Taiwan: Flying Fish Season on Orchid Island · Global Voices
I-fan Lin

Every spring, when flying fish are carried to Taiwan by the Kuroshio Current, many fishermen are waiting for them. The most famous traditional flying fish festival is on Orchid Island, where the Tao people have lived for generations.
The influence of the flying fish on Tao culture is immense. Tao people call their island the home of the flying fish (‘ali bang bang’ in the Tao language), and even their calendar is closely related to the flying fish season: Spring is ‘rajun’ (the flying fish season), summer and autumn is ‘teteka’ (when the flying fish season ends), and winter is ‘aminon’ (when there is no flying fish).
The flying fish season on Orchid Island [zh] starts in March. When Cheilopogon unicolor fish (‘sosowon’ in Tao language) arrive, Tao people catch them at night using light to attract the flying fish. Researchers at the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium in Taiwan described [zh] how only a few other Asian islands share this fishing technique with the Tao people on Orchid Island.
以火把誘引飛魚的捕撈法，除蘭嶼外僅見於菲律賓巴丹諸島及日本；以上島嶼均屬於黑潮海域，因此日本黑潮文化學者國分直一曾提議將這些島嶼列為「火把捕撈飛魚法的文化小國」。
Flying fish hung up to dry on Orchid Island. Photo by Grillmagic. CC: BY-NC-SA)
In April and May, the most important flying fish is Cheilopogon spilonotopterus (‘papatawan’ in Tao language). Among all the flying fish swimming to Taiwan, the Tao people consider the Cheilopogon cyanopterus (‘mayaeng’ in Tao language) to be the most respectable because they believe that ‘mayaeng’ is the soul and chief of all flying fish species.
The fishermen preserve the fish by drying them in the sun. Flickr User Grillmagic took some photos of the fish-drying scene on Orchid Island in May 2012.
This year, YouTube user paudull accompanied by several residents of the island recorded the festival on his camera:
Below is a brief description of the video with corresponding time stamps:
As a backpacker to Orchid Island, Chia-Chi Tseng made a short film about the flying fish festival, ‘Libangbang’ (flying fish in Orchid Island), which was entered into the Golden Harvest Awards for films and documentaries. Below is the trailer.