Lugang
One of Taiwan’s oldest port towns, LUGANG (鹿港; lùgǎng) has preserved much of its architectural and cultural heritage, largely thanks to the efforts of its famously conservative inhabitants. Lugang’s historic temples are wonderfully atmospheric, but much of the town’s fame derives from its tasty snacks and traditional handicrafts, created by the greatest concentration of master craftsmen in the country. But while the town is eulogized in Taiwan as the epitome of classical China, its appeal tends to be exaggerated – the historic centre is relatively small, and it’s surrounded by urban development that’s classic modern Taiwan. Adjust your expectations accordingly and Lugang can still make a fascinating day-trip from Changhua or Taichung. Thanks to the gradual silting up of its harbour, one of the oddest things about Lugang today is that the Lugang River is a long walk from the old part of town, and the sea is now several kilometres away.
Brief history
Lugang means “Deer Harbour,” an allusion to the herds of deer that once roamed the Changhua plains, now long since hunted to extinction. Settlers from Fujian established the town in the early seventeenth century, and it became Taiwan’s second largest after Tainan for most of the 1700s. Lugang’s decline began in the late nineteenth century as the harbour began to silt up and by 1895 it was closed to major shipping: the town rapidly became a conservative backwater in the years that followed, avoiding the modernization engulfing the rest of the island until the late 1970s, when tourism gave the economy a much needed boost.
Mazu Holy Pilgrimage
The annual eight-day Mazu Holy Pilgrimage from Zhenlan Temple (鎮瀾宮; zhènlángōng) in Dajia (大甲; dàjiǎ) to Fengtian Temple (奉天宮; fèngtiāngōng) in Xingang (新港; xīngǎng) has become one of the greatest and perhaps most bizarre of all Taiwan’s religious festivals. The event has become a veritable media circus, attracting ambitious politicians and even street gangs who in the past have ended up fighting over who “protects” the goddess during the procession.
The pilgrimage traces its origins to the early nineteenth century, when Taiwanese pilgrims would cross the Taiwan Strait to the Mazu “mother temple” in Meizhou in Fujian every twelve years. The practice was suspended after the Japanese occupation in 1895 but cattle herders are believed to have restarted the pilgrimage in the 1910s, making the more permissible journey to Chaotian Temple in Beigang, long regarded as Taiwan’s most senior Mazu temple. In 1987 however, after Meizhou officials assured Dajia that its Mazu statue was equally sacred, Beigang was snubbed with a new annual pilgrimage route to what was considered a “sister” temple in Xingang, 5km east.
The core procession comprises a series of palanquins that ferry Mazu and other senior Taoist deities 300km through rice fields and small villages, the roads lined with believers who kneel to allow Mazu’s palanquin to pass over them for luck. Stops are made at smaller “branch” temples to enhance the power of local deities, and a constant stream of free drinks and food is handed out to the pilgrims trudging along behind. If you want to experience the mayhem you’ll need to plan ahead – the best locations to watch the procession are in Dajia itself when it leaves town and returns eight days later, or in Xingang at the end of the third day when the town becomes a massive carnival of parades and traditional performers. The statue remains in Xingang for a day of celebrations (confusingly termed “Mazu’s birthday”, though the official birthday is Lunar March 23) before embarking on its four-day journey back to Dajia. Unfortunately, it’s hard to know when the parade will start until a few weeks before: the day of departure is determined by a special cast of “throwing blocks”, on the eve of the Lantern Festival (usually in January or February). The parade itself usually takes place in April in the period leading up to Mazu’s official birthday (see wmazu.taichung.gov.tw for the schedule; Chinese only). Dajia Bus Company runs minibuses from Taichung train station (on the corner of Jianguo and Chenggong Roads) to Dajia throughout the day, but you can also pick them up on Taizhonggang Road.
Puli and around
Located in the heart of Taiwan and surrounded by mountains, sprawling PULI (埔里; pŭlǐ) is an easy day-trip from Sun Moon Lake, and lies at the start of the spectacular road to Wushe and Hehuanshan. The best reason to visit is the mind-blowing Chung Tai Chan Monastery on the outskirts of town, one of Taiwan’s most remarkable sights. With more time and, preferably, your own transport, Puli offers an assortment of secular attractions associated with traditional manufacturing and crafts that have flourished here for decades. Much of this is linked to the quality of the local water and surrounding natural resources – the town once produced eighty percent of Taiwan’s lacquer and was the centre of a flourishing paper trade; it is still the home of Taiwan’s most famous Chinese wines. Puli was also the birthplace of glamorous 1960s film star Chang Mei-yao – perhaps the real reason why tourist literature claims the town is famous for “water, wine, weather and women”.
