In 1976, writer Yang Nan-chun and his future wife, Hsu Ju-lin, summited Lushan. With this Yang had conquered all of Taiwan’s “Baiyue” or “100 Peaks”—a select list of the 100 mountains in Taiwan considered most worth climbing. But when he reached the top he felt bereft: What should he do next? “When we thought about it, we realized that when hiking in the mountains we used many historic trails from the era of Japanese rule,” says Hsu. “We figured we would survey them and see how they had come into being, and this could keep us busy for a long time!”

Ancestral stories

The Central Mountain Range, which runs north to south the length of Taiwan, forms a natural barrier 3,000 meters tall blocking east–west travel. Since the 19th century, people have wanted to build roads across these mountains to access Eastern Taiwan.

Different motivations lay behind the creation of the various historic trails that run through the Central Mountain Range. The Qing-Dynasty official Shen Baozhen opened up routes such as the Kunlun’ao and Batongguan trails as part of a policy to subjugate Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. The Jinshuiying Trail was used by various indigenous peoples for 500 years. During the era of Japanese rule, governor-­general Samata Sakuma developed the Syakaro Trail to control the Syakaro group of the Atayal indigenous people in Northern Taiwan. Out of greed for a mythical gold mine, and to control the Truku tribes along the Liwu River, countless lives were sacrificed to build the Hehuan Trail. The Nenggao Trail, which traverses the heart of the Central Mountain Range, was the site of the Wushe Incident, an indigenous uprising against Japanese rule.

However, these trails had mostly been reclaimed by nature before Yang and Hsu began investigating them, or else parts of them had been turned into highways or industrial roads. The couple used documents and clues from the past as well as on-site explorations to rediscover the forgotten stories of these trails.

When Yang Nan-chun wasn’t out surveying historic trails, he immersed himself in piles of historical documents. (MOFA file photos)

Yang Nan-chun and Hsu Ju-lin spent a great part of their lives exploring Taiwan’s historic trails. A family photo like this one was a rarity. (MOFA file photo)

Hiking hand in hand

Hsu describes their style of collaboration. Yang had studied literature and had a romantic personality. He was fluent in English and Japanese, and could talk with local elders in Japanese and read original Japanese documents. Hsu, who studied chemical engineering, is a logical thinker and has a high tolerance for alcohol. She took on the task of breaking the ice with indigenous elders by drinking with them. With their complementary personalities, the couple explored historic trails and discussed the details of past events, and Hsu wrote up reports on their surveys.

When they discovered contradictions in historical materials, they would debate them passionately and at great length. Hsu recalls with a smile how after riding with them on a local bus, a neighbor once remarked: “At our house all we talk about is the daily routine, but you two have real scholarly discussions.”

Yang and Hsu rewrote their stiff official reports in a more literary style to produce books that make Taiwan’s majestic mountains, forests, culture and history more accessible to ordinary people. (courtesy of the Forestry Bureau)

Yang and Hsu accepted many commissions from government agencies to survey historic mountain trails, and they produced numerous survey reports.

Visiting leading characters in history

The couple began researching historic trails nearly 50 years ago. Hsu says it was fortunate that they started when they did, for they were able to interview many people who had been personally involved in historical events. In 1976 they held several interviews with Obin Tadao (d. 1996), whose husband ­Dakis Nawi (d. 1930) had played a key role in the Wushe Incident of 1930. Eventually they persuaded her to relate the events of that period. With respect to the Dafen Incident of 1915, a major event in the Bunun people’s 18-year resistance to the Japanese in Eastern Taiwan, the couple visited many descendants of indigenous participants in the incident, as well as a Bunun woman named Valis who had played an important role in her people’s resistance movement. Thus they were able to piece together the truth of the incident as seen from the indigenous perspective, so that history no longer was written exclusively by the victors.

Yang also met Totai Buten (1910–1993), a part-Amis, part-Kavalan local politician who from the 1930s on assisted Tadao Kano (1906–1945) in his field studies in the high mountains of Taiwan, and who gave Yang a more complete picture of this Japanese naturalist who deeply loved Taiwan.

Hsu Ju-lin says with pride: “We gathered first-hand information. Although one cannot say it is 100% accurate, I believe it is as close as possible to the historical truth.”

A map that Hsu drew by hand, and a survey report with Yang’s handwritten notes.

You’re the ones!

In the early days the couple explored historic trails purely out of interest, never tiring of this arduous activity. Hsu recalls that not long after they were married, she and Yang made their first trip to the Zhuilu Old Road in Taroko National Park. But they were attacked by hornets, and after being stung Yang went into shock and nearly died. However, they had seen the incomparable scenery of the trail, and wanted to revisit it to complete their unfinished hike. Later, they happened to meet Hsu Kuo-shih, the park’s first superintendent, at a conference, and as they talked about the Zhuilu Old Road, he suddenly exclaimed: “You’re the ones! You are exactly the people I’ve been looking for to help us survey our trails.”

