Among the chaos of the pirate raid, seven young women fled for their lives. With nowhere to hide on such a small island as this, they decided to jump to their death in a well to preserve their purity. Legend has it that seven beautiful trees later grew on this spot, as their souls were born anew. Today, a plaque on this spot marks the Seven Beauties Tomb, and the island on which they lived has been named in their honor: Cimei Island (七美, literally “Seven Beauties”) in the Penghu archipelago.
Though rampant piracy is no longer a feature of everyday life here, it is easy to imagine why it was such a hotspot for piracy in the past. The island is little more than a large rock protruding from the Taiwan Strait. Standing on its shores, one sees vast, empty ocean all around, punctuated only by a few even smaller rocky islands in the distance to the north. It is one of Penghu’s most remote inhabited islands, and residency here was even banned for a time during the Qing Dynasty.
In the last century, however, a strong economy tied to the ocean developed. More recently, the island has fully embraced tourism and a visit here, whether for a day trip or an overnight, is remarkably easy to arrange. Cimei is at its most beautiful in the summer, when calmer winds prevail and the carpet of vegetation covering the island turns a vivid green from the spring and summer rains.
Photo: Tyler Cottenie
A WHIRLWIND TOUR
The majority of visitors end up arriving on Cimei by boat from Magong and zipping around the island once to visit all the main sites within about three hours. For those with more time on their hands, an overnight stay is very pleasant as the island quiets down a lot after the last of the tourist boats leaves in the afternoon. It is also quite feasible to walk or cycle around the island in a single day (or two) instead of going by scooter. For longer stays, ferries run daily from Magong and from Kaohsiung once or twice a week.
Heading clockwise from the main ferry port, you will pass by the Cimei airport. Daily flights also arrive here from both Magong and Kaohsiung, with multiple flights scheduled on busier days. Daily Air runs these flights on Twin Otter aircraft, the same kind that service Green Island and Orchid Island. This is a great option for those in southern Taiwan who don’t want to visit Magong at all, or for those who get seasick easily.
Photo: Tyler Cottenie
Continuing clockwise past the airport, the landscape turns a little bleak. Abandoned abalone aquaculture ponds lie empty along the shore. An abalone museum nearby also appears abandoned. In the same area is a site where archaeologists discovered a 4,000-year-old stone tool-making site. Unfortunately, there are no informative signs or artifacts on display here and it appears to be nothing but barren rocks to the untrained eye.
Entering the village of Sihu (西湖村), however, is anything but bleak. Bright splashes of color permeate the village in the form of paintings on the exteriors of its buildings, rainbow stripes on the elementary school’s entrance gate and more. The buildings are modern, but the vegetable gardens in between them are still in the traditional Penghu “caizhai” (菜宅, literally “vegetable residence”) style, with high walls of stacked rocks on the windward side to protect delicate plants against the fierce winter winds.
Beyond the village is a religious area unlike any you’re likely to see on Taiwan proper. A Buddhist temple, a Christian church and a Taoist temple, all with similar exteriors, sit side by side atop a cliff. Next to them is a cemetery with typical Taiwanese-style tombs, but arranged in orderly, straight rows with walkways in between, as is more common in the West. Continuing clockwise from here is where you are more likely to run into crowds.
Photo: Tyler Cottenie
TWIN HEARTS AND OLD LAVA
All along the east coast are the must-see scenic spots for tour groups. The most famous is of course the twin-hearts stone weir. Fishing weirs are spaces in shallow water enclosed by a wall of stones with only a small entrance on one side. Fish swim in through the entrance but have a hard time finding their way out again, making it easier for people to catch them. In 1937, local fisherman Yan Gong rebuilt a typhoon-damaged weir and added a second chamber to increase its effectiveness. The chambers happened to be roughly heart-shaped and — fast-forward to the 21st century — the clifftop view of the stone hearts in Cimei’s blue waters has now become a major attraction.
There is a visitor center here with washrooms, food vendors and gift shops so expect crowds and tour buses. One item worth sampling that grows well in Cimei’s climate is ice plant. It is a crunchy leafy plant covered in innumerable small, round, clear bladder cells that look like ice crystals or water droplets. It has a slightly salty flavor on its own, while the sauce made of local cactus juice adds a hint of sweetness and a splash of color.
