As we cross the bridge from Paisha Island and arrive on Hsiyu, a two-story-high statue of an old fisherman comes into view. For locals, the inspiration for the statue is immediately apparent, for the ancient name of the place is Old Fisherman's Island. Continuing south, the charming local scenery makes for a delightful drive. According to township mayor Lu Cheng-tang, "Most of the best tourist spots in Penghu are in Hsiyu Rural Township."

The picturesque island has a total land area of 18.7 square kilometers and a population of about 8,300. The island is home to 11 villages, and the economy is based on fishing, as it always has been.

The biggest of the villages is Chuwan. The local temple there, dedicated to the great general Guan Yu, features a man-made subterranean labyrinth installed with religious reliquaries. Just offshore, Little Gate Island has something of just about everything for which Penghu is famous. The tiny island is especially known for its indian blanket daisies, white sandy beaches, columnar basalt formations, "wasp's nest fields" (so named because the farm fields are divided into countless little cells by rock walls of coral limestone, piled up by farmers to protect crops from the area's incessant wind), and Whale Cave (a natural rock bridge gouged out by wind and waves on the northern point of the island). Seen from afar, the rock bridge looks like a big whale that has come in close to shore. In Chihtung Village (the township's center of business and government), basalt columns rise abruptly from the sea along the coast at Takuoyeh. Erhkan Village has the smallest population of the 11 villages, but is one of the better known, as it has been designated a historic preservation district and is home to the Chen Family Residence, listed as a Class 3 Historical Site. At the island's southern tip lies Waian Village, a fishing port with lots of boats coming and going. Waian has the largest population of the 11 villages and the strongest economy. The focus of religious faith in Waian is King Wen Temple, where every year during the Lantern Festival the fishing boats in the harbor all light up simultaneously in a one-of-a-kind "lantern festival at sea." On the outskirts of the village, the old Fort Hsitai (a Class 1 Historical Site) and the Hsiyu Lighthouse (a Class 2 Historical Site) stand testimony to the village's strategic maritime role.

War visits Hsiyu

The locals in Hsiyu are fond of quoting a phrase from the General History of Taiwan: "Hsiyu protects the rest of Penghu." There is evidence that the Chinese have been active on the island since as far back as the Three Kingdoms period of the 3rd century. A garrison was established in Penghu in the late Yuan dynasty, and Hsiyu was included under the garrison's jurisdiction. Thus the island has been settled by the Chinese far longer than Taiwan has.

Fort Hsitai covers an area of eight hectares. The gateway to the fort features an inscription by the famed 19th-century Qing minister, Li Hongzhang. After passing through the entrance, the path into the fort descends into a crater-like depression, which makes it feel almost as though you're in a tunnel as you walk through a maze of barracks, ammunition storehouses, etc. Cannon are installed up above on the high ground, ready to defend against seaborne invaders. With a commanding view of the sea below, the battery once controlled the channel into the Penghu inland sea.

When war broke out between China and France in 1885, Admiral Amedee Courbet led a fleet of ships to attack Taiwan and Penghu. After the war, the Qing court spent over 10,000 taels of silver on four big cannon, which they installed on Hsiyu Island.

Japanese forces attacked Penghu during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, and the guns of Hsiyu's Fort Hsitai played prominently in a furious defense of the islands. The Japanese eventually landed on Hsiyu Island, but not before the Qing defenders had destroyed critical parts of the cannon, rendering them useless to the enemy. It is not hard at all for visitors to Fort Hsitai today to imagine naval vessels sailing past, and to hear the guns roar their displeasure at the sight.

Mayor Lu reports: "There's also a Tungtai Fort on the island, but it's closed to the public because of its continuing military importance. There are actually places of military importance all over Hsiyu. Just recently they unearthed old military tunnels at Neian Village that were dug during the Japanese colonial period." With a properly planned study, says the mayor, one could discover all sorts of fascinating things about the island's military past.

The gleaming white Hsiyu Lighthouse, located at the island's southwestern tip, guides ships as they ply between Xiamen, Penghu, and Taiwan, and fishermen working the seas to the west of Penghu depend on it in their nighttime operations. The lighthouse is also a great spot for viewing the famous "Hsiyu sunset," considered one of the eight most beautiful sights in Penghu. There is no end to the variations on the Hsiyu sunset, for the sight of the fiery red ball sinking into the ocean looks different depending on weather conditions. Mere words scarcely do it justice.

From fishing port to fish hatchery

The traditional fishing industry is now on the wane, yet Old Fisherman's Island, where fishing is the mainstay of the economy, has nevertheless managed to switch gears and find a lucrative niche for itself in the global economy.

In 1993, Taiwan developed a method for speeding up the growth of cobia (Rachycentron canadum) hatchlings. The locals in Hsiyu began using the new technique to raise cobia in Chuwan Bay and the waters off Neian. Soon Hsiyu had the biggest marine aquaculture facilities in the ROC. The cobia is a very valuable fish, prized for its delicious meat, and sells especially well in Japan. The cobia market is estimated to be worth some NT$500 million (US$14 million) per year, and brings both fame and fortune to Hsiyu.

