The island of Tungpan (
The island is tiny and, until recently, boasted only one scenic attraction -- a row of naturally-formed basalt columns that line a short section of the island's coastline.
Chen Chen-hsiu (
PHOTO: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
The Tonpan Art Festival is a venture between friends aided by the county government, which hopes to attract artists to work on the island. It will be held over the next six weeks, focusing on artists working in different media. Chen hopes that the festival and the comfortable environment of the artists' colony will act as a draw for other visitors.
The challenge of staging such an event on Tungpan is considerable. Huang Yi-feng (
At first glance, the prospects are not encouraging. The island stands like a capstan, rising more or less straight out of the ocean about 15m and has a flat top of soft grass and prickly cacti. Its rocky coast gives little potential for water sports, and the strong winds have denuded the island of trees. The basalt columns, which are the reason why the tourist boats stop on the island, are probably better seen from the sea.
PHOTO: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
The new concrete harbor where visitors arrive is featureless and offers virtually no shelter from the blistering sun and the strong winds that whip across the island. Covered stalls have been erected, but even during the height of the tourist season, most are abandoned, or used for storing fishing tackle. After all, only 20 families now live on the island, and an air of neglect lingers over the place. While no official figures on the number of visitors to Tungpan are available, Penghu has seen a steady rise in its popularity as a destination for domestic tourism, with annual visits rising steadily from 356,645 in 1991 to an estimated 421,219 this year.
"There are enough people visiting," Huang said. "We just have to find a way to make the place register as a destination in people's minds."
"Buy things," calls out a woman hidden in the shade of a covered corridor, her face and arms wrapped in thick fabric to protect against the sun. The trays of coral bits and pretty shells don't excite much interest among the tourists, most of whom sip cool drinks and complain about the heat. As part of the art retreat project, Huang has opened up a coffee shop on a small hill overlooking the harbor. The bright blue and yellow paintwork beckons gaily, but many local tourists, who are shepherded on and off, said they found the walk -- three minutes at most -- too far.
PHOTO: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
"One cannot really expect to make money on a project like this," Huang said. But he has not totally lost sight of commercial considerations, happily discussing the possibility of bringing the Tungpan art and coffee shop idea back to Taiwan proper if it managed to take off on the island.
The coffee shop is the first step to offering food and lodging to artists who seek isolation or inspiration on an island with decidedly few distractions. "You can totally lose track of time here," said Chen dreamily after the small crowd of about 100 people who had come for the opening ceremony on Sunday had departed.
Chen, who lived on Tungpan until she was 15, looks with regret on the island's quickly fading lifestyle and sees the need to bring change if her childhood home is not to become another uninhabited rock in the strait. She finished junior high school on the island and, like many others, moved with her family to Makung, which provided a wider range of educational and job opportunities.
PHOTO: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
A former teacher on Tungpan, who returned to the island for the festival's opening ceremony, recalled his tenure at the now derelict school: "We taught all different levels you know. But the best thing about living in such an out-of-the-way place, is that nobody interferes with you. Some families would kill their own pigs [in defiance of abattoir regulations]. There was only the police chief, the village head maritime service officer, but since they all got their cut, everything was fine."
The desire not to be interfered with persists, and the island's older inhabitants show little interest in the artists' retreat project. "It is an island mentality," Chen said. "They don't see any advantage in it."
But Chen, who already runs three successful stores selling Penghu souvenirs and novelty T-shirts on Makung, hopes that the benefits will eventually trickle down to the whole island. "If enough people want to stay for a night, it is possible that younger people will be attracted back to Tungpan to run hostels," which would be more profitable than fishing or harvesting crops of peanuts, Chen said. Chen is one of about 1,000 Tungpan natives who live most of the time on Makung.
PHOTO: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
Wu Ming-chang (
Indeed, staying on the island requires a certain determination. Infrastructure is sorely lacking and the island's power generator, installed three years ago, sees scant maintenance and suffers from frequent breakdowns. Hsue Kuang-lin (
As for the dilapidated houses, this is part of the island's charm. The buildings in the arts village, with their shiny new wood furnishings and cheery colors could not be more of a contrast to the neglect and desolation around them. But, as one of Chen's young assistants said as he worked on a wooden bench for the coffee shop: "It might be alright for old people [to live here long-term], but I can only manage it for a few days."
PHOTO: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
PHOTO: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
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