The Sun Moon Lake Church of Christ

During the Christmas trip to Taiwan, Chris and I visited the Sun Moon Lake. My last trip to the lake was four years ago, while Chris was 29 years ago.

28Dec 2019

Went to the Sun Moon Lake today. Encountered quite a few incidents, eg. missing our high speed train, a long wait for the bus. So it was very late by the time we got there. When we took the last bus to Ita Thao, there was suddenly a loud metallic noise, and Chris thought a metal had broke in the wheels and was prepared to knock open the bus window in case the bus plunges into the lake! Turns out it wasn’t the wheel, but the door that broke. We all had to exit through the emergency exit when we got to the destination. Despite these incidents, we give thanks to God, as we got to hear a beautiful string concert at the Sun Moon Lake Church of Christ, and a friendly fried tempura stall owner called a taxi for us so we could get back to our accommodation at Shuishe Pier. The driver is a Thao, and he told us the tribal name “Ita Thao” means “we are human.” The Thaos used to live on the Lalu Island, which was originally not an island, but a piece of land. The Sun Moon Lake used to be a river, but became a lake when the Japanese modified it into a dam. (I looked up more information afterwards and found that the Sun Moon Lake was originally a lake, and the surface area of the lake increased from 4.5 km2 to 7.7 km2 after the Japanese modified it. Water flooded the land where the Thaos used to live. In other words, their land was taken away from them.)

We stayed at the Sun Moon Lake Teachers' Hostel, which is actually great value for money. However, Chris googled this place up and saw there are many ghost stories about this place in relation to the ship accident 29 years ago in Sun Moon Lake. Many people reported hearing heavy pounding on the glass in the middle of the night, like people stuck in a boat pounding the glass for help. That made him very scared. Fortunately, we slept peacefully that night, and there were no weird noises.

29Dec 2019

It’s an amazing grace to visit the Sun Moon Lake Church of Christ. Chris had become very obsessed about violins lately so I bought one for him as a Christmas gift for him to learn himself. He enjoyed the string orchestra concert at the church very much. On Sunday, we received great hospitality from Sherry, the preacher and other co-workers in the church as well as intercessory prayer. Sherry even gave us “almond coconut pineapple cake” (in Mandarin, these words sound the same as “serving Jesus”) and milk nougat candies. Chris loves pineapple cakes! What an amazing place to visit!

25 August

Sunday 25th August 2019 marks the 150th Anniversary of the laying of the Christ Church Lavender Bay Foundation Stone. This is the church where I will be getting married at in two weeks’ time. The day began by re-enacting the steamer journey taken by clergy, government representatives, and community members on the 25th August 1869, who crossed the harbour from the Sydney side to Lavender Bay, then ascended the newly constructed steps up to the site of the new church building. However, I did not join the ferry journey because I get motion sickness on boats. I brought my friend along to join their celebration service.  

Although this is a day of celebration for Christ Church Lavender Bay, this was a day of lamentations in Taiwan 29 years ago, where the biggest boat disaster in Taiwan’s history occurred in the Sun Moon Lake.

Nicknamed the “heart of Taiwan”, the Sun Moon Lake is located at the geographic centre of Taiwan.

George Candidius (Chinese: 干治士; pinyin: Gān Zhìshì) (1597, Kirchardt, Palatinate – 30 April 1647, Batavia, Dutch East Indies), also recorded as Georgius Candidius, was a Dutch Reformed Church missionary to Dutch Formosa from 1627 to 1637. He was the first missionary to be stationed on the island. Sun-Moon Lake in central Taiwan was named Lake Candidius in his honour and is referred to thus in older English writings, although this name was not adopted by the local inhabitants and later fell into disuse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Candidius

Lalu island is a small island in Sun Moon Lake. The island used to be much bigger, separating the lake into a part shaped like crescent moon and another part shaped like a round sun. When the island was still bigger, people used to live on it. Two events decreased the size of the island. First, construction of a dam in the 1930s raised the water level in the lake and thereby flooded almost the entire the island. In 1999 the island shrank again during the 921 earthquake which also destroyed the pavilion.

The indigenous people believed the island to be the resting place of their ancestors' spirits and called the island "wulalaluwan". "Lalu" is the abbreviation of this name. It means "the holy island in the heart". It used to house an "old man under the moon" temple, which was relocated after the 921 earthquake because the island was sinking to the point where people cannot board the island to worship this idol.

Regarding the boat disaster on 25August, 1990, it was an overloaded and unlicensed pleasure boat chartered by the Shell Oil Co. and carrying 88 vacationers. The boat capsized right after they worshipped the “old man under the moon.” More about that incident here:

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/08/27/More-bodies-found-in-Taiwan-lake/9296651729600/

My father’s first long distance trip was the Sun Moon Lake. My grandfather took him there when he was 4 years old. Relatives said he was especially unsettled that day and cried nonstop. I’ve been to the Sun Moon Lake twice in 2015: One time was when my paternal grandmother passed away and I went back to Taiwan and didn’t know where to go. The second time was a round island tour with my maternal grandma, and the Sun Moon Lake happened to be the first attraction site of the tour. During that round island tour, I also did a marching prayer. Four years have passed in a flash and the Taiwan presidential election is coming up again.

https://dryvonnewang.blogspot.com/2015/12/round-island-trip-taiwan-2015-2016.html

In 2017 Christmas break, I visited Taiwan and our family hired a van and van driver to take us to Yi-Lan. The driver mentioned that he was in the Sun Moon Lake for work during the time of the boat disaster. People were celebrating the birthday of a god that that time, and they had a big fast in that whole region. All the hotels had gone vegan, except the hotel where the Shell employees lived! This form of idol worship still happens once in a while at the Sun Moon Lake region, with the most recent one being in 2017.

In 1990, a seven year old kid was stuck in that boat cabin for three hours. Just before the water filled the whole cabin, his father prayed with him, and the kid suddenly got flushed out of a hole in the boat and got saved in a miraculous fashion. I will be getting married to that person in two weeks’ time.

The Sun Moon Lake Church of Christ, a church built by Chiang Kai-Shek for his personal use, which subsequently became a tourist attraction spot, have just commenced Sunday services in August 2019. Now a functional church with active worship and prayers, it is hoped that tourists will encounter the presence of God at the Sun Moon Lake.

Food for thought: