A group of young bikers from National Taiwan Normal University this month embarked upon a journey mentioned in the travel journal of a Qing Dynasty official and managed to complete their trip in 20 days.
Yu Yonghe (郁永河) was ordered by the Qing government to explore sulphur mines in Taiwan in 1697. He took a boat from Xiamen and arrived in Luermen (鹿耳門) in Tainan via Kinmen and Penghu. Yu then traveled up the west coast to Tamsui (淡水) and Beitou (北投).
Yu recorded his experiences in his journal, which was later published as the Bihai Travel Journal (裨海紀遊), one of the oldest travel guides for Taiwan.
Milly Lin (林于喬) was the captain of the biking team. She said she came across Yu’s journal when she was a student teacher.
“I taught history and was very interested in the history of Taiwan’s Aborigines,” she said in an interview with Taipei Times. “While I knew a lot about the Aborigines living in the mountains, I knew very little about the Pingpu tribes living on the plains. I later found that the journal actually said quite a lot about the Pingpu tribes.”
When the National Youth Commission said earlier this year it would subsidize young travelers who came up with creative ways to tour the country this summer, Lin pitched her idea and it was accepted.
The group first flew to Kinmen and biked around the island. Then they flew to Kaohsiung and took a ferry to Penghu because there are no flights between Kinmen and Penghu. After a bike tour there, they took a ferry to Kaohsiung and rode to Luermen, seeking the locations mentioned in Yu’s journal.
Lin also used articles by author Chiang Hsun (蔣勳) and former Control Yuan member Ma Yi-kung (馬以工), who made the same trip 30 years ago, to help her sketch out a more concrete travel route.
“We wanted to stick to provincial highways as much as possible, but unfortunately a lot of names mentioned in the journal were pretty far from the provincial highways and we ended up spending a lot of time on the county roads,” she said.
The five-member team began their adventure on July 5 and finished the trip last Friday, although Yu’s journey took several months in 1697.
“I can’t imagine how Yu and Qing officials were able to do this all on ox carriages,” Lin said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
RSS