With this month marking 10 years since the release of the box office hit Cape No. 7 (海角七號), the owner of the house that became home to the main character said the filming locations in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春) no longer attract the crowds they once did.
The Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) experienced a spike in tourists following the release of Cape No. 7, which holds the record as the highest-grossing Taiwanese film.
Before 2008, the peninsula drew about 4 million visitors per year, statistics released by the Kenting National Park Headquarters showed.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
The Dec. 25, 2007, premiere of a television series — Wayward Kenting (我在墾丁天氣晴) — set in Hengchun; the release of Cape No. 7 on Aug. 22, 2008; and the opening of Taiwan to Chinese tour groups in July 2008 and independent Chinese travelers in June 2011 caused visitor numbers on the peninsula to exceed 6.5 million in 2010 and 8.37 million in 2014, the statistics showed.
However, the number of visitors to the peninsula last year decreased to 4.37 million due to economic woes and a drop in Chinese tourists, the statistics showed. In the first six months of this year, the agency recorded only 1.76 million visitors.
Estimates predict visitor numbers might return to their previous annual average of about 4 million.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
Crowd levels today are about 60 percent less than they were at their peak, said Chang Yung-yuan (張永源), the owner of the house that became a home to A-ga, the main character in Cape No. 7.
Few tourists know that they could go to the second floor of his house to visit A-ga’s room, and most have long forgotten about the post office where A-ga worked or the West Gate (西門) that the bus in the movie could not pass through, said Chang, who still sells souvenirs at the filming location.
Travel and consumption behaviors on the peninsula have not changed all that much over the past 10 years, he said, adding that although people no longer crowd the movie locations, tourism is now several times what it used to be.
Chang said he believes that only by building on the town’s distinctive traits, as highlighted by director Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖) in Cape No. 7, can Hengchun’s residents develop a new pathway for tourism in the post-Cape No. 7 era.
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
COMMUNITY SPIRIT: As authorities were busy with post-typhoon cleanups elsewhere, residents cleaned fallen leaves and cut small fallen trees blocking the hiking trails All hiking trails damaged by Typhoon Kong-rey have been repaired and has reopened for people who want a refreshing hike in Taipei during the Lunar New Year holiday, a city official said. The Taipei Basin is known for its easily accessible hiking trails. It has more than 130 trails combined into the 92km-long Taipei Grand Trail, which was divided into seven major routes when it was launched by the Taipei City Government in 2018. Last year, a part of the sixth route of the Grand Trail collapsed due to Typhoon Kong-rey, which hit Taiwan in October. The damaged section belongs to one
RSS