Travel Tips

Believe it or not, the original settlers of Taiwan were not Chinese. The people who settled Taiwan over 6,000 years ago--the aborigines of Taiwan.

History shows that the same race of people who settled the islands of the Pacific Ocean including Indonesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, also settled Taiwan. Originally there were many tribes occupying the plains and mountains. As the Chinese came, the plains people either assimilated with the Han Chinese or were driven to the mountains.

Today, the aborigines make up less than two per cent of the population of Taiwan.

You can get a brief introduction to this culture at the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines in northern Taipei. But to see the people and their traditional habitat, three places stand out.

In the north, there is Wulai village, about an hour southeast of Taipei. The Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village is in Nantou County in central Taiwan near Sun Moon Lake. And, in the south, the Taiwan Aboriginal Culture Park is at Peiyeh in Pingtung county.

Each place has its advantages, depending on what you want to see. If you are anthropologically inclined, Wulai is the best example of a culture in transition. Set in beautiful mountain terrain, there are vestiges of the old in the decorations and statues scattered throughout, and in the regular dance performances.

But the village is definitely twentieth century Taiwan with all the commercialism that entails. You can also go to nearby Doll Valley to get a better view of the housing and life-styles of present-day aborigines.

The Taiwan Aboriginal Culture Park near Santimen in the south has houses designed to look like the aboriginal homes of old along with traditional song and dance performances. But if you want to have the full idyllic experience of what the primitive culture may once have looked like, replete with village costumes and housing, the best place to go is the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village near Sun Moon Lake.

In addition to a museum, auditorium, and dance area, a winding road takes you to nine separate villages representing the nine major aboriginal tribes of Taiwan. This is the best place to compare the habitats and costumes of each of the tribes as well as to listen to their songs and see their dance.

The village grounds also contain a beautiful set of European gardens and other attractions which seem out of place in the aboriginal setting. Sun Moon Lake with its distinctive beauty also offers many places to see.

One of many statues in the Formosan Aboriginal Culter Village in central Taiwan, near Sun Moon Lake.

Fishermen by trade and well used to the harshness of the wind and the sea, the people here have a tanned, weathered look. Men in loincloths are a common sight and richly decorated fishing boats are a trademark of the people.

When To Visit

Festival time is the best time to experience the aboriginal culture, for then the pageantry and song and dance are at their richest. The Ami hold a harvest festival in Hualien and Taitung counties in July and August, while the Yami tribe have their Flying Fish festival on Orchid Island during the second or third lunar month of the year.

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Alishan Vintage Train

Alishan

The area is famous among residents and visitors as one of Taiwan's best places to watch the sunrise. The views are impressive in practically every direction. Craggy mountain peaks jut out of a sea of fluffy white clouds, which gradually turn a fiery mass of purples, reds, and oranges in a magnificent light show created by the first rays of dawn as the sun rises above the peaks.
There are five things at Alishan that the tourist cannot miss: the railway, the beautiful cypress forests, the "sea of clouds," the sunrise, and the sunset.The narrow-gauge alpine railway and Alishan's famous red train take visitors up the mountain.

Alishan Railway

One of the best ways to reach Alishan is by the area's famous narrow-gauge railway.The railroad certainly rates as one of the world's most scenic. The famous red engine pushes and pulls its carriages from an elevation of 30 meters to Alishan at 2,216 meters above sea level. In good weather, passengers can see an astounding variety of flora and fauna as the train climbs from the subtropics to the pine forests in just 72 kilometers. Construction of the railroad was no mean feat. The train passes through a total of 50 tunnels and crosses 77 bridges.

The Alishan train can be taken at Chiayi station. A one-way ticket costs NT$390. Return tickets are available for a 15% discount. For details of train times, please contact the station, tel: (05) 267-9833. The journey up takes three and a half hours.

