Taiwan Today

People from almost every walk of life on the island know the words to this popular song—Green Island Nocturne.

Green Island was originally called "Fire Burnt Island," or Sanrasana or Sanasai by foreigners. Standing 18 nautical miles seaward from Taitung city and 45 nautical miles from Orchid Island, Green Island covers a land area of 15 square kilometers when the tide is at the flood-17 square kilometers at ebb. It is the third largest offshore island in the country, next only to Makung and Orchid Island.

It only takes 12 minutes to reach the island by air taxi, one and a half hours by boat. It is of volcanic origin and crisscrossed with mountain ranges. Even so, opinions vary as to how the island first came to be called "Fire Burnt Island." A legend has it that it was formed from a fireball that kept rolling around the zone between Mt. Amei and the Cave of the Goddess of Mercy. Another story has it that at the turn of the Ming and Ching Dynasties, the island caught fire, and the flames devoured all the living creatures. A more humanistic explanation says that when the islanders sailed out to sea to fish, they would frequently lose their way in the dense mists, and that their relatives set off fires on a mountain top to guide the boats back home. One day the flames spread out of control, and the island became as bald as if it had been kissed by a firebird.

It was not until 1949 that the island acquired its present name.

The aborigines of Orchid Island trace the pioneers of Green Island to one of their own branches—the Yamei Tribe. Their legends say that the God and Goddess of Stone got married, and so did the God and Goddess of Bamboo, each giving birth to several children. But they were either deaf or dumb or suffered from weak bones. So, when the omnipotent god who created the stone and bamboo deities arrived at Orchid Island and witnessed this situation, he expelled the crippled children to Green Island, and that is how Green Island first came to be populated by Yamei tribesmen.

History records that the Han people first explored Green Island about 182 years ago, in the person of merchant Chen Pi-hsien, who was traveling from Hsiaoliuchiu Island to Hengchun port in southern Taiwan. The boat was blown off course by a typhoon and came on the island. Venturing deep inside the island, Chen came on the Yamei aborigines, scattered around and leading primitive lives. Noting with his merchant's eye that the island was covered with luxuriant forests and surrounded by rich fishery resources, he led dozens of people to open up the "virgin land."

The pioneers first constructed houses around today's Kungkuang village. They felled wood, tilled lands, and promoted a fishery industry, exporting both timbers and fish to Fukien and Taiwan Provinces. As the population grew, they set up another two villages. Nanliao Village is the administrative center, offering such facilities as schools, a post office, banks, government offices, shops, and a police station. In the past, this off-shore island only supplied six hours of electricity a day. But starting from April this year, the people have received 24-hour service.

The village also has snack bars and grocery stores. Most of the snack bars serve seafoods such as clams, coconut crabs, lobsters, tropical ocean fish, and such specialties as frogs and venison. In general, the village serves as market, department store, vendor of household necessities and of vegetables, fruits, solid foods, and rice...and of drugs to prevent the common cold and air sickness, and such like.

Located in a warm-current zone of the Pacific, Green Island reaps rich harvests of fishes, including tuna, plus lobsters, clams, scallops, and ornamental corals. A harbor was constructed at Nanliao to help promote the fishery industry, served by numerous sampan fish-boats—very convenient vehicles. Usually, the boats head out to sea at midnight and return by 10:30 in the morning. An estimate for 1981 alone, shows a fish catch topping 1.2 million kilograms—earning a fortune of NT$150 million (US$3,750,000) for the island.

The island is also noted for its domestic herds of Formosan spotted deer. At present, of the total population of 3,672 in 626 households, 300 households—almost half—raise deer as a sideline. Traveling around the island, tourists will see many deer pens, since they are sited in the courtyards. This animal husbandry venture began a century ago, when it was recognized that the island had luxuriant plantations of roundleaf grass—which is the major forage for the deer. Traditionally, when the men are off catching fish at sea, the women tend the deer at home. The pilose antlers of a young stag, prized in Asia as a potent tonic, can fetch NT$1,000 (US$25) for each 50 grams. On the average, each stag will bring NT$10,000 (US$250) at the autumn harvest, and each fawn about NT$20,000 (US$500). Specialists are employed to treat disease and help solve other problems involved in deer raising.

The island is noted for two other unique animals—fruit bats and coconut crabs. With their large heads, big eyes, and pointed mouths, the big bats are fearsome looking, but only love to savor fruit. With a total body length of 20 centimeters and a wingspread of 70 centimeters, it is about the largest type of bat in the area. The coconut crab acquired its name not only because it prefers to run on coconut trees, but because it eats the meat of the coconuts by means of huge, nut-cracking pincers.

