Lalu Island
Coordinates: 23°51′20″N 120°54′40″E / 23.85556°N 120.91111°E
Lalu island (Chinese: 拉魯島) is a small island in Sun Moon Lake, Yuchi Township, Nantou County, Taiwan. 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.
Lalu is an Austronesian word roughly corresponding to "after", "later" (the Chinese 後）with similar meanings from Taiwan to Indonesia. In legend, Thao hunters discovered Sun Moon Lake while chasing a white deer through the surrounding mountains. The deer eventually led them to the lake, which they found to be not only beautiful, but abundant with fish. Today, the white deer of legends is immortalized as a marble statue on Lalu Island. In recent years, due to increasing social and political awareness, more deference and recognition are being given to Taiwanese aborigines. As a result, after the 921 earthquake, the island was renamed in the Thao language as "Lalu".
Under Japanese rule, the island was renamed "Jade Island" (Japanese: 玉島?). After Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Government moved to Taiwan, the island was renamed Kuang-hua Island (Chinese: 光華島; literally: "glorious China island") and in 1978 the local government built a pavilion where annual weddings took place.
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