Chang Shui-lien remembers how, when he was a child, almost all the women he knew supplemented their household income by making rushwork. "One girl in a family doing rushwork could feed six or seven people, and in the early years Yuauli Town-ship's income from rushwork was actually more than the whole township earned from the rice grown in its 3000 chia (c. 2900 ha) of paddy fields."
張水連記得，他小時候幾乎十之八九所見的婦女都以編織作為家庭副業，「家裡一個女兒做手編可養活六、七口人，甚至早年苑裡鎮做帽蓆的收入超過全鎮三千甲水田的稻作收入。」