By June Tsai
On the map of Taiwan, Wang-an Island is a barely visible spot off the nation's western coast. Although tiny geographically, the islet punches far above its weight in terms of tourism appeal, offering golden stretches of beach, a fascinating history of settlement, and a refuge from city life, where peace and tranquility prevails.
Wang-an is part of an archipelago of around 90 islets that make up the Penghu Islands between Taiwan and China in the Taiwan Strait. The 7.2-square-kilometer island is the fourth-largest among the island group and one of 18 which are inhabited. For most people living in today's largely urbanized Taiwan, the islet is a mysterious place representing an idyllic lifestyle long out of reach to city dwellers. This mystique is further enhanced by the name itself: Wang-an literally means "making one feel peaceful by just looking at it."
About 18 nautical miles away, or an hour by air-conditioned ferry, from Penghu Island's southern port, Wang-an is a tourist mecca in the high season between March and October, with four to six busloads of tourists stepping ashore every day.
Syu Siou-mei--who along with her mother runs an eatery and bike-rental business located in front of the island's major harbor Tanmen Port--is one of the first points of contact for disembarking tourists. Two years ago, Syu's husband walked away from his life as a fisherman and now helps look after the steady stream of visitors. This change of priorities for the family epitomizes the past and present of Wang-an's people.
According to studies made of archeological excavations provided by Penghu Reclamation Hall--a historic house-turned museum in central Magong City, Penghu's capital--the island chain has long been a convenient destination for visitors, beginning more than 1,000 years ago when Chinese migrants used the region as temporary base for fishing.
Fleeing from famine, war or poverty on the mainland, Han Chinese settlers started to move into the area in large numbers from the early 17th century. Up until the mid-19th century, when the area was under the administration of the Ching dynasty, Wang-an, together with the nearby Jiangjyun Island, were the only two islets to the south of Penghu that were legally allowed to be inhabited and served as a check point for ships sailing between China and Taiwan or Southeast Asia, writes Lin Hui-cheng, a professor of architecture and historic preservation with Taipei National University of the Arts, in a 2003 document published by the Council for Cultural Affairs.
Settlers from this period of time became the ancestors of Penghu's residents, now numbering around 80,000. This figure includes the Wang-an people, who today are estimated at 1,000. Many emigrated further afield to arrive in Taiwan, a practice that continues 400 years on from the time of original settlement.
Leaving for Taiwan with its warmer economic climate has always seemed to be a permanent move for Wang-an islanders. As often is the case, depopulation and remoteness in relation to more developed areas has helped preserve the natural beauty, as well as the original faces of many settlements on the islet. This, in turn, has slowly brought people in and even helped keep some at home.
Jhongshe Village, on Wang-an's east side, is the most touted destination for tourists. For first-time visitors to the island, the village appears to be inhabited by no one but stone houses, many of them dilapidated. Some of them have wooden bars bolted across their doors, signaling that they are owned but no one lives inside. The only sound one might hear walking along a near-deserted street, if not the conspicuous silence, might just be the mewing of a cat or waves breaking on the seashore at the end of each alley.
The history of the village dates back 300 years ago when its old name "Huajhai" was first mentioned in a 1695 record by the Ching administration. Huajhai, meaning "houses of flowers," was renamed Jhongshe, or central settlement, by Chiang Kai-shek's son Chiang Ching-kuo, who visited the village in 1946.
The population drain began in the 1930s and 1940s, with residents moving to Kaohsiung or Tainan on Taiwan proper. Of all the six settlements on Wang-an, Jhongshe was the earliest to have experienced this phenomenon, Lin wrote. Ironically, what seemed like a death knell for the settlement actually helped maintain the original appearance of the community's traditional houses.
For those conversant with the history of the village, like Chen Chih-ming, each one of Jhongshe's structures tells a different story about life in the hamlet. Chen is a Kaohsiung-born professional guide who became a specialist in the Penghu Island region.
According to Chen, the houses range between 100 and 200 years in age, with their styles offering a fascinating historical snapshot of the architectural history of today's southern Chinese provinces. Traditional structures are replete with courtyards; the shape of a dwelling's window, the number of its lattices, the facade of a wall and the obliquity of a roof all embody traditional Chinese social values, views of life or the social status of the owners.
While the design of the homes may be Chinese in origin, the building materials were definitely not. The realities of living on an island with scarce resources dictated that the main structures had to be built using whatever was readily available. And on Wang-an, this was pieces of coral harvested from local reefs combined with basalt stones.
"To build a house, local people dove to collect whole pieces of coral reefs," Chen said July 26. "This would take place at least three years before they started to build their house."
The construction technique called for coral to first be piled up and formed into four low walls encircling a vegetable plot. "Winds in Penghu can be as strong as a medium typhoon during the winter," Chen said. The coral walls served as protection of crops. These became "vegetable houses" that can still be seen intact all over Wang-an.
This weathering process not only prepared the coral for use in building houses, but also cleansed it of its ocean smell. Houses made of embedded coral, which contains calcium carbonate like firewall, could both resist the heat in summer and retain warmth in winter, Chen explained.
Erected in different periods, the dwellings are good indicators of the progress of time, as well as that of construction skills. With the collection of coral now forbidden on Wang-an, the village's 151 houses are now a museum of traditional architecture. Jhongshe was included on the list of 100 most endangered sites by the New York-based World Monuments Fund in 2004.
If Jhongshe appeals to those inspired by architecture and the history that lies behind the formation of the settlement, then nature lovers will find Wang-an's panoramic views no less inspiring. Without a high-rise building in sight, the only visual distractions are bushes, cactus and orange flowers of Gaillardia pluchella Foug, Penghu's emblem.
Sunset on Tiantai Mountain, the highest point on the islet just north of Jhongshe, is another of nature's gifts bestowed upon Wang-an. Despite being only 53 meters above sea level, the view is surprisingly spectacular due to the large expanses of rolling green pasture fringed by the sea on three sides.
Wang-an's beaches are yet another natural feature not to be missed. Made of fine quartz sand and debris from shells and coral reefs, the stretches of shoreline on the volcanic islet are a golden color, adjoined by crystal-clear waters.
These beaches are not only idyllic places for visitors to swim and soak up the sun, but have served as protected areas for green sea turtles since 1995. Wang-an and Orchid Island are the only two locations in Taiwan where these large marine reptiles, known for returning to the places where they were hatched, come ashore to build their nests. Development and human activities have contributed to the sharp decline in numbers of green sea turtles, with the creatures becoming an endangered species protected by law.
While these beaches are accessible in the daytime, they become protected areas when the sun goes down. People are not allowed to enter without permission from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. The arrangement is to satisfy both turtles and humans, who for hundreds of years have shared the same beaches.
Though invariably treated as a transit point throughout history for men and women in search of a better life, today, Wang-an Island offers tourists an oasis of natural beauty to escape from the hustle and bustle of city life, while enjoying a glimpse of days gone by.
This article is published in Taiwan Journal Sept. 21, 2007.
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