Cobia are voracious eaters, and they put on a spectacular display of writhing and wriggling when the fish farmers throw them their food. The resourceful residents of Hsiyu have found that tourists are willing to pay for the pleasure of feeding the cobia and fishing for them in their box nets at sea.

While the men go out to make their living at sea, the women of Hsiyu make do on the wind-swept island, planting peanuts, sorghum, and the like. They have long had the custom of easing the drudgery of farm chores by singing bao ge songs, and now Hung Min-tsung, the secretary of the Penghu County Culture Bureau and a native of Hsiyu, has collected the songs and arranged them into a stage performance. Hung has organized a group of ladies averaging 70 years of age into a bao ge troupe. They practice in Erhkan Village, and they made a big hit early this new year when they performed at a cultural festival in Taipei.

Old home, new life

The grannies of the bao ge troupe come from Erhkan Village, where well-preserved local architecture featuring a superb mix of traditional feel and modern innovations draws large numbers of tourists every year. The village has been designated by the national government as a traditional village preservation district, the first of its kind anywhere in the ROC.

After the Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA) worked out plans for the establishment of a preservation district in 1989, the 50 or so households (most with the surname of Chen) living on 1.4 hectares of land quickly gave their unanimous approval to having the entire village designated as a historic preservation district.

The brothers Chen Ling and Chen Pang came from Kinmen during the middle years of the Qing dynasty and settled in Hsiyu, where they set up a business trading in Chinese herbal medicines. As the herbal medicine business expanded, the clan grew and spread. In 1911 they pooled their resources to build a big residence with a main entrance designed in the half-Chinese, half-Western architectural style typical of Southeast Asia, while the interior was designed in the traditional manner of a three-sided residential compound (san he yuan). The building materials used are also noteworthy: a mix of modern materials, such as polished aggregate and decorative tiles, with Penghu's traditional basalt and coral limestone. These are certainly some of the finest exemplars of traditional homes in all of Penghu.

When the big sea bridges linking Old Fisherman's Island, Paisha Island, and Penghu Island were built in 1970, they unexpectedly spurred an accelerated outflow of local youth. "Half moved to Makung, and half went to Kaohsiung," sighs Chen Jung-yi, chairman of the Erhkan Boosters Society. Chen himself moved to Kaohsiung at age seven along with his father. In the early years, many of those who had moved away would come back every lunar new year to pay their respects to their ancestors, but later "they just went away and took the ancestral tablets with them." Erhkan, the smallest village in Hsiyu, used to have two or three hundred residents, but now it's down to about 60 or 70. A lot of nice homes with front yards and water wells stand empty and are going to ruin.

Luckily, however, the government stepped in with its historic preservation project, and local residents themselves also stirred to action, attracting many wandering natives to come back and help rebuild their hometown. "It's not just the homes that we want to preserve," says Erhkan Boosters Society vice chairman Chen Chin-shih, who moved back to Erhkan five years ago from Taipei's toney Tienmu district together with his wife and children. "The people's lives here in Erhkan are very much in harmony with the passing seasons. That kind of lifestyle is what we want to preserve."

Every home a museum

They started by taking an abandoned home and turning it into a museum to house collections of valuable old things to be found right there in the village, including Qing-dynasty scale weights, a flying-tiger pennant used in rites for banishing ill fortune, and building materials from the local Erh Hsing Temple. They also mobilized everybody in the village to find all the interesting old knick-knacks they could from around their homes: candlestick holders, old urns, winnowing machines, cradles, and so on. The result was Erhkan's Museum of Traditions. Next came the Tidal Zone Museum. Once again, the locals handled everything themselves, from the design to assembling the museum's collection and putting it on display. Asks Chairman Chen: "Do you know how much we spent on the Tidal Zone Museum?" He answers his own question proudly: "Not even NT$50,000!"

No one who passes by the Tidal Zone Museum can fail to be attracted. Fishing net buoys made of sapphire-blue and emerald-green glass hang from a fence and trellis made from driftwood. The courtyard is covered over in tiny bits of broken white coral from the seashore, and sitting on these is a heart-shaped fish trap made of stacked basalt stones.

Chen Jung-yi recalls: "Stacking this fish trap brought back lots of shared memories for the people of Erhkan." Shellfish and other aquatic life thrive in the tidal zone, and have always been a key source of food for the people of Erhkan.

Reports 40-year-old Chen Chin-shih with a laugh: "It was tough work lugging this driftwood up here. Some of us fell and got big bruises. Some of us rubbed our shoulders raw. It was great for me, because I finally got rid of the spare tire around my waist, which I hadn't been able to do for years."

Tsai Kui-hsiang, another vice chairman of the Boosters Society, explains: "Our idea was that every single home is a museum, and every person is an artist." Tsai's surname, by the way, is written §~, rather than the usual ??, and made for one of the more interesting vignettes of this reporter's trip to Hsiyu. As the story goes, everyone surnamed Tsai (§~) is a descendant of the famous 17th-century admiral Shi Lang, who helped the Qing court recapture Taiwan from the followers of Koxinga. Not wanting their lineage known, they switched their surname to Fang (§E) and later to Tsai. Today if you run into someone going by this unusual surname, you can be sure that they are from Neian in Hsiyu.