Alishan's Sea of Clouds

Alishan is known throughout Taiwan for its beautiful morning views of jagged peaks jutting out of a sea of fluffy clouds. At this time of day, it is easy to imagine what inspired traditional Chinese ink painters in their realistic portrayals of mountains shrouded in mists. The best time for seeing the clouds is probably autumn, when swathes of cloud wrap the mountain peaks. Visitors are advised that the best location to view Alishan's famous sea of clouds is Erwanping, which is the train stop before Alishan. The clouds appear to move in huge billowing waves, which sometimes swallow the island-like mountain peaks. The views from Erwanping are magnificent.
Sunrise at Chushan
Just about every visitor to Alishan will make the short train journey on up the mountain to the prime sunrise-viewing location of Chushan. The exact time and angle from which the sun appears depends on the season. Sunrise experts say that the sunrise is actually quite different in winter, spring, summer, and autumn. For instance, at summer solstice (June 22) the sun should rise at exactly 5 a.m. from Alishan's most northern point.

The journey to Chushan by train takes about 30 minutes and costs NT$100.Whatever time of year you visit Alishan, it is always pretty cold just before dawn, so wrap up well!

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The Big Tree

Alishan's Forests

Another scenic "must"at Alishan is the ancient "sacred tree".The forests of Alishan present a sharp contrast to the tropical palms and banana plants of the plains around Chiayi. The area attracts large numbers of tourists during the spring, when the cherry trees are in bloom. During the afternoon, the forests take on an eerie beauty, when they become enveloped in fog.
The most famous tree in the Alishan Forest Recreation Area is the "sacred tree", which is over 3,000 years old. This grand old tree was formerly one of Alishan's largest trees, but a lightning strike reduced it to an enormous withered stump. In the 1960s a second tree was found growing from the stump. The sacred tree can be seen on an easy four-kilometer hike down the mountain after viewing the sunrise at Chushan, or, alternatively, by train. A one-way ticket to the sacred tree costs NT$50.

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Sunset in Alishan

Sunset at Alishan

While not as well known as Alishan's sunrise, sunset at this popular resort is also pretty amazing. The thin air at this elevation makes the sun's rays particularly strong. This means that as the sun sets the sky appears considerably more blue than normal. The best places for watching the sun set are the Alishan Guesthouse and Tsu-yun Temple.

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Lanterns at the Temple

Taiwan Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival began during the 1st century to honor Buddha. In the old days, Chinese people used a different calendar than we use today. They still use it for holidays. They celebrate the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese year

Celebrations for the Lantern Festival include fireworks, entertainment, folk dancing and making lanterns. The lanterns are hung in the streets and in homes. Sometimes, people write riddles on their lanterns and give prizes to the person who solves the riddle.

The Lantern Festival closes the New Year festivities. This holiday evolved from ancient Chinese beliefs that celestial spirits could be seen flying about in the light of the first full moon of the lunar calendar. To aid them in their search for the spirits, they used torches. These torches gave way to lanterns of every conceivable size, color, and shape. Now, the Lantern Festival is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar.

The major part of the celebration is the display of colorful lanterns at most temples. A special feature of this holiday is the dragon dance. It is a most colorful event of hundred foot long dragons, lit with flashing eyes and bodies, pounding drums, cymbals, and brass instruments.

Like most Chinese festivals, this holiday has its own special food called "yuan shiao". These dumplings, which are made of rice flour, are round, symbolizing both the first full moon of the lunar new year and the complete family union so cherished by traditional Chinese. Many people still believe that they do not gain their one year in age until they eat their yuan shiao.

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Lanterns and the reflection on the lake side

The Year of the Dragon was welcomed in a big way in Taiwan as tourists, revellers, wide-eyed children and young-at-heart parents enjoyed the fantastic sights at the 2000 Taipei Lantern Festival.

Held Feb. 19-23 at the spacious Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall plaza, this year's version of the annual extravaganza of light, sound and color in Taipei City was loaded with significance.

The festival--with its entertainment performances, plethora of snack and souvenir stalls, and thousands of radiant lanterns--easily can be called the granddaddy of the various millennium events planned by the government. But more than that, on a psychological level, this year's dazzling lantern celebration perhaps brought an end to the anxiety that had swept across Taiwan society after last September's catastrophic earthquake.

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In addition to being an exhibition of traditional and modern lanterns, the 2000 festival was a celebration of happiness in the city.

