And it's autumn;
It has been autumn for a long,
long time.
Our Milk River
Is frozen into a long, long street;
In meditation,
The twin paper boats of childhood,
Floating by, arm-in-arm—
Aren't they to take us back,
Back to our earliest home?
—Man of the Right,
by Cheng Cho-yu
If I were to row the boats of my childhood back to my earliest home, the Cheng Ching Lake area would be my destination. Like a maiden in a pretty veil or gossamer, the lake area is ornamented by a nine-bend bridge, numerous pagodas, suspension bridges, a bell tower, and a "forest or a thousand trees." She may not be a beauty, but she is a fine lady, mature and composed, and she keeps her merits and demerits all to herself.
Neither is she unworldly. Though located off in Niao-sung Village, Kaohsiung County, the lake is but 15 minutes driving distance from bustling Kaohsiung City, the metropolitan center or southern Taiwan. An early riser in the city can always get up at 6 a.m., arrive at the lake at 6:15, do his favorite exercises for an hour, return home, take a shower, and be in time for work.
To chase after the sun, we opted to be early birds in order to catch our scenic worms in the lake area. Unfortunately, the fog—or more possibly the smog generated by the industrialized city—was now serving as a curtain between the upper and the nether worlds. The sky itself was bluish gray, but we knew a real misty rain would make the lake area even more enchanting and mysterious. No wonder poet Cheng Cho-yu celebrates rain:
Our rainy season is a fibred plant,
Tender filaments fit for spinning.
Ah, our green wilderness is much
too unadorned—
Who will hang up a gorgeous lamp?
A sun lamp? A moon lamp?
—None will do so.
With the lamp turned on,
The plant has withered.
There are ways to cut a cake,
A cake of woven rainy season.
I'll give it to you as a layer of gossamer,
A little bit simple, a little bit dim.
It's necessary—
Day after day, your beauty is too
brightly lit.
Rec facilities test and encourage physical agility and fitness
When we arrived in the lake area, dewdrops seemed to be flying wild in the sky, then to roost their tiring globulets on the trees, the bushes, the meadows, the wild flowers, the stone benches—and even on our heads and shoulders. We felt fine chills creeping up our backbones, a message that autumn had descended on the island.
Our car ran smoothly along the roadway, bobbing slightly at groups or early risers gathered from different age groups. They were wiping away dew and the sweat or morning exercises, trickling down their foreheads, necks, and naked shoulders, with towels casually hung from their shoulders.
On a walk around the lake, our eyes at once caught sight of a pool of lotus flowers—some of them budded, some still coiled shyly inside their blankets of lotus leaf, some in full bloom, some faded and rotting, their petals feebly falling on the broad leaves downstairs. The veins running to the edges of the leaves are as delicate and graceful as the lines of a hand. Looking from afar, the slender stems of the lotus rise up straight and tall like cranes' legs. The lotus gather at the wall of the pond, and grow less and less at its heart.
In the distance, a white crane is taking a morning bath. Several wild ducks, harbingers of a multitude of companions, are frolicking nearby. According to residents near the lake area, hordes of wild ducks, 17 varieties, more than 10,000, will soon fly south from Siberia to escape the icy cold. Cheng Ching Lake is a mid-station where they rest their tiring wings. In the depth of winter, these migrants fly off again, south to the Philippines, returning to the lake again in early summer. "You can't imagine what it is like to see the wild ducks take over this whole lake, which covers 103 hectares!" exclaimed an old acquaintance of the birds.
Water plants mass across a mirrored surface
What makes the lake even more like a lady is the wide plantation of willows between the asphalt roadway and the lake, where they dutifully whisper to both visitors and the lotus. Too feeble to raise their heads, the willows bend low over the lake, kissing the waters and the flowers—ladies of ancient China, so affectedly tender, leaning on their couches, a hand gracefully propping up their heads. In autumn, the willows are mothers thinking about children in distant places, sobbing dew drop tears all the while, adding a special tint of melancholy to the landscape.
An aged man sat on the lake bank, fishing rod in hand and bamboo hat on head, waiting for his fish to come. In front of him, a triangular stretch of water, though small, was the most the lotus felt they could concede. He could sit there for a whole day, and with so many companions, never feel lonely.
Across the road is a pond in which tourists can row boats. The boats there laid bare their bosoms to the sky, their shadows rippling on the waters, "There is no sign of men, so the boats run wild", so said a poet of the Tang Dynasty. I went over to the dock area, where the blue painted boats elbow each other. Inside the boats, pairs of oars lay listlessly against wet planks. One of the boat keepers suddenly emerged from nowhere, startling both me and himself. To relieve him of the possible suspicion that I was about to steal a happy morning boat and make my getaway on his a spacious puddle, I hastened away.
A majestic honor guard receives sightseers
A stone's throw away is a racecourse. A pungent smell of fermentation filled the air. And as I approached, flies flew about, and several horses, apparently listless with age, whipped their tails constantly to drive off the flies, gnats, and other nuisances. Yellow stone benches with saddles lying upon them seemed to be smirched across a long span of time. A groom was forcing a horse to stroll around the racecourse with him, evidently trying to cure the horse's strange disease. "Old passage, west wind, gaunt horse. At dawn, a broken-hearted man at the end of the world," says another poem.
