Flying into Taidong
fighter jet
Laurie
Taidong Beach
Joshua invited us to accompany him as he traveled to Orchid island 蘭嶼 to write about the island for Lonely Planet. We flew to Taidong (Taitung) 台東 Friday afternoon, meeting Joshua and Laurie at the airport only to discover that flights to Orchid Island for the rest of the day had been canceled due to air force exercises. After reserving seats on the second flight to Orchid Island the next morning we take a taxi into Taidong to find rooms for the night.
Get to Orchid Island by boat or by plane. Both leave from Taidong and are as reliable as the weather, so whereas reservations are accepted, advance payment for actual tickets is discouraged. Flights take 25 minutes on 19 seat planes flying at a few thousand feet over the Pacific. Daily Air Corporation 德安航空 (089) 362-489 is the only airline operating a few flights per day depending on the weather. Buy tickets at the airport counter for about 1400 TWD. Get more for your money on the three-hour boat trip from Taidong's Fukang Harbor. Roundtrip boat tickets are between 1500 and 2000 TWD and are sold on the boat prior to sailing time from Golden 金星 or Common Star 恆星 Ferries (089) 281 477.
One of Taiwan's thirteen volcanic islands, Orchid Island is off the eastern coast of Taiwan in the Pacific, at 22°03' N, 121°32' E, is 91 km miles from Taidong 台東, 74 km from Green Island 綠島 to the east, 76 Km from Oluanpi 鵝鑾鼻 on the southernmost tip of Taiwan to the west, and 390 km north of Luzon Island, the Philippines. The island is described as being shaped like a fist. With an area of 45.7 square kilometers and an additional 2 square kilometers at low tide, Orchid Island has a total of 38.5 kilometers of coastline and is 2.8 times bigger than Green Island. Hilly, with eight mountains reaching over 400 meters, the tallest point of Orchid Island is Hongtoushan 紅頭山 at 552m.
The climate is tropical with humidity often over 90% and an average monthly temperature of 23°C. July temperatures reach 32°C and drop below 20°C only in January. Rainfall averages over 2600 cm annually with just over 100 rain free days per year. From October to January or February, the climate is dominated by northeastern monsoons. Throughout the year a light breeze blows from changing directions, making the summer heat tolerable. The warm Kuroshio Current flows northward from the equator past eastern Taiwan affecting the marine fauna.
Our host's wife, Ms. Li greets us at the airport and takes us to rent scooters (400-500 TWD/day) and then to sit in on a Yami elders story-telling and singing competition at the Culture Center where her husband works before taking us to her home in Yeyin.
The natives of Orchid island are prevalently called "Yami" by both western and Chinese (雅美) language speakers. The natives do not use the name "Yami" to refer to themselves, the word means "north" and may have been what they were called by their predecessors to the south, in the Philippines. The Yami are also known as the "Tao," pronounced "Da-wu" (達悟) in Mandarin Chinese. The natives call themselves "Tao" meaning "man" or "person", "Tao no pongso" meaning "people of the island" or "Tao no Irala" meaning "people of Irala."
The island was "undiscovered" until Japanese occupation of Taiwan (1895-1945) when the Japanese government declared the island an off limits ethnological research area. And even after the KMT-controlled government assumed rule of the island, Orchid Island was not open to tourists until 1967. The relative isolation of Orchid Island has allowed the native Tao to better maintain their traditions, language and culture than the other aborigines of the Taiwan mainland. The undersea mountain chain connecting Orchid Island to the Phillipines leaves a path of protruding small islands. The Tao migrated to Orchid Island about 800 years ago from the Batan Archipelago (巴丹群島) in the northern Philippines, maintaining communication with their homeland, trading pigs, goats, and millet, for weapons, beads and gold. These exchanges ceased about three centuries ago, after a fight in which most of the Tao visitors on Batan were killed. However. The languages spoken by Tao and Batanese today are mutually intelligible. The Tao fish both during the day and at night. Tao are busiest in the summer when fruit ripens and they prepare for the coming winter. The population of Orchid island is about 4000, of which about 2800 are Tao and the rest are Chinese from Taiwan. Since 1990 about 25 percent of the Yami population has migrated to work in cities on Taiwan.
