Magong

Penghu was settled long before Taiwan itself. Fishermen from Fujian were working these islands by the Song period, and a government office was established here in 1281, making them the first part of the region under Chinese administration. The Mazu temple at the heart of Magong is generally held to be the oldest Mazu temple in Taiwan; a stone tablet found there, recording a Ming official's dealings with the Dutch in 1604, is among the island's most important relics. The town's name derives from Mazu's palace, the temple itself.

The harbour's depth and position made it strategic. The Dutch East India Company occupied Penghu in the 1620s before being pushed on to Taiwan. In 1683 the Qing admiral Shi Lang destroyed the Zheng family's fleet off these islands, opening the way to the annexation of Taiwan. France seized Penghu during the Sino-French War of 1884–85, and the Qing responded by building a walled city at Magong between 1887 and 1889, together with new batteries at Xiyu and Jinguitou. Japan took the islands in March 1895, months before the rest of Taiwan.

Under Japanese rule Magong became a naval port and the administrative centre of the archipelago, and its name was written Mako. After 1945 it remained a garrison town, close to the front line of the strait, with a large military presence and a population that declined steadily as families left for Kaohsiung and Taipei in search of work. Since the 1990s tourism has reshaped it: the old street was restored, the fireworks festival was created, and the summer months now bring more visitors than the islands have residents.

Penghu's culture is Fujianese and maritime. Hokkien is spoken widely, often with distinctive island vocabulary, and the calendar turns on temple festivals: Magong alone has a dense collection of shrines, and almost every village on the islands has its own, many dedicated to Mazu or to Wangye plague-quelling deities. Boat-burning rites, processions and spirit-medium performances remain part of village life rather than displays for visitors.

Wind and stone shape everything visible. Houses are built low from coral stone and basalt, fields are protected by thick walls of the same material against the salt gales, and the shallows hold heart-shaped stone weirs that trap fish on the falling tide, some of them centuries old. Emigration is a second defining fact: Penghu families are scattered across Kaohsiung and Taipei, and return for Lunar New Year and temple festivals in numbers that fill the flights.

Islanders have a reputation for directness and for a dry sense of the archipelago's hardships — the summer typhoons, the winter monsoon, the difficulty of growing anything in the wind. Manners are Taiwanese: shoes off where indicated, quiet in temples, food shared at the table. Residents are conscious that their economy now turns on a short summer, and debate about tourism's scale, water supply and the possibility of casino development has run for years.

About 63,000 people live in Magong, out of roughly 105,000 in Penghu County — more than half the archipelago's population in one town. The town holds the county government, the hospital, the main schools, the airport road and the ferry terminal, so islanders from the outer settlements come in for anything official or medical.

Work is in fishing and aquaculture, in government and public services, in the military and coastguard, and increasingly in tourism, which now dominates from April to September. Farming is limited by wind and thin soil to hardy crops grown behind stone walls — sweet potato, peanuts, melons, garlic and the mild-tasting Penghu pumpkin. Many households depend on summer earnings to carry them through a quiet winter, and younger residents leave for Kaohsiung in large numbers.

The rhythm is seasonal to an unusual degree. In summer the harbour is busy from dawn with boats loading day-trippers, the night market runs late and rooms are full; in winter the wind keeps boats in port, shops shorten their hours and the streets empty early. Water supply has long been a concern on islands with no rivers, and desalination and pipelines are part of everyday policy. Electricity, fuel and most food arrive by sea, which keeps prices above those on the mainland.

Seafood defines Penghu's table. Small squid, caught at night under lights, are grilled, simmered in clear broth or dried; cuttlefish is minced into springy balls; and the islands are known for oysters, shellfish, sea urchin in season and the seaweed called haicai, which goes into soups and omelettes. Restaurants along the harbour and in the old quarter cook plainly, letting the freshness carry the dish, and dried seafood fills the souvenir shops.

Two sweet things are inseparable from a visit. Cactus ice, a sharp magenta sorbet or drink made from the fruit of the prickly pear that grows wild across the basalt, is sold all over the town. Brown sugar cake, a soft dark steamed sponge, is boxed by the thousand and carried home on the afternoon flights. Penghu also makes a herbal infusion from a local groundcover, drunk cold as a cooling tea in summer.

Everyday food is Taiwanese with island variations: noodle soups with squid, sweet-potato porridge, fried rice with dried shrimp, and Penghu's own pumpkin cooked with rice noodles. The morning market sells fish landed a few hours earlier along with vegetables grown behind coral windbreaks, and the night market adds grilled skewers, fried chicken and shaved ice. Peanuts, garlic and dried fish are the other things people buy to take away.