Lalu Island Audio Guide

Lalu Island: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Lalu Island

   Look out across the middle of Sun Moon Lake, in Nantou County, and you will find a small green hill rising from the water. That is Lalu Island, known in Chinese as 拉魯島. It is tiny, but it is one of the most meaningful places on the whole lake. The lake itself is named for its shape. With the island as the dividing point, the northern half is said to resemble a round sun, and the southern half a curved crescent moon. The island has long been counted among the lake's classic sights, and older writers called it the floating islet in the pool. The word Lalu comes from the Thao language and means something like the sacred mountain, or sacred island, in the heart. It is the dwelling place of the highest ancestral spirit of the Thao people, who have lived around this lake for generations. In the next few minutes we will follow the island through its many names, its sacred role, and a dramatic twentieth-century story of a temple, an earthquake and an island that was nearly swallowed by the lake.

2. 02

   Lalu Island and Its Many Names

   Few places have worn as many names as this one. During the Qing dynasty, writers called it Zhuyu, which means pearl islet, as well as Zhushan and Zhuzaishan, meaning pearl hill and little pearl hill. It was also called Fuyu, the floating islet. People living around the lake still often call it Zhuzaishan today. Then came the Japanese period, when it became Jade Island, and also the island in the water. After the Second World War, in 1946, it was renamed Guanghua Island, a name that stayed on maps for decades. But the oldest name never really went away. The Thao had always called it Lalu. In 2000, after the Thao people campaigned for it, the island was officially given that name again. Each of those names tells you who was looking at the island, and what they saw in it: a pearl, a jade, a national symbol. For the Thao it was never an ornament. It was the heart of their sacred landscape.

3. 03

   Lalu Island, the Sacred Mountain of the Thao

   For the Thao, this hill is the home of their highest ancestral spirit, said to dwell at the very top. That is why the island has been such an important landmark for so long, and why the word Lalu carries the sense of a sacred place in the heart. Tradition adds a remarkable detail. The Thao shaman, called the xiansheng ma in Chinese, could only earn her role after going to Lalu on an auspicious day to ask the ancestral spirits for approval. Only with that consent could she take on the duty of reciting the ritual words and leading ceremonies. The Thao have also been tied to the lake's shores for generations. Ita Thao, called Barawbaw in the Thao language, is the last Thao settlement that sits directly beside the water, with Shuishe Mountain, also sacred to the tribe, rising behind it. The community numbered fewer than 500 people in the early 2000s, and it is now closing in on 1,000. So the island you see is also a living part of a community's identity, and not only a pretty feature of the view.

4. 04

   Lalu Island: Matchmaker Temple, Earthquake and Rescue

   In the Japanese period, a small shrine here honored a water goddess. After the war, the story took a more romantic turn. In 1980, the Nantou County government built a temple on the island dedicated to Yue Lao, the old man under the moon who is said to tie couples together. It is remembered as the first temple in Taiwan devoted mainly to him, inspired by a similar shrine beside West Lake in Hangzhou. Group weddings on the water and television filming made it famous. Then, in 1999, the great 921 earthquake destroyed the temple. It also damaged the lake's dam, so the water level dropped and more of the island appeared. A Thao archaeological site was found on it. During planning for the rebuild, the Thao pressed to have their ancestral ground restored. At the end of 2000 the statues were moved to Longfeng Temple, and the island became an indigenous area closed to outsiders. The island then faced another danger. Earthquake damage and years of wave erosion shrank it until, at full water level in 2006, only about 20 ping was left, a traditional Taiwanese unit that works out to roughly 66 square meters. Work began to raise it. When it finished in February 2008, the island was eight times larger, at 160 ping, or roughly 530 square meters. Its height was raised to 751.5 meters above sea level, and a retaining wall at its base now helps slow the erosion.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Today, Lalu Island is a place to see from the water, not to step onto. It is ancestral ground for the Thao and is off limits to outside visitors. The usual way to appreciate it is on a lake boat tour, which swings around the island. These boats launch from Shuishe, from Ita Thao, and from Xuanguang Temple, and the commentary on board is typically in Chinese. When you are out on the water, notice how small the island is and how large it feels. Try tracing the lake's sun and moon shapes with the island at the center. Think of the Thao shaman once crossing to the hilltop for the ancestors' blessing, and of the retaining wall that now keeps the lake's waves in check. If you want to keep exploring, the village of Ita Thao, on the lake's southeast corner, is the natural next chapter. It is where the Thao story continues beside the same water.