There is a lake named Sun Moon Lake.

Sun Moon Lake is a historical park on Taiwan Island.

During World War II, Taiwan was controlled by the Japanese and Portuguese. The Japanese found the lake, and they wanted to build a hydropower dam that could provide electricity for Taiwan. The dam was so big that 70% of Taiwan could use the electricity from it.

Moreover, the lake is full of natural fish; there are about 200 kinds of fish.

The lake is named after its appearance. It is combined by two big bodies of water; one looks like the moon (half-shaped), and another one looks like the sun (round).

There are fairy tales of Sun Moon Lake. Because it is close to Alishan Mountain, the tales were related to Alishan people.

I visited there at the end of 2018, and the tour guide told the fairy tales of Sun Moon Lake:

1. Alishan people lived on Alishan Mountain. They were hunters. One day, they were hunting in the forest and found a white deer. They followed the white deer until they arrived at the lake. The white deer disappeared when they reached the lake. When they saw the lake looked like the sun and moon, they named it Sun Moon Lake. The hunter thought the white deer was the god that brought them to the great lake, so they prayed to the white deer.

2. A long time ago, there was a village. The villagers did farm to survive. There was a lake, and there were two dragons living in the lake. One dragon loved to play with the sun, and another one loved to play with the moon.

When the villagers were farming, the dragon swallowed the sun and went into the water. The villagers were worried because they needed to farm to support their families, and there was no sunlight. How could they work? Then they were told that they still had the moonlight. The farmers decided to wait till night; when the moon came, they could work.

As the night fell and the moon started to appear, another dragon swallowed the moon and went into the water.

The villagers were so worried because they lost both the sun and the moon.

Then there was husband and wife. They felt pity for the villagers, so they went to find the sun and the moon. They arrived at the lake and found strange lights in the lake. They looked into the lake and saw the dragon was playing with the sun and another dragon was playing with the moon.

They wanted to help the villagers, so they went up to Alishan Mountain to seek golden scissors and axes to kill the dragons.

The god saw the couple were kind and had a pure heart, so he helped the couple find the golden scissor and ax. They got the weapon and went to kill the dragons. When the dragons were dead, the sun and the moon floated on the lake. Even though they did not know how to put the sun and the moon back in the sky because the sky was high.

The couple went to Alishan Mountain again and met with the hermit. The hermit said that if they wanted to put the sun and the moon back in the sky, they had to eat dragons’ eyes. The couple went down to the lake; the husband ate dragons’ eyes, and the wife ate other dragons’ eyes. They became tall and tall to reach the sky, so each of them held the sun and the moon to place in the sky. The sky got light. The people were happy.

But the couple could not return to normal. They had to stay big and tall forever. The couple agreed to stay like that because they wanted to protect the villagers from other beasts.