The 15th day of the first lunar month is known as the Chinese Lantern Festival. Since ancient times, this special day has represented the conclusion of the long Chinese New Year holiday. In agrarian society, people went through the holiday period by performing complicated ceremonies in and around the home to reaffirm their folk beliefs.

Citizens of Taiwan, despite their modern lifestyles, still show reverence to ancestors and folk gods by conducting time-honored rituals, albeit in a personal and more casual fashion. The Taipei Lantern Festival, however, is one example of how an age-old custom has been elevated to a grand scale.

In short, the 2000 festival was a technological glorification of traditional Chinese lantern art.

Visitors inched their way through the river of people to see the creations at several display areas. The five-day show featured a Prayer Lanterns Area, a Dragon and Phoenix Lanterns Area, a Creative Lanterns Area, a Devotional Lanterns Area, a Temple Lanterns Area and a National Contest Lanterns Area.

As this is the Year of the Dragon, most of the lanterns on display at the Taipei festival bore dragon motifs.

Mounted on scaffolding beside the front arch of the plaza was an imposing dragon-lantern installation measuring 71 meters long, 22 meters high and seven meters wide. Organizers of the festival hope the massive creation will set a Guinness record as the world's largest holiday lantern. The "Nine Dragons Millennium Lantern" was built under the supervision of Cheng Chin-chuan, winner of a nationwide lantern contest. It cost US$323,000 and took half a year to construct.

Installed beneath the five-colored cloth skin of the serpentine creation were 30,000 light bulbs and numerous sets of light-emitting diodes. Even in daylight, this gigantic dragon made passers-by gape. But at night its multicolor glow, darting laser beams, animated gestures, and the wave-cloud effect of the projected shadows gave the awesome impression that at any moment the magical dragon was going to leap into the heavens.

Different from the Western image of the dragon as an evil beast, in Chinese society a dragon is regarded as a symbol of auspiciousness and royalty.

The weekend before the festival, nearby residents strolled over to the plaza to see the multitude of lanterns that were already strung up along the surrounding sidewalks. Dangling from these lanterns were "make a wish" cards, upon which people young and old alike scribbled hopeful messages.

After dark on Feb. 14, Valentine's Day, the 20,000 lanterns hung up along Chungshan South Road and Ketagelan Boulevard from the Executive Yuan to the Presidential Office were illuminated. This pedestrian tunnel of brilliant light was dubbed a "Dragon of Hope." Small children, young couples and grandparents wrote down their wishes for the new year on cards and affixed them to the lanterns.

Many of the cards conveyed wishes related to Taiwan's recovery from the devastating Sept. 21 earthquake. The people who wrote the cards hoped their messages will ascend to heaven on pleasant winds.

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A beautiful dragon

Situated in the middle of plaza was the festival's centerpiece lantern, called the "Millennium Golden Dragon." This animated sculpture measured 17 meters high and 18 meters wide. The design featured a gold-colored, plated dragon embracing a sphere, which represented the Earth.

At intervals throughout the festival, multicolored lights flashed from the sculpture's interior and dramatic music boomed from its base. Also, the head and body of the mechanical Golden Dragon contorted, making it the most complicated design of all the centerpiece lanterns since the first festival in 1990.

On Feb. 18, the seven "Information Dragons" were lit up one after the other, making for yet another impressive spectacle. Sponsored by the Institute for Information Industry, these high-tech-looking lanterns averaged 16 meters in height.

To promote the exchange of information, the institute publicized a new Web site at the festival. Internet users can log on to http://www.info2000.org.tw to view photographs of the lantern festival, gain knowledge and enjoy a variety of dragon-related games.

For the first time since the annual festival began, the Memorial Hall itself was used as a venue for lantern exhibitions and performances. In the past, activities related to the festival took place only on the plaza grounds.

Works by master lantern craftsmen and creations by local students were displayed in the palatial building. Other exhibits featured lanterns sculpted from fruits and vegetables.

In addition, the public was invited into the Memorial Hall to take part in riddle-solving contests and to watch demonstrations on how to make yuan hsiao, the delicious sticky-rice balls that are a traditional snack of the Chinese Lantern Festival.