Their survey of the Batongguan Historic Trail, which was built in the Qing Dynasty, was commissioned by Yeh Shih-wen, superintendent of Yushan National Park. “At first we told him it was impossible, that there was very little information about the trail in Qing-Dynasty sources, and that Qing-era maps were full of place names that were poetic or downright fanciful.” They declined the proposal during Yeh’s initial phone call, but that evening Yeh came to their home and refused to leave until they agreed to do the survey, so, says Hsu, they reluctantly acquiesced.

Thereafter they received a long series of such commissions from national parks and the Forestry Bureau. Their survey reports were written in dry language not very appealing to ordinary readers. In 2010, Hsu and Yang started to rewrite their reports in a more accessible style and published books on topics including the Dafen Incident, the Hehuan Historic Trail, the Nenggao National Trail, the Jinshuiying National Trail, and the Syakaro Historic Trail.

Taiwan bristles with tall mountains, and the trails that run through them not only bring us into mountainous terrain, they also carry us into historic places and events that are little known among Taiwanese.

Personally visiting historic sites

Listening to Hsu discuss historic trails, her comprehensive knowledge of the mountains is astonishing. This is the cumulative result of countless exploratory trips into the mountains and was also her and Yang’s way of understanding Taiwan. Yang once said: “Geography is the stage of history, and you can only learn the truth about history by visiting that stage.”

Three of the major indigenous rebellions against Japanese rule were the Truku War of 1914, the Dafen Incident of 1915, and the Wushe Incident of 1930. Hsu explains that one must personally visit the local terrain to properly understand that historical events are not merely assemblages of people, actions, times and places, but are full of conflicts, choices, and compromises driven by complex factors including greed, group interests, and indigenous communities’ sense of dignity.

Hsu cites an example: “Mona Rudao, a member of the Seediq community at Wushe (Mosha) and a leader of the Wushe rebellion, had previously helped the Japanese to attack the Seediq communities of Tauda and Truku, because there had long been conflicts of interest and land disputes between them, so he had used the Japanese to suppress his neighbors and expand his own influence.”

Whenever Hsu Ju-lin leads a group of hikers along the Guanshan Historic Trail, she stops at the Japanese-era Zhongzhiguan Police Post. “It was from here that Dahu Ali, one of the three main leaders of Bunun resistance against the Japanese, looked down on his own community of Tamahu through a powerful telescope owned by the Japanese, and realized that they could watch everything that went on in the village. At that point he knew that his people would need to compromise with the Japanese or they would have no future.”

At age 76, Yang Nan-chun translated a book by the Japanese scholar Nenozo Utsurikawa called The Formosan Native Tribes: A Genealogical and Classificatory Study, published in 1935. “The difficulty with this book was not in the language, but in understanding Taiwan’s geography. When it comes to things like the community migrations spoken of by tribal chiefs, such as which ridgelines and passes were crossed, or which ridgelines and rivers marked the boundaries of a community’s hunting grounds, or why some communities formed mutual alliances while others were mortal enemies, unless one has a comprehensive understanding of Taiwan’s mountain areas, it is impossible to understand the information they imparted,” wrote Hsu in a book on the Hehuan Historical Trail.

Hsu Ju-lin says that to understand Taiwan’s history one needs to learn about its geography, as only then can one appreciate that this history is filled with conflicts, contradictions, choices and compromises.

Stories of Taiwan

Early in the morning of August 27, 2016, a clear, sunny day, Yang Nan-chun set out on his final journey. The countless writings he left behind are a legacy that can help future generations to better understand Taiwan.

In 2019, after completing a book on the Syakaro Historic Trail, Hsu Ju-lin put down her pen and gave up writing. She says that she wanted to turn the work of writing the stories of Taiwan’s mountains over to younger generations. But she still acts as a guide for people visiting Taiwan’s mountains and historic trails, and still tells them their stories.

She once led a group of young Bunun on a hike along the Batongguan Historic Trail, returning to the site of an abandoned Bunun community where they could commune with the spirits of their ancestors and gain a better understanding of their own history, and self-confidence in their people. She said to them: “I’m now telling you things that your elders told us back then in the mountains. These are pieces of your history, your roots.” She selflessly shares her knowledge, just as the indigenous elders tirelessly shared their knowledge of the mountains and forests as they accompanied her and Yang on their explorations of historic trails back in the day.

She urged the young Bunun people: “You should introduce your culture and stories to travelers in your status as owners and heirs, and not just be nameless helpers.” She also encourages more people to visit historic trails and better understand this land that nurtures us—Taiwan.

Hsu Ju-lin still continues to guide groups along historic trails into Taiwan’s mountain forests, telling the stories of these routes along the way.