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.
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:
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.
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.
