七星潭 Qixing beach mystery

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One of the most beautiful beaches I've ever been to.

No wait, it's probably the most beautiful one I've been to in recent memory. The first day my husband and I got to Hualien on 16 January, the skies were a lil gloomy and usually I'm not that into grey and cloudy skies when I travel. But somehow, they added a dreamy, mysterious charm to this beach in eastern Taiwan. I thought the clouds amid the mountains really added to the effect.

Well, if you're here, you're probably not here to listen to me rave about how beautiful this beach is... it is indeed a gorgeous beach but I'll save that for when I meet you guys in person.

Instead, I'm here to talk about something I experienced there which haunts me every other day even after my return to Singapore. Not that I've been personally attacked or harmed... it's more of an... otherworldly experience.

You see, I stayed at a hotel by the beach for two nights. It was magical. Stars peppered across the sky as we slept right next to the ocean. We even visited the wondrous Taroko Gorge that had intricate marble canyons and the brightest bluish lakes I'd ever seen.

It was our second day when we decided to take a stroll along the beach after dinner before we called it a night. We walked along this path:

The path we walked every day to get to our hotel.
This was taken in broad daylight.

For some reason, as we were walking along this path, it suddenly dawned on me that this was the same path that a girl had taken... it was an article I'd read a while ago but I wasn't sure. I just kind of stopped for a while as I was walking with my husband and I told him, "eh i think... a Singaporean girl might have died here." And I briefly recounted the story to him, but I wasn't sure if that was it because I couldn't remember the exact details and where she had died. It just felt like dejavu as we walked along that path.

I didn't think much after that and completely forgot about it, until I was bathing and my husband suddenly called out from outside... "It's her!" He was googling on his phone to verify the story:

(TNP article)
I looked at the date - June, 2023. So recent, no wonder I could briefly recall some things

(AsiaOne article)

In response, I just said, "omg". I was in shock - because we were right at the place where she'd died, or at least where she was last seen. In fact, our hotel was just a five-minute walk away from hers. Shivers went down my spine. Because as the article suggests, she'd died mysteriously. And I remembered all the feelings I had when I first read the article (I believe AsiaOne broke the story) - sad that a young life was lost, unsettled because her death remains a mystery to this day and upset for her parents as they will never know how or why.

I don't have her parents permission to write this, and I'm sorry if it upsets anyone. You can stop reading here as some things I talk about may affect you, as it has affected me in some way.

But I feel that it's important to speak about her death nonetheless. It's touched me in a way that I still find difficult to process, therefore I've turned to this blog to write about it. To also give her a voice and figure out how things might have unravelled at the very end.

To begin, if I may, I'll use her name as she deserves at least to be named - Ms Amelia Moo, according to AsiaOne's article.

(Photo embedded in AsiaOne article)
This was the last known footage of Ms Moo walking along the beach.
We walked along that same path, at the same time that she did, between 6 to 8pm.
At that hour, it's pitch dark, save for the street lamps that lined the path

In a bid to understand what might have happened, we went back the next day - the path was just outside our hotel. You can read the articles to understand what happened, as I won't be explaining the details again.

Theory 1: She was frightened of stray dogs, and blacked out after falling

According to the articles, her parents mentioned the fact that she was afraid of dogs and might have fallen down after being chased by dogs.

There were indeed a lot of wild dogs roaming around like this one

In fact, that very night when I had that epiphany, a bunch of stray dogs also barked at us and it scared the heck out of us that we turned around and quickly walked away.

So experiencing this ourselves, we decided it's impossible that she ran towards the ocean when she saw dogs. Even if it's dark, you can hear where the ocean is and you'd definitely run towards safety, instead of the treacherous waters. It was highly impossible. Unless the dogs chased after her towards the ocean??

Theory 2: She somehow fell into the waters

The waters.

I know this picture doesn't look it - but the tides were HUGE and the waves extremely choppy. The waves literally came crashing down and even if you can't see them, you'll definitely hear them.

We went to her hotel to look at the distance between the path, to the beach -

The ocean next to her hotel - Bayview Hotel

Now that's a huge distance. And you'll have to walk quite a bit to get to the waters. It's impossible to fall off the track and end up being in the waters. It's a good 70 to 100m from the hotel.

I stood there for quite a while and I just could not come to terms with the fact that she simply fell into it. So then, did someone push her?

Theory 3: Someone did something to her

It's hard to believe this because firstly, it's a really quiet, quaint town. It felt safe too. But then again, having stayed there for only two nights, we might not have a full picture of Qixingtan.

She was also alone. While I was accompanied. So I might not have felt like I was in danger at any point in time. In fact, I felt really safe. The locals were friendly and it seemed like everyone knew everyone else.

More importantly, as the article states, there were no external injuries found on Ms Moo's body. So it didn't seem like she was in a life-threatening situation with a stranger.

And if anything, these guys should've spotted something!
We found a coast guard post right next to the beach with actual people working there
Or maybe they just weren't paying enough attention that very night

Ms Moo's parents were simply told by the authorities that she had drowned.

If so, these coast guards should've seen something? What were they doing??

As I took that picture, I just let out an exasperated sigh, wondering what these guys were hired for.

And finally,

Theory 4: She was suicidal

As Ms Moo's parents mentioned, she had her whole life ahead of her. She was graduating from law school, taking bar exams soon, starting work at a law firm after... she also met with relatives during her solo trip in Taiwan. Felt like nothing was amiss.

Yet, she had phoned her friend at 8pm, but that call wasn't picked up. Now that phone call... feels like the missing puzzle to everything. If only her friend had picked it up. Was it a cry for help? Nobody will ever know.....

Unfortunately, I have no answers to her death. Though I do have my own suspicions about what might've happened.

Writing this post feels a bit pointless. And I'm sorry if you were looking for a conclusion. Yet, there's nothing to this ending, which is probably what vexes me a whole lot.

It's been about a week since my vacation in Taiwan, yet her story stays with me. And somehow... I know this sounds strange and a bit illogical, but I also feel a sense of responsibility to tell this story. That it was no coincidence that I had felt her presence as I walked along that path that very night. I don't know what this post is meant to do, perhaps maybe settle my own restless mind?