We rode in our car around the lake, a bell tower and a 15-tiered pagoda moving right along with us—sometimes to our left, sometimes to the right. Like the tip of an iceberg, the pagoda peak floats on a sea of dense tree leaves. When we finally stood at the foot of the bell tower, it was as thrilling as seeing Li Po's dream of scooping the moon from the water finally come true. We hiked down the road from the bell tower and across a suspension bridge to reach Fukuo Island. A stone tablet erected here commemorates General Huang Chieh's retreat to a station on an island in Vietnam. A groundsman was mopping the floor of a pavilion on one arm of the island.
The wind comes from all directions to visit the island, and I would have gone off with the wind, except for the fear that its jeweled palace would be too cold a place to live. The rainy season had brought the water level up, to overflow the staircases reaching down to the feet of the island. Romantic couples on early dates were arriving on motorbikes. Along the lake banks, single young men found fishing more entertaining—or accessible. It is said of the bellringer in the tower, that he is so skilled that he is able to control both high and low pitch, gentle and grave tunes, and slow and rapid tempos. It is imaginable that the tower's chimes, sounding in the mist, give a Buddhist flavor to the lake area.
When we hastened to Chunghsing Tower, a many-tiered pagoda, the sun was already high in the sky. All the vapors and mists were now gone. The tower sprang from the ground like a feminine giant, all dolled up from head to foot in a many-layered skirt designed after Chinese classical patterns. Each tier is so short that a man over 6 feet has to watch out climbing the stairs.
Also in the lake area is a hall commemorating the late President Chiang Kai-shek. Round marble stools and benches, here and there along the walkway, provide the best vantage from which to appreciate the beauty of the lake. A fountain-pool in front of the hall allows tourists to make penny wishes. Palm trees reach their arms into the celestial sphere, trying to find the hometown of the stars.
Vegetation joins mood elements everywhere in the lake's environs
The true heart of the lake area is the nine bend bridge zigzaggedly linking two islands. Tourists and nearby residents flock here for all kinds of activities. One family uses nets to scoop up tiny fish, which are so many that you can hardly spot one with your naked eyes. I looked in the small bucket they brought along to inspect their micro-harvest. It is said that a man fishing on the bank of the lake once caught a fish of more than 100 kg. The man and the fish engaged in a three hour battle, when at long last, the man was able to outdo the fish by using some tricks. The strategy here is simple—when the fish is struggling hard, loosen your control; when it is keeping a vigil, tighten your line. Still, everybody knows that a bird only has to swoop down to the surface of the water and, like lightning, fly away with a fish in its beak.
"Hey, a dog is swimming in the lake," a boy suddenly cried out. A black-haired wolfhound was bobbing its head up and down in the water. While everyone was still scared he would drown, he leisurely jumped on shore, shook off his body, and busted off, leaving his audience agape. Then we noticed a man in a white sports suit approaching. He tended the dog. He was training it for swimming competition.
A newlywed couple hastened to the bridge, posed for a picture, and left immediately to avoid becoming the focus of public attention. A child ran off with a plastic bag of tiny fishes in hand. A rice dough man, fashioning all kinds of figurines, drew all children's fixed eyes to his wood stand. The pure white bridge was smirched with all kinds of tourist foods, so that no one cared to sit on the balustrade. But it is a bridge forever bustling with life.
Tracing back the history of Cheng Ching Lake, we found that it was originally a shallow pond, called "Ta-pei," whose major function was as an irrigation source. To meet the needs of industrial development, the pond was enlarged and fitted out to better supply water. The lake did not acquire its current name until 1963, when it was so designated by the late President Chiang Kai-shek. Today, by channeling the water of the Kaoping River into the lake, it is able to supply 600,000 cubic meters of water a day to the areas around Kaohsiung, Pingtung, and Penghu.
While heading back to our residence, we came across a hemp rope net dangling in the air. Sunlight cast its shadow across the windows of our car, giving them their own lattice formation. Further on, we were distracted by a small sampan and several colorful balls floating on the lake alongside a wood dock. These were part of physical training gear made available by the China Youth Corps.
On a Sunday morning, we decided to try the "20 highlights" of the youth recreation center in the lakeshore area. The first was a challenge called "To row boats on land." A plank car serves as boat, and clubs are oars. To start with, you must first pull the car to the starting point, then push it forward with clubs. It is a good way to train the wrist muscles. I tried the car myself. Not knowing that it would have such a tremendous recoil when it stopped, I knocked my head on the face of a friend sitting next to me.
People of all ages, from two-year-old tots to grandpas in their 60s, proceeded to face the second challenge—"To pass over the heavenly bridge." Dangling railroad-tie-type planks are hung between two watchtower-style wood constructions. In case of a casual slip of the foot, nets fabricated from heavy hemp ropes wait underneath. As I stood there watching, the tourists filed by, some awkwardly, but all of them passed the test. They used both hands and feet to climb down from the tower. Apparently, all their limbs were now exercised.
Then came a square which provides more of an I.Q. test than a physical caper. To piece together boards into designated shapes, to walk on wood stakes of different heights, to climb up and down a small hill of wood racks, and to crawl through a knee-high net—these are among the best highlights.
The most thrilling rec area routines are, however, "Eight immortals braving the sea" and "Gliding in the sky." With the buoyancy of water and some balls, a small sampan with six seats is able to reach the opposite bank of the pond via concerted team efforts in pulling at ropes. For security reasons, a hemp rope net is also hung underneath the boat course. For the "gliding" challenge, cable-car-like gear allows visitors to enjoy the sensation of riding in the sky. Only instead of a mechanical operation, you have to use your brain and your hands to do it.
The CYC chipped in NT$3 million to construct this outdoor activity center, and it has paid off. These colorful activities make Cheng Ching Lake a Gemini, offering both serenity and peace to all who frequent it.