The people of Erhkan Village have already opened four museums: the Museum of Traditions, the Tidal Zone Museum, the Museum of Everyday Lifestyles, and the Tosan Memorial Hall (tosan is a Japanese loan word meaning "father"). Two more museums are now in the works: the Museum of Chinese Medicines, and the Bilge Bug Ecology Hall. In addition, the locals also have plans for a Ceramics Museum and a Museum of Bao Ge Songs. On staff at the Tidal Zone Museum is "Old Uncle Yang Tung," a living encyclopedia of all things connected with the sea. Associated with the Museum of Bao Ge Songs is Granny Wen, queen of the bao ge singers. None of the museums is very large, but each is very unique in character.

Returning to the roots

The Museum of Everyday Lifestyles is housed in an old three-bedroom, two-hall residence, and features a flower garden, courtyard, mini-courtyard, and roof balcony. Stone mortars of different descriptions are affixed to the outside walls, and were once used as feeding troughs for cattle, sheep, and pigs. Inside the museum, modern oil paintings hang on the walls, while an old-fashioned cupboard stocked with beautiful bottles and jars qualifies as a very nice piece of installation art. Every nook and cranny of the museum is inviting, and makes it difficult for the visitor to leave.

"Tasteful living doesn't have to cost a lot," says Chen Chin-shih, owner of the museum. "You just have to slow down and be attuned to the world around you. If you do that, it's no effort at all to create a beautiful style that's all your own." The museum, it turns out, is his own home! Chen, who once worked as a kaiseki (tea lunch) chef in Japan, worked in seafood transport after returning to Hsiyu. His wife, who is busily cooking meals and waiting on customers, says: "One nice thing about Hsiyu is that I never have to worry about where my kids are." Mrs. Chen, who often strolls around the village chatting with the neighbors, laughs: "A friend asked me whether I get bored here, since there's no shopping. I told her, 'Of course not.' Here you can go out on the town without spending any money, there's lots of friendly people to talk to, and you often get peanut candy to eat. It's great."

In the early evening hours on the annual Lantern Festival, the residents of Erhkan Village light up long strings of red lanterns and feast on all sorts of traditional Lantern Festival treats, such as chicken noodle soup in an herbal medicine broth, steamed pumpkin dumplings, slices of cobia sashimi, peanut candy, and deep-fried jujubes. Out-of-towners who visit Erhkan on Lantern Festival find it hard to tear themselves away.

Says Chen Jung-yi: "In the past, whenever anyone from Erhkan came back from Taiwan, they'd always arrive carrying huge bags full of gifts. These days, though, it's local products from Penghu that everybody's clamoring for in Taiwan. Every time I go to Kaohsiung I have to take a big suitcase full of gifts with me."

Out in front of the Tidal Zone Museum, I find a scraggly old horsetail she-oak putting out tender green buds. Hsiyu Rural Township has undergone many transformations. From battlefield to tourist mecca. From fishing on the open sea to raising valuable cobia in box nets along the coast. From abandoned, dilapidated homes to brand new museums. With its down-home hospitality and unadorned scenic beauty, Hsiyu beckons for its wandering sons to come home, and for restless city dwellers to come wandering.

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In the wind-swept fields of Hsiyu Rural Township, farmers stack coral limestone blocks into windbreaks to protect the crops. The fence rows break the fields into small cells reminiscent of a wasp's nest, for which reason the locals speak of "wasp's fields." The women carry water on shoulder poles to irrigate the fields, displaying the toughness of the Penghu people.

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This concrete replica of a cannon was installed near Fort Hsitai during the Japanese occupation as a decoy to fool enemies. It serves as evidence of the military importance of Hsiyu.

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Most of Penghu County's top tourist sites are in Hsiyu Rural Township. Whale Cave, formed by the action of the wind and waves, is a great place for listening to the pounding surf.

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Chen Jung-yi (right) and Chen Chin-shih, chairman and vice chairman of the Erhkan Boosters Society, both left Penghu early in life and moved back as adults. They have played a leading role in the movement to put new life into the village's old traditional homes.

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Rudders, fishing lights, and dies for casting fish hooks. . . . Everything in the Tidal Zone Museum was donated by local residents.

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At the Tidal Zone Museum, the driftwood fence, courtyard laid with coral, and miniature tidal weir always arouse the curiosity of passersby. The locals built it all themselves.

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On the Lantern Festival, lots of residents in Erhkan Village set up stalls and sell souvenirs and goodies to visitors. The sashimi made from locally raised cobia fish is delicious.

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The Chen clan of Hsiyu traces its local roots to a pair of brothers who came here from Kinmen during the Qing dynasty and set up a trade in Chinese herbal medicines. This old home is still in excellent condition. Thanks to its distinctive atmosphere, all of Erhkan Village has been designated a historic preservation district, the first time ever that an entire village has received this designation anywhere in the ROC.