took notes and, starting from the young people’s current products, audiences, sites, and direction of development, asked and sorted questions one by one.
From questions written on paper, the work helped young people reorganise market, product, local character, and actions they might take next.
Where is the market?
What problem actually needs solving now?
Where is the distinctiveness of the place?
What abilities do the young people already have?
What can be done first, now?
What still needs other resources?
The questions look simple. Once they are peeled apart layer by layer, problems that had been mixed together also become clearer.
This kind of exchange is not simply handing young people an answer.
It is professional questioning and a first inventory of problems, so that young people can see where they stand now and how they might take the next step.
Next: let international exchange enter the problems youth actually face
The on-site exchange also showed us a way of working that is worth trying in the future.
Next time, it does not have to be another large forum.
A few youth cases that are still taking shape could be chosen first, and professionals could then take them through:
problem inventory → suggestions → youth action → online follow-up → adjust again
so that international exchange actually enters the problems young people are facing.
Exchange would then not stop at a single day.
It might become accompaniment that continues for several months, or longer.
Young people act first.
When new problems appear, they come back into the exchange and talk them through together.
What remains would not only be photographs of a visit.
It would be change that can actually be seen.
Beyond the signing, what matters more is walking into place and seeing what young people are doing — and the problems they are facing.
I did not walk this road alone
Looking back, I know I did not begin this journey already knowing how local revitalization should be done, and I certainly did not get here on my own.
The earliest public-sector support that brought me into local revitalization came from the Taoyuan City Government Youth Affairs Bureau.
National Chengchi University (NCCU) USR “Grocery Store 2.0: Regional Economy and Social Resource Integration Platform” then accompanied me from an early stage and has continued to support the work ever since.
As the work gradually took root in Fuxing, the Fuxing District Office also gave us important local support.
Without these forms of support, I would not have developed the capacity I now use to create new possibilities together with local youth.
From Fuxing, toward a longer relationship between two places
19 September completed the signing of an MOU — the beginning of continued cooperation, not the end of the collaboration.
What we actually look forward to is what happens after the MOU.
We hope to start with cooperation that is small and practical.
Young people meeting young people first; places understanding places first.
Begin with one online exchange.
Begin with one youth case.
Begin with one local spice.
Begin with one local brand still taking shape.
When people actually know one another, visits, local industry work, cultural exchange, and even joint projects may follow — gradually.
Because local revitalization is not copying a method that worked in one place straight into another.
It is people from different places sitting down with their own experience.
Asking one another questions.
Learning from one another.
Then looking together for a new possibility.
That is what this Taiwan–Malaysia Fuxing local revitalization exchange actually wanted to begin.
