TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A college student from Singapore created this highly detailed illustration of a fishing boat and harbor in northern Taiwan.

Chua Min Chi (蔡敏智), 21, told Taiwan News that he created this illustration of Yehliu Fishing Harbor (野柳渔港) in June of this year, based on a sketch he made during a trip to Taiwan in December of 2019. Chua, who is an architecture student at National University of Singapore, said he wanted to use this piece to "capture the roughness and raw beauty of Taiwan's culture."

The artist said that even though Singapore is an island country, he rarely gets a chance to see coasts and mountains. Chua said that there is "something so humble and stoic about these boats, knowing that they're now resting and awaiting their next voyage out into the sea at night."

He added that there was "something very moving about this scene" and that he wanted to capture it because "Taiwan made me feel a certain way Singapore never could."

The Chinese characters included in the illustration are from a Tang Dynasty poem written by famed poet Yuan Zhen (元稹), which read 曾經滄海難為水， 除卻巫山不是雲. Chua interpreted the poem to mean "it becomes difficult to appreciate something ordinary if you have seen something truly magnificent."

Yehliu Fishing Harbor. (Chua Min Chi illustration)