Orchid Island became Taiwan’s tourist hotspot. Does it want to be?

Si Ngalopkop is tiring of the motor scooters and construction trucks rushing past the breakfast bar where he fries up small hot dogs and egg crepes for children on their way to the village school. His oceanside hamlet with just one through street never saw so much congestion, trash, or intrusion until the pandemic – when Orchid Island became the closest thing Taiwanese tourists could get to an overseas vacation.

“They bring in money from the diving and snorkeling but affect the rhythms of our normal life,” says Mr. Ngalopkop one morning, as the engine of a truck bound for a guesthouse construction site vies with the more familiar crows of rooster.

“It’s really loud,” he says. “We welcome the improvement