Light in the Darkness

Stories of Human Rights, the Ocean, and Starry Skies on Green Island

Kent Chuang　/　photos by Kent Chuang

September 2026

中文

Green Island’s rich geological scenery and marine resources bring nature within easy reach.

How does one define Green Island, this speck of land lying isolated off Taiwan’s southeast coast? It is Huoshaodao (Fire Island), scarred by history; a diving destination where corals bloom beneath deep-blue waters; and a dark-sky sanctuary rated Class 2–3 on the Bortle scale. From Fugang Fishing Port in Taitung, the crossing takes less than an hour, yet the surging waves whipped up by the Kuroshio Current and monsoon winds present every traveler with a first test before reaching Green Island. More than half a century ago, this same isolation, so difficult to breach, made the island a prison for countless political prisoners forced far from home.

According to former political prisoners, the sea-eroded Elephant Trunk Rock marked the unavoidable passage to internment on the journey to Green Island.

Light behind high walls

Established in 1951, the Taiwan Provincial Security Command’s New Life Correction Center once confined as many as 2,000 political prisoners. In survivors’ memories, Elephant Trunk Rock, which stands beside the reefs at Oasis Villa, symbolized the first gate to hell: the point at which they were about to lose their freedom and enter a life of confinement.

Yet older islanders did not regard these “New Lifers” as dangerous inmates; instead, they respectfully called them “teachers.” Selina Hsu, founder of Green Island Studio, which works to develop cultural tourism rooted in Green Island’s heritage, says that in those early years, these intellectuals ran tutoring classes to help local children gain admission to junior high schools on Taiwan’s main island. At one point, an amazing 19 of the 21 students they tutored passed the entrance examination.

This wax-figure exhibition at the Green Island White Terror Memorial Park recreates a New Life Correction Center dormitory.

Cells in the Bagua Building feature life-size standees depicting political prisoners’ daily lives.

A historic site frozen in time

Entering the Green Island White Terror Memorial Park, one senses that the suffocating atmosphere of the past still lingers. The gloom of the Bagua Building’s cells and the scars left by abusive treatment on lifelike wax figures leave visitors breathless. Each year around May 17, during the “Return to the Island of Memory” event, survivors and bereaved family members gently run trembling hands over the names engraved on the memorial. That silent contemplation raises the most profound questions history has left this island.

Built in 1972 within Oasis Villa, the Bagua Building has a cross-shaped radial cellblock layout designed for surveillance. Because its radiating form resembles a coconut crab—known locally as a “bagua”—residents dubbed it the Bagua Building.

Green Island’s Human Rights Monument is a place of remembrance to which survivors and bereaved family members return each year.

An ocean under strain

If the high walls enclosed a sunless prison, the ocean beyond is the island’s most generous gift. Beneath the surface, a deep-blue world with the highest coral cover among the areas surveyed in Taiwan unfolds before the diver’s eyes. Tropical fish glimmer like stars as they dart among the underwater mailbox, steel artificial reefs, and the secluded Blue Cave. In 2008, Joyce Yeh, who is from Canada, had a gentle encounter with a moray eel at Shilang Diving Area that stayed with her. Years later, she became an experienced divemaster, moved to the island, and has devoted herself to ecological conservation.

Green Island has the highest coral cover among the areas surveyed in Taiwan; even so, large visitor numbers place considerable stress on its marine ecology each year.

The decline in visitor numbers—from a peak of 400,000 in 2004 to 250,000 in 2025—points to a deeper crisis. “Green Island’s ecology is all in refrigerators,” Yeh sighs. Advances in fishing and freezing have made it all too easy to give in to the temptation of treating the ocean as inexhaustible; meanwhile, heavy visitor traffic has placed the marine ecosystem under further strain. How to give the ocean breathing room while balancing development and conservation is a challenge the island must face.

Volcanic rock formations and coral reefs beneath the sea combine to give Green Island its distinctive beauty.

A snorkeling excursion to the secluded Blue Cave, also known as “Sea-Snake Cave,” takes visitors to experience its magical deep-blue interior.

The Milky Way under dark skies

Green Island’s minimal light pollution makes it an excellent place for stargazing and watching meteor showers.

Green Island is home to one of the world’s few saltwater hot springs, while volcanic rock and landforms sculpted by coastal erosion create a rugged, elemental landscape. With guidance from Emily Weng, operator of Green Island’s House 16, a bed-and-breakfast, visitors discover the tranquility of Youzihu, the expansiveness of Niutoushan (Cow Head Mountain), and the surf at Ziping and Dabaisha (Great White Sand). Together, these places inspire a profound sense of nature’s immensity and human smallness.

(left) Sunset at Ziping (right) The Milky Way over Ziping

(left) The secluded Blue Cave (right) Youzihu

Mid-August of each year coincides with the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, drawing many people to the island’s stargazing spots. As meteors streak across the night sky, the vast Milky Way forms a crown over jagged rock formations, leaving everyone who looks skyward awestruck.

From the summit of Niutoushan (Cow Head Mountain), Loumen Rock and the Perseid meteor shower appear in the distance.

Toward a sustainable future

People on the island take a practical approach to survival. Whereas flying fish have sacred ritual and dietary significance for the Tao Indigenous people of Lanyu (Orchid Island), for the Han people of Green Island, they serve as bait for catching billfish. This approach is also reflected in aspects of the island’s culture that are land-based, such as harvesting peanuts before the Dragon Boat Festival.

However, local groups are now working to weave environmental and cultural sustainability together, telling Green Island’s own story of transformation. For example, through a community industry transformation initiative, Luo Wenjun of the local cultural space Green Island House has developed immersive experiences in which visitors hand-make smoked bonito using traditional methods, revisiting the years when the island processed dried bonito for export; they can also prepare old-fashioned peanut tofu. Selina Hsu says, “Green Island has a distinctive identity and the potential to become an international model for sustainability. It is one of the few places that can simultaneously employ geothermal, solar, wind, and Kuroshio Current power generation.”

Green Island, home to one of the world’s few saltwater hot springs, now faces the challenge of balancing development with ecological preservation.

Sunrise at Youzihu

Green Island’s tourism is moving away from a shallow, volume-driven model toward more substantive exploration centered on civic awareness and cultural experience. Only by ceasing to treat the island as an ATM to be endlessly tapped, and by allowing its human rights history, marine ecology, and cultural heritage to inform one another, can this island, once engulfed in darkness, find its footing amid the waves and shine with a dazzling and enduring light.