Orchid Island is called "Lanyu" 蘭嶼 (orchid island) by the Chinese; early 17th century Japanese charts list Tabako Shima; during their colonial occupation in the first half of the 20th century, the Japanese called the island Kotosho (red head island); mid 17th century French maps call the island Tabaco Xima; Taiwan Puyuma call it Botol, the Formosan native Ami call it Buturu; the native Tao call their island "Pongso no Tao" by the Tao (the island where we live) or "Irala" — land (as opposed to sea); and Botel Tobago is a name given by westerners.
We take the cross-island road from Hongtou Village 紅頭村 to Yeyin Village 野銀村 where we rent rooms with the Li's. After moving in we take off for a ride around the island on our rented scooters.
The island has seen volcanic activity several times since 3.5 Ma (million years ago) up to about 20,000 years ago. Most of Orchid Island is covered by thick piles of Cenozoic andesites (dark-colored vesicular volcanic rocks erupted from volcanic activity associated with convergent plate boundaries.) The Philippine plate is a small plate between the Eurasian and Pacific plates. The Huatung Basin is a small oceanic basin and constitutes the westernmost part of the Philippine Sea Plate. Lanyu is part of the Luzon Arc that bounds the Huatung Basin to the west. Lanyu is located at the juncture of the Philippine and Eurasian Plates. The steep mountains of Orchid Island are part of the chain of volcanic islands between Taiwan and Luzon.
In 1974 Taiwan's Atomic Energy Commission selected Long Men 龍門 (Dragon Gate) at the southern tip of Orchid Island as a temporary storage facility for mid and low level nuclear waste. A harbor was built in 1978, construction began in 1980, and shipments began arriving in May of 1982. Since then, the site has been the depository for mid and low level nuclear waste from Taiwan's three nuclear plants.
In the mid-1970s, government representatives tricked the illiterate district commissioner of Orchid Island into agreeing to the project explaining that the plan was to build a fish cannery on the Long Men site. The deception was maintained into the site construction until island churchgoers discovered the truth from mainland Taiwan news reports.
The Tao language is Bashiic, a Malayo-Polynesian tongue, similar to the languages spoken by the Ivatan peoples of the Batanes islands of the Northern Philippines. The Bashi area is the area comprising the islands of the northernmost and smallest province of the Philippines, Batanes, as well as the Bashi Channel and Irala (Orchid Island). The language is still spoken by the older generation, over fifty. The younger Tao mostly speak mandarin Chinese, which is the official language of the Taiwan mainland. Outside a general store we see a woman reading a bible in written in romanized Tao. Everywhere we go, the natives seem to speak to each other in Tao. Our hosts the Li's lament that the younger generation no longer speak Tao, and that the schools only instruct in Tao for one hour per day.
| Tao | Chinese | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Yayu | 椰油 Yeyou | coconut oil/butter |
| Iraralay | 朗島 Langdao | bright island |
| Iranumilk | 東清 Dongqing | east clear |
| Ivarinu | 野銀 Yeyin | country/wild silver |
| Imourud | 紅頭 Hongtou | red head |
| Iratai | 漁人 Yuren | fisherman |
| Iwatas | 伊瓦達斯 Yiwadasi | (phonetic) |
We search for a place to get in the water as we drive around the island. The rocky coast, cliffs and coral reefs don't seem to have left many spots to even get into the water, but we do find a narrow rocky beach along the northeast coast where we are able to get in, offering a pleasant swim once you get beyond the flow of rocks in the breaking waves.
