Correcting history
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Xuhai-Guanyinbi Nature Reserve (旭海觀音鼻自然保留區) in Pingtung County. It is the only stretch of coastline in Taiwan without a public road and functions as an area for ecological conservation, cultural preservation and the development of local tourism. In the past few years, the trail that connects Syuhai Village (旭海) with Anshuo Village (安朔) has evolved into a popular walking and tourism route, called the Alangyi Historic Trail (阿塱壹古道).
Access to the nature reserve is strictly controlled. At the beginning of last month, I attended a Pingtung County Government lottery for entry permits into the reserve. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful, and so I simply set off from Syuhai and walked south along a trail leading to Bayao Bay (八瑤灣) and investigated some of the small towns on the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島).
At the main gate to Hengchun Township (恆春), I noticed a sign marking a historical site. The sign, which did not indicate the organization that had commissioned it, read in Chinese: “The famous Alangyi Historic Trail begins at the East Gate, transcends a mountain ridge to Bayao Bay and follows the east coast northward to Beinan Township (卑南).”
The sign left me rather baffled, as it appeared to contain a homonymic typographical error: The character lang (朗) was used instead of lang (塱) in the name Alangyi. After an evening of asking around and discussing the matter with my peers, I decided it must have been a mistake and concluded that Taiwan’s culture is not being well-protected.
However, I subsequently discovered that an academic named Liu Huan-yueh (劉還月) used local historical information to verify that the Alangyi trail is actually a mountain path that runs east-to-west from Neishih Village (內獅) in Shihzih Township (獅子) to Alangyi Old Community (阿朗壹部落) along the upper reaches of Anshuo Stream (安朔溪). Therefore the official name for Alangyi Historic Trail, 阿塱壹古道, contains a typographical error, and should be written as 阿朗壹古道.
The mistake originates from a decade-old marketing campaign, compounded through to today. A request to change the name on related national park documentation has been submitted to the Ministry of the Interior’s Construction and Planning Agency.
I believe that the name of the trail might have become confused since it forms part of the larger Langciao-Beinan Trail (琅嶠卑南古道), Langciao being an older name for the Hengchun area.
Historic trails are important relics that serve as a record of human activity. If mistakes are made with the names of old trails and paths, this spreads to information, discussion and marketing around them. Not only is this ahistorical and illiterate, it sows confusion and misleads the public.
A tourism company recently released a new itinerary for the Alangyi Historic Trail, written as 阿塱貳古道, mistaking the character for two, er (貳), for one, yi (壹), which is a different sound, as well as meaning. It was a humorous bungle, but more caution should be taken to get these things right.
Chen Hsien-ming
Tainan
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