Photo: Tyler Cottenie
Continuing down the coast, there are multiple stops with views of imaginatively-named rock formations like Little Taiwan, the Great Stone Lion, Crocodile Rock and the Sleeping Cow. You’re not missing much if you don’t snap a picture of all of these, but Xiaxiang is worth the short walk down the stone staircase to the beach. It is a small bay with impressive columnar basalt cliffs on either side. The lava that formed the Penghu islands cooled into these hexagonal structures, now made easily visible by sea erosion.
CORAL AND A CASTLE
Further down the coast is Cimei’s nicest swimming beach, Yueli Bay (月鯉灣). In front of the white sand beach there is a large pavilion with benches and shade, and off to one side there is a row of attractive wooden gazebos that can be used for camping. Public washrooms with showers are also on site. There is some decent snorkeling here as well: straight out from the beach there is an abundance of coral. Equipment rentals are available at a shop just up the street.
Photo: Tyler Cottenie
Slightly inland from the beach is an unusual property, the Nanyu Castle (南嶼城). The first Han settlers to arrive here after the Qing residency ban came from the neighboring Wang-an Island (望安島). Among them were the Chen family, whose descendants built the Nanyu Castle to commemorate the hardships their ancestors endured living out at the edge of civilization under the constant threat of piracy. The castle is actually just a garden with walls; there is no roof or indoor space. However, the property is well manicured and photogenic, albeit rather one-dimensional; a fifteen-minute stop will probably suffice.
From here, you can return to the coast and finish your clockwise tour of the island, passing by the Cimei Lighthouse — the last lighthouse in the country built by the Japanese — and the Seven Beauties Tomb, where the island’s namesakes committed suicide. Alternatively, from Nanyu Castle, you can head straight over to the main port, where you can grab some fresh seafood before catching your boat to Magong, Kaohsiung, or the next destination on your island-hopping tour.
Photo: Tyler Cottenie
Photo: Tyler Cottenie
Wedged between beef noodle soup joints and cobwebbed Chinese medicine stores, we find organic kombucha vendors and surfers sipping coconut milk lattes. Weaving through alleyways of orange-roofed temples, I pass an elderly man downing Taiwan beers road side. Opposite, a backpacker beer garden hosts sunburned foreigners sampling locally brewed IPA. The unusual juxtaposition reflects a decade-long change slowly crawling upon Waiao (外澳), a sleepy beach town in Yilan County. The locale is jostling between becoming the next surfers’ paradise and its traditional farming and fishing roots. Hospitality is second nature here; my elderly taxi driver describes how the tight-knit rural
More people close to Ko Wen-je and his party are being implicated in the ongoing corruption scandal The past few weeks have seen crisis upon crisis hit the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), raising questions about the party’s future viability. It is also a wild, unpredictable story that is fascinating in a train wreck sort of way. Much of it has not been covered, or only briefly covered, in the English language press. Indeed, so much has happened that my previous column (“Donovan’s Deep Dives: The TPP careening towards catastrophe”) was almost entirely about the period of Aug. 8 through Aug. 12. The first big piece of bad news goes back to July 26, when Hsinchu Mayor Ann
Taiwan might be a land of scooters, but Joshua Dyer arrives via van to the cafe where we’ve we scheduled to meet. “I have my surf board,” he says, “there are waves today.” Dyer packs a lot into life. As well as a passion for surfing and music — he plays guitar, and previously had a job scouting folk musicians from Yunnan for US tours — Dyer works full time at Taipei-based literature agency Grayhawk. “I’m employed by the agency but most of the work I do is for the Ministry of Culture,” he says of his role as the editor-in-chief of
Some gamers who received a copy of Chinese game Black Myth: Wukong (黑神話:悟空) were given guidelines for what to talk about as they streamed it. Discussing its stunning cinematic graphics, mythical 16th-century plotline and engaging gameplay was permitted. But calling for equal rights for women? Off-limits. Hero Games, one of the early backers of Game Science, the studio behind Wukong, didn’t explain what it meant by including “feminist propaganda” on the list of forbidden talking points, and didn’t respond to my request for comment. Also among the don’t-mention topics were COVID-19, China’s game industry or anything instigating “negative discourse.” The made-in-China blockbuster