Back at our home-stay, Ms. Li has prepared a meal of local vegetables, including bitter melon. We eat with her, her husband and another border, Mr. Chong, then sit on the steps outside their house. Several villagers stop or say hello as they walk by on the street. Mr. Chong a botanical researcher for the Taiwan Forestry Resarch Institute under the Council of Agriculture who travels around Taiwan collecting plant specimens for their collection. Mr. Chong's focus of expertise is Orchid Island and specifically orchids and has been to Orchid Island countless times and knows our hosts well. As he pulls each leaf or flower out of his collection bags he asks Mr. Li what they are. Mr. Li tells him the Tao name and also what the plant is traditionaly used for before Mr. Chong preses the specimen between two newspaper sheets.
As we are talking, two men walk down towards the ocean with what looks like fishing rods over their shoulder. We ask them if they are going fishing, but they reply that they are off to hunt civet. The Formosan gem-faced civet 白鼻心 Paguma larvata taivana (Swinhoe) is Orchid Island's largest native animal.
We ask Mr. Chong and Mr. Li for a recommendation for an interesting natural hike we can go on the next morning before our 2:40 PM flight back to Taiwan in the afternoon. Mr. Li cannot join us to Tianchi 天池 since, as he must lead mass tomorrow. Mr. Chong will take us to a breakfast place in Yeyou where he meets the rest of his team and will show us the trail head on the way. We invite Josh and Laurie to join us, agreeing to head out at 6 AM.
In the airport picture essays document the opening up of Tianchi 天池 to make the area more accessible to tourists. Great trees were cut down to build the wooden stairway easing hikers' ascent to the lake in the volcano crater. Construction cables and bricks have been left along the path. Sections of the wooden walkway are unfinished. Mr. Chong warns us that we won't see many orchids along the heavily trafficked path. Like the cement harbors and nuclear waste dump, none of these "developments" seem to have brought any benefit to the natives.
In January 19, 1946, the island was redesignated as Hongtouyu Township (紅頭嶼鄉 "Red-headed Island") of Taitung County 台東縣 and on November 24 of that year was renamed to 蘭嶼 (Lan Yu) or Orchid Island, after the indigenous Phalaenopsis aphropdite 台灣蝴蝶蘭 or butterfly orchid.
The earliest scientific record of the orchid dates back to 1879, when the plant was "discovered" on Orchid Island. Overlooked by experts until half a century ago, Phalaenopsis amabilis var. formosa became a household word among orchid aficionados the world over when hybrids won top prize at an international orchid show in California two years in a row in 1952 and 1953. Three years later, another hybrid of this Taiwanese orchid won a gold medal at the Nantes International Flower Festival in 1956, stunning festival goers with 300 blossoms. Sudden popularity led to 30 years of ravaging economic exploitation as people even cut down old trees to reach the lucrative blossoms. The butterfly orchid quickly approached extinction on the island.
Taiwan's most commonly cultivated orchids — accounting for about 65 percent of the country's exports — are those belonging to the genus Phalaenopsis, meaning "moth-appearance," from which comes the common English name moth orchids. In Taiwan, they are called butterfly orchids. Moth orchids are usually found at altitudes from 300 to 1,500 meters above sea level. Taiwan's only two local moth orchid species are P. amabilis and P. equestris, which are also found, respectively, in Indonesia and the Philippines. Phalaenopsis is the most popular cultivated orchid species on Taiwan. The local variety leads in the world in quality, variety and production quantity. In 2004, Taiwanese phalaenopsis industry was worth NT$ 2 billion.
Back in Yeyin, we pack up for our return and decide to drive the coastal road to the airfield.
After confirming that no flights are leaving today and making a new reservation on the first flight Monday morning we decide to drive the long way around the island back to Yeyin.
| Chestnut-eared Bulbul | 棕耳鵯 | Microscelis amaurotis |
| Japanese White-eye | 綠繡眼 | Zosterops japonica batanis |
| Black Paradise Flycatcher | 黑綬帶鳥 | Terpsiphone atrocaudata periophthalmica |
| Large Brown Cuckoo Dove | 長尾鳩 | Macropygia phasianella |
| Red-capped Green Pigeon | 紅頭綠鳩 | Treron formosae |
| Lanyu Scops Owl | 蘭嶼角鴞（紅角鴞） | Otus elegans botelensis |
