In April 1871, John Thomson, the English photographer, took 3 photos of his host family in Lao-Nong, south Taiwan. One of the photos was titled “Hong-Kos House Lau-Long, Formosa. 1871”. The two words “Hong” and “Mrs. Hong” were found in Thomson’s notes of his journey from Jiasian to LaoNong (Lau-Long). So “Hong” is clearly a family name. Thomson used the local language, South-Min Dialect (or “Taiwanese”), to record the places and names. According to the Dictionary of Taiwanese-the South-Min Dialect of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou, the family name “Hong” has two corresponding possibilities: “Hong” and “Huang.” Knowing the two possibilities and comparing the photos to the actual landscape, the house in Thomson’s photo taken 144 years ago and the descendants of the Hong family were found.

English photographer John Thomson, Lao-Nong (Lau-Long), Hong, Huang, Landscape.