Penghu--The Chrysanthemum Isle

Over the past two years, many young people have been attracted by the idol soaps Dolphin Bay and Summer to travel to Penghu to personally experience its beauty.

And for those who have visited Peng-hu before and return to its shores, none can help but be struck by the fact that Penghu has visibly changed.

Penghu's fierce northeasterlies have turned out to be an ally in promoting windsurfing.

Chrysanthemum isle

It starts from the moment you step off the plane at the all-new-look Makung International Airport, which went into operation two years ago. Penghu's "progress" is apparent immediately.

In the city center, the changes are even more evident. Kuo Chin-lung, president of the Penghu Cultural Workshop, points out that Makung has constantly been expanding in recent years, and is two or three times bigger than it was before. The dirt roads of the early days have disappeared, and the new roads have been getting wider, expanding from two lanes to four.

Some of the fishing ports have started to evolve into tourism and leisure districts. At the No. 2 Fishing Port, the "Star of the Chrysanthemum Isle," a building shaped like a ship at berth, sits in the bay. It has already emerged as the new symbol of Makung. In the square stroked by steady breezes, the gushing fountain is accompanied by romantic melodies, creating the atmospheric and indolent mood of a tropical port.

Next to the square is Penghu's first Starbucks outlet-Taiwan's 127th. For Penghu, which doesn't yet have a department store, it's a harbinger of modernization.

The formerly down-at-heel and deserted Shui-an Wharf has been given a makeover. Hung Kuo-hsiung of the Penghu Zooxanthellae Association, a marine conservation group that aims to protect the symbiotic algae of the coral reefs, calls it "a modern and metropolitan feeling in a simple atmosphere."

Penghu's first 7-Eleven, on Chung-cheng Road, holds the national record for sales in a month. When McDonald's opened it was host to a record-breaking 6,000-plus customers. Ms. Huang, who was helping out at the bustling opening of Penghu's twentieth 7-Eleven, is about to open the island's twenty-first outlet next to the Tungwen Post Office. The former operator of a mom-and-pop store, she says candidly that a change of career at nearly 50 brings all kinds of troubles, but "it's the only way. If you don't evolve you will be eliminated."

A thousand years ago a volcanic eruption formed Penghu's basalt formations, one of the islands' most treasured sights. It is also one of the 12 sites for which Taiwan is seeking World Heritage Site status.

A touch of history

The late arrival of modernity to Penghu is a result of geography.

"Penghu's geographical borders can't be changed," says retired high-school teacher Lin Wen-chen. The island's geographical position is its fate. Its separation from everything by the sea means that things come slowly. Even the morning paper doesn't arrive until around 10 a.m. If the flights are stopped due to bad weather the whole island becomes so quiet it's unnerving.

From the sky, Penghu looks like a string of pearls in the deep blue sea. Penghu is a scattered archipelago of coral islands in the southwestern Taiwan Strait. They cover an area of 127 square kilometers and have a population of around 90,000 people.

Penghu's changing population reveals the islands' rise and decline. Penghu came under Chinese rule four centuries before mainland Taiwan, in 1281. Kublai Khan attacked Japan but was forced to retreat, and set up a base on Penghu. But although Penghu was opened up relatively early, until the Qing dynasty it was little more than a military outpost. It was also infertile, barren, and overrun with pirates, and the imperial administration made very little effort toward developing it. To this day the majority of Penghu's inhabitants are descended from immigrants who came from the Zhangzhou and Quanzhou areas of Fujian Province in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.

From 1945, when Taiwan was liberated from Japanese rule, the population of Penghu consistently rose until it reached a peak in 1969 of 121,000. As fish stocks were depleted, unemployment rose, at the same time that export processing zones began to emerge in Taiwan, luring more and more Penghu people to take the four-hour boat journey to Kaohsiung to make a living. To make matters worse, even the soldiers stationed on Penghu declined in numbers. Where there were previously three divisions, there was now less than one. Business declined and the glory days were at an end.

Shaved ice with prickly pear flavoring served in a seashell is a refreshing treat in hot weather.

New homes for all

For a newly arrived tourist, it's easy to see Penghu's tangible changes, but for local inhabitants the less visible changes in local customs and attitudes seem even deeper.

Tsai Fu-sung, a Penghu native and retired teacher who lives in Huhsi, has noticed the big changes in values and in attitudes to life.

"In the old days, we just worked the fields. We were working before the sun was up and didn't rest until the sun went down. We had no idea about the world. Today the only people working the fields are those of us in our fifties and sixties. The kids have all gone to Taiwan to develop their careers, and those who've stayed behind prefer to do small business. They have no interest in agriculture," he says. "Today young people in Huhsi have no idea what it means to rely on nature in order to eat, and respect the ways of nature."

Things are not what they used to be, and Penghu people are aware that the law-abiding community they were once so proud of is changing. "In the past, Penghu was really a place where you didn't have to lock your doors at night. You didn't even need to close the door to your room. Today on all the islands, the windows and doors are locked up tight," says Tsai. As the economy has prospered and the wealth gap has grown, in the past two years there have been incidents of theft, swindling and mugging in a place that never saw them before. The state of affairs Tsai describes in Huhsi epitomizes the situation throughout Penghu.

Lin Wen-cheng, who is currently compiling a record of Penghu, is pained by the changes in the islands' quality of life.

Traditionally, local people have had the attitude that a family should be ashamed of itself if it cannot afford to build a new house for three successive generations, and the government offers a NT$20,000 subsidy for tearing down buildings that are in a dangerous condition. Thus in recent years, old family houses have been replaced by Western-style buildings everywhere. In Makung there are not even five traditional courtyard-style homes left.