As the Cessna BN-2 air taxi approached Green Island, we had to agree that the island fully deserved its present name. Here, emerald green forests rise above verdant meadows to meet a pastel-blue sky. There is no sign of the barren lands said to have been kissed by firebirds. A gentle sea breeze lulls newly arrived tourists, part of a leisurely, peaceful atmosphere oozing from every cranny and corner of the island. Even its people seem strangers to worldly anxiety.

An around-the-island highway is about the only concrete-paved roadway on the island. Since only two buses run every two hours, the dozen odd taxis and more than 400 motorcycles are the most convenient means of transportation. After we had put aside our luggage at the hostel, 26-year-old Chan Ching-miao, a staff worker of the Nanliao Village Office, caught wind of our arrival and came by to volunteer to be our guide.

Early on the morning of the following day, we strolled around the small village. Taking advantage of their summer vacation, all the island's students—there is a junior high school and two primary schools—were now just boys and girls, playing all kinds of games along the dikes fronting the immense sea. In front of several houses, a woman and some young girls were drying squid on the ground, but some of the squid were stretched open on a bamboo rack and attached to a long pole—soaring into the blue sky and dancing nimbly, like a kite. More "philosophically-oriented" kids were fishing alone on the shore. Nearby, several others, putting their heads together, were encouraging some molluscs which they had just caught to creep along their arms. Some pre-school children had doffed their clothes to swim in carefree nakedness. Several housewives were either tending to a harvest of "sea lotus" (a Chinese herbal medicine said to be good for curing rheumatism) or shouldering bundles of round-leaf grass back home to feed their deer. A mother was teaching her baby son to swim in the sea. A dark brown cow grazed solitarily on the neighborhood grass. An aged and a young man, holding lances in their hands, rode off on a bicycle for a spear-fishing spot along the coast.

Community life on Green Island is as relaxed and sleepy as you would expect of an isolated tropical environment. The people are shy, but warm and hospitable once you get to know them. Lee Shui-lai, 69, now leads a solitary life on the island. Her children have grown up and left the island to seek careers on Taiwan. She once joined her children on the big island, but ran back home at once. "I am not used to living in an apartment with the doors and windows shut, the air polluted, and the horns beeping even at midnight. There is no place better than Green Island—the air is good, and so are my friends and the scenery. This is home."

We took a bus to travel around the island. When it arrived at Kungkuang Village, we saw several people at work constructing a new building. Well-trained workers were polishing a floor, applying oil paints, and laying bricks. A close-up look showed their clothes to be embroidered with two Chinese characters—Green Prison.

Green Island is so mysterious to people from Taiwan largely due to the existence there of a national penitentiary. Taiwan's most hardened criminals are sent there. But its existence does not detract from the island's natural beauty.

Fu Chien-chung, convicted of kidnapping for ransom and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, observed: "Penitentiary regulations require that every one of us must sit quietly for an hour in the morning. In the beginning, I was burning. There was a storm in my heart. Then I started to quiet myself down. After reviewing what I had done with my past, I suddenly felt solemn, looking into my future. If I behave myself in prison, I will be released on parole some months earlier." He intends to live off the construction techniques and shell painting skills which he learned in the penitentiary.

Leaving Kungkuang, the bus gradually passed through less populated areas. In the northeast section of the island is Green Island Park, a famous tourist highlight. Traveling along the River Liumango, the island's largest, the bus snaked into the hills. The roadside was dotted here and there with small pavilions, choice spots from which to look far out into the endless sea-land landscape. The beaches are washed white by foamy surf. Reefs and beach rock formations are everywhere, honed into grotesque shapes by centuries of wind and breakers. One resembles the head of a general, another the arch of a bridge—with a deep cave underneath it in which to play Debussy's flowery La Mer.

A stone's throw away, a rock cow lies on its stomach, taking a rest. Another is a sleeping beauty, fallen sound asleep as the sea strikes up its sweet lullaby, so near at hand. Still another is viewed as "Awaiting Her Husband," looking somewhat like a woman sitting on the seashore, waiting for her overdue husband to return. It seems that every port town shares such a romantic story-rock.

More than that, port towns are always flooded with the tragic remembrances of boats gone astray, and thus they pay great attention to those deities which can assure them a safe voyage. Passing the "Awaiting Her Husband" rock formation, we noticed two stone tablets inscribed with the words "Green Waters, Blue Mountain, the Sacred Land of the Goddess of Mercy," and" A Highlight of the Island, the Cave of Buddha." Riding through a small forest grove and over a small bridge, we arrived at the Cave of the Goddess of Mercy.

This natural cave—eroded by running water year round—is deep and shady. Inside is a one-meter high natural stone statue looking like the Goddess of Mercy. A legend has it that a long time ago, a fishing boat lost its way on a misty night. Just as it was drifting the wrong way—away to sea—the fisherman suddenly spotted a light in the distance. He sailed in the direction of the light and reached shore smoothly. But strange to say, once he docked his boat, the light vanished. He searched stumbling along the road, until he found the cave and the natural stone figure looking like the Goddess of Mercy. When the news spread, people on the island traveled all the way to worship her.

