Beautiful Sanzhi District has hillside terrace fields all over. Its abundant water and fertile soil provide perfect conditions for growing water oats. The water oats grown in Sanzhi are sweet and crispy, white and smooth, and are actually known as “Beauty’s Legs of Sanzhi.” In late autumn annually, the water oats in northern Taiwan are ready for harvesting. The local government takes advantage of the harvest time to hold a “Sanzhi Water Oats Festival” or “Beauty’s Legs Festival”.
These annual events have helped make water oats one of the north coast’s most important agricultural products. In Hoklo (the dialect of southern Fujian), water oats are called “ka be sun (white leg bamboo shoots)” because of their resemblance to women's legs. It is said this is because in feudal society women’s feet were bound with a long piece of white cloth. Feet wrapped for years in this cloth would be slim and white.
Water Oats, wrapped in layer after layer of shell, are also tender and white when peeled, just like the bound feet of a woman in earlier times. It was later given the name grass-stem bamboo shoots because “grass-stem” sounds same as “white leg” in Hoklo. Water oasts are now called “beauty’s legs” in Chinese for the same reason they were called “white leg bamboo shoots" in Hoklo.