Return to Taiwan

For Spring Break, I spent the last two weeks in Taiwan with my boyfriend and a team of three other Yalies.  He and I got a grant from the Yale International Relations Association to lead a trip to investigate public health and environmental issues.  I had been eager to go back to Taiwan, and the grant allowed me to go to new places like Lanyu (Orchid) Island, Tainan, and Taitung.

Flying fish were painted everywhere

The first Tuesday, we took the ferry to Lanyu Island, which is almost entirely populated by Tao/Yami people.  From the deck, we saw a lot of dolphins and flying fish!  I had just studied flying fish in my bio lab so it was really exciting to see.  We thought they were birds at first, but after about 30 seconds of flying above the water they would renter a wave.  Little did we know that on Lanyu they are considered gods, and the entire culture is structured around fishing them.  The fishing season has just begun with a festival that started in one village and passed from village to village around the island as each took its turn celebrating the beginning of fishing.  For the first month, only a specific type of canoe (called tatala) that seats 10 people is allowed in the waters.  The tatala is different from other indigenous groups’ hallowed-out canoes in that it is made of 27 assembled pieces of wood.  The second month 1- and 2-person canoes are allowed to join the others in fishing, and the third month motorboats are allowed too.  Every man on the island fishes, even in modern times.  Each household has at least one fish skin hanging near the entrance.





We originally came to learn more about the dispute between the Taiwanese government and the local people about a nuclear waste facility that was built on the island.  The locals say they were lied to about what the government was building, and that it has since affected the fish population and caused increasing cancer rates among residents.

The island felt a lot like Hawaii to me, and it turns out they are on nearly the same latitude.  Everyone there says hello to each other when they pass on motorbikes or in cars, and that’s included us.  We’ve done several long, beautiful, painful hikes and bike rides on the one road that circles the island and on the one mountain pass that bisects the island.  We watched the sunset from the “grassy grasslands” on the southern tip.

We got a private tour of the little museum from the director of the Lanyu Foundation, and saw the traditional houses.  The houses have three parts: one underground to protect from typhoons, one above ground to host guests from other tribes—or for the men to sleep in when it’s fishing season because they aren’t allowed to sleep near or be distracted by the women, and another above ground and very open for communal living during the summer months.