Tearing down old homes and building new ones doesn't necessarily reflect a rise in living standards. "Penghu's new homes have no class, and do not feel convivial," laments Lin Wen-chen. Most of Penghu's homes today have no grand front doors, and the ground floor is used as a garage that one has to pass through to enter the house. The old pleasure of sitting on porches chatting has disappeared.

A Penghu specialty-- prickly pears.

Three barriers

The changes in Penghu's urban landscape deserve praise, and it's possible that the local culture can adapt. But the damage done to Penghu's natural environment over the past 20-some years may very well be irreversible.

Penghu's old name was "Xiying"-western ocean-while the Portuguese called it the Pescadores, or "Isles of Fisherfolk." From the beginning, fishing was the people of Penghu's lifeline. But in the 1980s the bad Taiwanese custom of poisoning fish took hold, and with the 1990s came the introduction of dragnet fishing. The result was the exhaustion of fishing resources, and although the tonnage of ships got greater and the radius they fished in larger, catches dropped by half.

Apart from overfishing, inappropriate building methods leading to rising ocean temperatures are another reason for diminishing sea life.

From long ago Penghu has been famous for its "three barriers"-a series of wave breakers, seawalls, and household windbreak walls. The former two have had an incalculable effect on the coastal environment, and created a distance between Penghu people and the sea.

Penghu has 70 seaports, and the seawalls beside them stretch for more than 40 kilometers. Out to sea are also wave breakers. "When the tides reach the inner bays they are already a spent force. Why do we need put wave breakers out there?" asks Hung Kuo-hsiung in bemusement. How to rebuild Penghu's ocean culture and allow the islands to have an open coastline again is something that is much on his mind.

A Penghu fish product-silver anchovy.

Penghu in a day

The agricultural and fishing industries are dying out, and replacing them is a flourishing tourism industry.

In the 1960s, tourists to Penghu were mostly pilgrims who went to the Tianhou Temple to pray. But as the economy took off and flights and ferry services between Taiwan and Penghu increased, tourism to Penghu began to flourish. At that time, the main activity for tourists was viewing the natural landscape, By the 1990s, this kind of tourism began to give way to young people who came for surfing, diving and other water sports.

Unfortunately, the tourism industry adopted short-sighted measures and lacked planning and strong leadership, leaning on the market and being passive in response.

Lin Wen-chen points out that from the beginning tourism in Penghu was carved up by Taiwan's large tour operators, and only around 45% of the earnings made their way into the pockets of Penghu locals. The rest was carried off by Taiwan tour operators.

With meager profits exacerbated by price wars, from the beginning it was impossible for Penghu's tourism industry to find its own characteristics. Hung Kuo-hsiung points out that Penghu's basalt and its marine ecology are its most unique features. Penghu's multi-layered coastline and its diversity are a rarity. Its shallow-water and offshore coral reefs are brimming with a diversity of sea life, but the people of Penghu do not know how to conserve and treasure it.

For example, from 1990 onward there was a vogue for "wave-wading" on low-tide walkways. But the walkways were laid out without any thought of conservation, so that "wading" turned into "trampling" of the seabed. Within three years the walkways had turned the areas where they were located into barren exercise yards from which all the fish had been frightened away.

"Many people only come to Penghu once in a lifetime," says Hung Kuo-hsiung. They go to all the sights and give them a cursory looking over in the style of mass tourism, and it easily becomes a one-off one-day tour. When it's over, it leaves nothing in the way of special memories.

A banana boat and jet skis are amongst the water activities that are attracting tourists to Chipei in recent years.

Ecotourism

In recent years the Penghu Zooxanthellae Association has started to promote ecotourism. Unlike the "plundering" form of tourism that prevailed previously, it emphasizes experiencing nature and understanding the environment. Apart from photographs, travelers are not allowed to take anything away with them when they leave. Hung Kuo-hsiung thinks this is the only way forward for sustainable tourism in Penghu.

For example, Penghu has some 574 stone fish traps, built over the space of over 200 years out of blocks of basalt and coral. From the air they look like a "great wall" in the sea. An especially striking one on Chimei Island's northeast coast is built in the form of a double heart, lending Penghu an even more romantic air. It's a tourism resource that could be developed for ecotourism, as are Penghu's many formations of basalt and igneous rock, molded by the waves and the wind into a variety of striking shapes.

To help ecotourism take root, the Penghu Cultural Workshop has in recent years cooperated with the county government to establish a model coastal conservation area on the Fengkui Peninsula, and has staged many charity events to allow Penghu locals to understand the importance of coastal preservation. They have also created an exhibit on stone fish traps in the visitor center on Chipei Island to explain how these ingenious traps were built and used, and thus give visitors a deeper understanding of Penghu culture.

The more than 500 shihu, or fish traps, that line Penghu's coastline provide an air of romance. The photograph features Chimei's famous double-heart trap.

Keeping the "original flavor"

The tide ebbs and flows, the world changes, and so is Penghu changing. But no matter what happens, Penghu's "original flavor" has to be preserved; it cannot be allowed to escape.

The people of Penghu also know you cannot think short-term. You have to emphasize ecological preservation if you want to have a future. Still, when all's said, carrying it out involves facing hardships, and vested interests are reluctant to let to go, no matter how much observers stand by and tut-tut.

The especially close personal relations of people on Penghu mean there is not too much scope for reform. Lin Wen-chen points out that in this small place, people's relationships are labyrinthine. If it's not relatives, it's friends, or teachers and students, or classmates, making the pressure of relationships heavy. Unless you distance yourself even from your immediate family, getting anything done is hard.

The exquisitely shaped basalt rock formations, the rich marine life and the ocean's vividly colored coral are all dazzling sights. But how will these rare and precious things attract people here to praise and cherish them? That will be a test of Penghu people's wisdom.

An amazing local road sign.