Hearing the sound of a piano on the beach of Penghu’s Jibei Island—could it actually be coming from beneath your feet?

Text and photos by /"European North Travel Observation Diary"by Tsai Fa-da

Jibei Island—before I came here, I thought the sound of waves crashing could only be of two kinds.

I remember my freshman year, walking along the east coast, listening to the waves pounding against the rocky shore, the thunderous rumble of stones rolling, which kept me standing there transfixed, listening to what I called the “dragon’s roar” for a full two hours. And then there was the sunlit Tainan Golden Coast, where waves crashed onto the sand, their splashing sound mixed with a soft rustle. I thought that was it. Just like how, before the unification of eastern and western Taiwan, they were considered two separate countries, I naturally interpreted this phenomenon with the simplest of binary thinking.

The moment I took my first step onto the sandy beach of this tiny island, I jumped back in shock. “Why is it the sound of a piano?” I looked around again and again—there was no one there at all. Due to the off-season, the entire beach had only two women collecting shellfish, but they were far, far away. Then I glanced back at my two travel companions, and when I stepped out again, it was still... the sound of a piano...

Crouching down, I greeted this patch of sand more closely, and realized—it was a shoreline covered with coral fossils. “No wonder!! I know someone who’s made wind chimes out of this stuff!!!!” It all suddenly made sense. How beautiful—this world is more beautiful than we can imagine.

I asked many friends who have also set foot on this land, but no one else had discovered this whole “piano.” The noise of people dulls our ability to perceive and create in this world. The beautiful things, buried under the chaos, become something we can no longer hear as real.

So much has happened on this land that warrants deep reflection, and so we grow indignant, impassioned, shout, and pace.
It seems there’s no reason left for us to stay. Every era has its own set of problems that need solving, but that’s a natural process within an era, and it’s never just about good or bad.

Don’t forget, we are alive—choose to live as if dead, or to die trying to truly live. If the amount of beauty in this world is as countless as ants, maybe we can try to create a single colorful elephant.

In the way you do best, just like walking along this beach, let every step be a note of music.