Today the cave is equipped with a horizontal board inscribed with auspicious words, with fortune-telling sticks, and with a constant supply of burning incense...as well as a donation chest. As they rest in the cave, visitors can not help fantasizing that they are traveling with fairies in the greater universe and wondering if there is any master for it.

Leaving the cave behind, we were again greeted by an immense sea. Rugged rocks were exposed to the sun by the ebb tide. Remaining in the crevices are always shells, crabs, sea urchins, and corals, washed inshore by the waves. Hopping among the rock formations to look for "treasures," it seemed that we were transported back to childhood.

Another 15 minutes of driving distance away is the Platform of the Sea Slug. The sea water here is so clear that you can see multi-colored undersea rocks sparkling bright as glazed tiles on the seabed. Not too far away is the habitat of a kind of ferocious sea bird. Not knowing that they lurked in the vicinity, one of our companions shouted across the sea. And like lightning or F-16 fighters, three birds dashed towards us. Our guide at once ordered us to lie prone on the ground, protecting our heads with our hands. The offended birds did not leave until circling round and round their prey dozens of times.

The panic was relieved only after we arrived at Hot Springs Village. Here there is a unique hot spring under the sea, a phenomenon existing, as far as is known, only in Italy and Green Island. When the tide is on the wax, the hot spring is deep under the sea, and the temperature plummets. But at ebb tide, the spring shows up again, and the temperature at the site soars to 54°C. It is said that this hot spring can cure skin diseases, including acnes. Many people flock here to wash their faces or to take a full bath in broad daylight.

Traveling further on, we arrived at the Great White Sands on the southernmost tip of the island. Since most of the island is rock-like, the area is an exception. Fishes can be seen swimming in the crystal clear water. Several young men in swimming trunks held lances in their hands, their healthy bronze-colored skin shining under the sun. They stood quite still in the water, like majestic statues. Suddenly, the still water creased up, and a statue moved with great precision to lance a fish. Some seemed armed from head to foot just to dive into the clear waters to hunt fish. The most well-known tropical fish on the island is the "parrot fish." It is both delicious and delightful to look at. Some women were busy scooping up their fish fries while children frolicked nearby. The seashore of Green Island is full of vitality.

At present, a grand hotel is under construction in the neighborhood to help promote tourism. In the future, a golf course, a camping area, a beach, and a diving area will be opened one after another to make the area a complete tourist attraction.

On our way back to our residence, the sun began to set, and as we passed the fishing harbor at Nanliao again, we saw several boats, sailing slowly back to the harbor to roost. Some had returned earlier and lay neatly anchored in the harbor. After a day's labor, the fishermen were exhausted; they sat idly on blocks of stone used to tie up the boats, puffing away at cigars.

We woke up at daybreak of the following day to pack up our luggage. On the way to the airport, which stands at Pitouchiao on the northwest point of the island, we came across a light tower, shrouded from head to foot in white paint. To get to the tower, we first had to enter the airport, then walk along the 720-meter taxiway. At about two thirds of the runway, we came across a flight of white steps leading to the raised platform where the light tower stands.

A moving story lies behind the tower. In 1937, an American ocean liner, the "President Hoover," was heading from Keelung to Malaysia when it ran up on the rocks at Green Island. Though this occurred at midnight, the people of the island took great risks to rescue passengers fallen overboard. Thus, though the liner finally sank, the passengers were safe and sound.

To commemorate the incident and in gratitude for the courage of the island's people, the American people chipped in to construct the light tower the following year. The tower was partially destroyed in World War II, but after V-J day, it was overhauled, and the kerosene lamp there replaced by electric lights to keep boats from going astray at sea.

Chen Sheng-jung, 31, has spent five years operating the light tower. His wife and three children all live in neighboring Chung-liao Village. "Now we have five people who take their turns on shifts," he told us. "In general, we turn on the light at 6:45 p.m. in summer. The night shift changes every three hours; the day shift, every six hours. I have to watch out especially during typhoon season, because, the sea might swell and pound at the foot of the tower. It's lonely and panic-making out here. I am most afraid for drunks who steal up to the tower. The strong winds might cost them their lives. A skinny man had better point his feet away from here."

Time was pressing and we had to bid farewell to all the hospitable people who had treated us so gently. We fastened our seat belts and soon were looking down at the island—it was as green as ever. It was sad to leave this true tropical paradise. I recalled a poem by the famous poet, Cheng Cho-yu—

"Da—da—sound the hooves of
      my horse;
      it's a beautiful mistake.
I am
      a passer-by,
      not a returned native."