Chung Tai Chan Monastery
Just a few kilometres north of Puli, the Chung Tai Chan Monastery (中台禪寺; zhōngtái chán sì) is one of the world’s most lavish modern monuments to Chan Buddhism, fusing ancient tradition with contemporary building techniques. Designed by C.Y. Lee (the architect of Taipei 101), at an estimated cost of US$110m, the monastery is worth half a day of exploring.
Chan is better known as “Zen” in the West, though you’ll see few signs of the more austere Japanese version of the practice here. Chung Tai founder Grand Master Wei Chueh began a life of simple meditation in the 1970s in the mountains of Taipei County, and established Chung Tai Chan Monastery in 1987. Today he is head of Chung Tai World, a Buddhist order that includes several monasteries and over eighty meditation centres located throughout Taiwan and the world.
The monastery complex is dominated by the massive central building with its 37 floors, and surrounded by a series of ancillary halls and statues. The 150m central tower is its most distinctive feature, flanked by two sloping dormitory wings and topped by an ornate gold pearl, set on gilded lotus leaves. From the entrance, it’s a short walk to the main building and the Hall of Heavenly Kings, with its impressive 12m-high guardians and colourful Milefo (the chubby, smiling incarnaton of Buddha). They protect the Great Majesty Hall where Sakyamuni Buddha is enshrined – this incarnation represents the historical Buddha and the virtue of liberation, carved from Indian red granite. To the right is Sangharana Hall, where in typically eclectic Taiwan style, Taoist deity Guan Di is enshrined as temple protector, while to the left you’ll find a statue of Indian monk Bodhidharma (or Damo, the 28th Buddhist patriarch and founder of the Chan school) in the Patriarch Hall, along with the inscribed religious lineage of the temple’s founder, Wei Chueh. To go further you’ll need to have arranged a guide in advance – this is highly recommended.
The fifth floor contains the Great Magnificence Hall, housing a graceful statue of the Rocana Buddha, crafted from white jade and positioned on a gold-covered thousand lotus platform. This incarnation represents the virtue of wisdom. From here it’s customary to walk up to the ninth floor via a series of inclined corridors, eventually leading to the Great Enlightenment Hall. Everything here is brilliant white: the ceramic glass walls and floor, the doors, ceiling and even the statue of the Vairocana Buddha, which represents the spiritual or “dharma” body.
The sixteenth floor is usually as far as most tours go: the Hall of 10,000 Buddhas contains a seven-storey teak wood pagoda, facing Puli through two giant windows. The walls of the hall are decorated with twenty thousand tiny copper Buddha statues. From here you can descend down the pilgrims’ staircase, or if you’re lucky, continue up into the sacred higher levels of the monastery – this will depend on the mood of your guide. The 31st floor is the Sutra Treasury Pavilion, containing the monastery’s most valuable texts and decorated with soft jade carvings, while the very top, the 37th floor, is known as the Mani Pearl. The shell is made of titanium, but the interior of the ball is a simple shrine finished in wood containing a small Buddha statue and is rarely open to visitors.
Sun Moon Lake
Hemmed in by lush tiers of mountains in the heart of Taiwan, SUN MOON LAKE (日月潭; rìyuè tán) is the island’s largest freshwater body, its calm, emerald-green waters creating some of the country’s most mesmerizing landscapes. The lake’s name is inspired by its distinctive shape, with a rounded main section likened to the sun and a narrow western fringe compared to a crescent moon. Encircling it all is a 33km road, dotted with fascinating temples and picturesque pavilions, each offering a unique perspective on the waters below, while the cable car provides a stupendous panorama of the whole lake.
Given its abundant beauty, Sun Moon Lake attracts large crowds throughout the year (it’s a prime draw for mainland tourists), especially at weekends when hotel rates skyrocket – weekdays, particularly in winter, are the best time to visit.
Swimming in the lake is allowed on only one day each year, when at least ten thousand yellow-capped Taiwanese take to the waters for the annual Sun Moon Lake Swimming Carnival, a 3km cross-lake race that takes place around the Mid-Autumn Festival, usually in September. The lake is also the ancestral home of the Thao (pronounced “Shao”, meaning “people”), Taiwan’s smallest officially recognized aboriginal tribe.
A brief history
Until the early twentieth century, the lake was a shallow marsh called Shuishalian. In 1919 the Japanese started work on a dam for hydroelectric power, finally flooding the area in 1934 – and destroying the last traditional Thao community that had clung to the slopes of pyramid-shaped Lalu Island in the marsh’s centre. Those inhabitants were forced to move to the lake’s south side, into a village that today is known as Itashao. After 1950 Chiang Kai-shek made the lake his favoured summer retreat, spurring further development that continued into the 1970s. In 1999, the 921 Earthquake severely damaged much of the lakeside infrastructure, levelling hotels and restaurants and rendering some hiking trails temporarily impassable. However, the tourist villages on the lake’s northern and southern shores were gradually rebuilt and have long surpassed their former grandeur.