The nation’s last whaler has passed away, taking with him a poorly recorded, but important part of Taiwan’s history.
Chang Yu-chen (張玉振), 90, was one of the first and last whalers working out of Pingtung County, where the nation’s whaling industry was based.
Whaling in Taiwan began in 1913, when the Japanese established the industry near Kenting’s Nanwan Beach (南灣), then called Osaka-rachi.
Photo: Copy by Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
In the 1950s, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government moved the industry further south to Banana Bay (香蕉灣).
It was at about this time when Chang, 26, and already working in distant-water fishing, became a whaler.
He was invited to Pingtung to work for Hsiang Te Fisheries Corp in the bay, historian Nien Chi-cheng (念吉成) said.
Chang went on to work on the nation’s first post-Japanese colonial era whaling boat with Tsai Wen-chin (蔡文進), who became his close friend, and a Japanese harpoonist and mechanic.
The mechanic was unwilling to teach Chang, so he used his observations to pick up various skills on the boat and was quickly promoted, Nien said.
The crew in 1958 caught a record-sized whale, for which Chang was recognized by then-Pingtung mayor Ko Wen-fu (柯文福).
Ko and then-Hengchun Township mayor Kung Hsin-tung (龔新通) visited the Chang household along with former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) and took a photograph with Chang’s mother, Nien said.
Chiang and his father, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), were avid whale meat fans and frequently visited Pingtung to observe whaling industry operations, Nien said.
Taiwan at the time cooperated with Japan on whaling and the nation had only three whalers, including Chang, Nien said.
Due to the short whaling season from January to March, and increasing international pressure on the industry, whaling in Taiwan under the Republic of China lasted only 15 years, Nien said, adding that Chang went on to fish in local waters.
Chang in 1985 became the eighth director-general of the Hengchun Fishing Association, he added.
Nien said he hopes that the government will develop a whale-watching industry to capitalize on cetaceans that roam the waters off Taiwan’s southern coast, and that he will see the establishment of a whaling museum.
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