the story of sun moon lake, so the legend
goes, is that a thao tribal man went hunting for a white stag and found the
lake instead. so enamoured by its beauty he brought his whole tribe to settle
around it. today the tribe is reduced to some 300 or so. a tiny fraction and
has been moved away form the shore of the lake into a earthquake resistant
housing complex (quite nice in itself) towards the mountains that surround the
lake, while the bank of the lake has grotesque hotels and restaurants that
cater to the thousands of tourists who visit the lake every weekend. and the
thao are now museum pieces- dancing so-called traditional dances and singing
songs of their life set to chinese pop music which in turn is set to american
pop song tunes. still around the lake a ‘formosan aboriginal cultural village ‘
reached with a cable car with replicas of huts, a theatre where tribals dance,
lawns for us opt lounge around. further down the slope the campus disintegrates
into showing us what it really is with amusement park rides inspired by manga
characters and a strange replica of a european garden. a story repeated so
often all over the world.
meanwhile some modern architecture- near
sun moon lake, is a paper church designed by shigeru ban after an earthquake
destroyed so much of a community nearby. lovely building. and another gateway
like visitor centre on the banks of the lake. zaha hadid like curves.
a
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