On the Hushan Elementary campus, everywhere you look there is nature, everywhere you look there is beauty. (Chuang Kung-ju)

"By Qixing Mountain / A green ladybug / Constricts itself, / Burrows into the mountain valley, / And hibernates forever. / That is the Datun mountain range, / Among dormant volcanoes / The smallest of gentle touches, / The most monumental beauty."

If ecological poet Liu Ka-shiang envisions Mt. Shamao as a green ladybug, then Hushan Elementary at its foot must be one of the ladybug's colorful spots.

At the Beitou MRT station, you take a little bus up Mt. Yangming and get off at Shamao Bridge. Then you hike up an incline steep enough to leave you out of breath until you reach the end of the road. If it weren't for the characters for Hushan Elementary written on a sign, you'd think you'd accidentally stumbled into a private mountainside garden.

Hushan Elementary is in a lake basin on the western side of Mt. Shamao in Yangmingshan National Park. Its elevation is around 250 meters above sea level, second in Taipei City only to Hutian Elementary near Zhuzihu, at 650 meters. Both are specially-designated schools that take students from outside their districts. As many as 80%, or nearly 100 students, come to Hushan from metropolitan areas down the mountain.