Taipei Part XIII: Sightseeing with the Jwos
Sunday was our last day in the city and one of the last days in Taiwan for the Jwos, so we were all determined to make the most of our time. We took full advantage of the fact that Kevin's dad had a car (note the absence of the otherwise ubiquitous "Kelly on public transportation" shots in this post), zipping from attraction to attraction and (for me) practicing Mandarin all the while.
Our first stop was the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aboriginal Cultures, conveniently located right in Shilin by the National Palace Museum and A-ma's house. There were a great number of really interesting exhibits. It's easy to be so swept up in the ROC's conservation and preservation of traditional Chinese culture (when compared with the PRC) that it's easy at times to lose sight of the fact that Taiwan has a fascinating and unique history of its own, as well as nearly twenty distinct aboriginal tribes with their own history and traditions.
We played with a large topographical model of Taiwan in the center of the ground-floor hall that was studded with tiny electric lights which, when turned on, marked the locations of different indigenous settlements on the island; watched a video about some ancient aboriginal legends; learned about weaving and dying and traditional gear; and even got to see and hear some aboriginal dance and music, including a nose flute. (Camille, who plays the clarinet, was encouraged to try the nose flute next).
After that, it was off to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, one of Taipei's most beautiful -- and most controversial -- monuments.
As you can see from these photos, the place was nearly deserted. This made it all the stranger when Kevin and I caught sight of two familiar figures walking across the empty white courtyard. Who were they? Christian and Sarah, of course! After laughing a lot at the coincidence of our meeting at random again in a totally unplanned manner, Kevin and I walked Christian and Sarah back to the main group, where they were introduced to the Jwos before setting out on their own travels once more, leaving the area even emptier than before.
The relative lack of tourists was probably due mostly to the construction and scaffolding pictured above, which obscured the main building.
However, it was probably also due at least partly to the huge amount of controversy that has surrounded this monument in recent months. As I mentioned in a previous post, Chiang Kai-shek's rule of Taiwan was far from smooth, and he is regarded in many circles -- especially with the liberalization of the government -- as a terrible dictator who deserves to be condemned for his mistreatment of the Taiwanese people, not glorified by an enormous monument and garden in the center of the capital city.
Last year, nearly forty Democratic Progressive Party legislators proposed that Chiang Kai-shek's Memorial be relocated to his tomb at Cihhu and that the current structure be renamed Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall (台灣民主紀念館). Many leaders supported this proposal, seeing the idea as "another step in the direction of rectifying names and symbols associated with Taiwan's authoritarian past to make them more inclusive and characteristic of local Taiwanese culture." However, more conservative officials in the Kuomintang (Chiang Kai-shek's old political party) resisted the measure, although few expressed open support of Chiang Kai-shek or his policy of one-party authoritarian rule, arguing instead that "the move represented unnecessary expense and election-year theater and that the localization of Taiwan's place names and symbols represented a treacherous effort to desinicize the island's culture."
Despite this resitance, the Ministry of Education decided to rename the hall earlier this year. The official renaming ceremony took place on May 19th. Chen announced that the name change reflected the desire of citizens "to bid goodbye to the old age and to show that we Taiwanese are all standing firmly behind the universal values of freedom, democracy and human rights." He noted that the date, May 19, marked the fifty-eighth anniversary of the imposition of martial law on Taiwan; the event began rule by the military on the island for thirty-eight years. According to news reports, minor scuffles broke out among spectators before the ceremony even began.
Since then, even more drama -- though now political rather than physical -- has developed. The mayor of Taipei City, Hau Lung-pin, declared that he would authorize no changes to city-maintained signs, including mass transit signs and maps, that would recognize changes in the hall's name, citing the high costs of making such changes and blaming the name change on the desire of officials to create "ideological strife." According to Wikipedia, on May 22nd, Taipei City authorities moved in and dismantled the scaffolding obscuring the "Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall" tablet, and also removed the gigantic signs bearing the text "Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall" which had been hung over the memorial hall. The City Government also issued a fine to the Ministry of Education for the second time over its redesignation moves, for blocking the view of and access to a heritage building. On May 24th, the new name plate unveiled by Chen Shui-bian was taken down by the Ministry of Education, who cited the costly efforts to have police stand guard at the name plate 24-7 as the primary reason for its removal. A veteran was seen spitting on the new name plate that prompted the 24 hour police presence. On June 7th, a joint meeting of committees repealed the Ministry of Education's Organic Regulations of the National Taiwan Democracy Hall that established the name change. The issue has yet to be resolved and remains a contentious one to this day. (Portions of the story above adapted from the Wikipedia article about the Hall).
Controversy aside, we had a great time at the hall, chatting about Kevin's dad's time in the Taiwanese miliary and enjoying the gardens outside the main building, which were beautiful. (See above).
After that, we were off again, this time in quest of Kevin's favorite 紅燒牛肉麵 (beef noodle soup) restaurant, right outside the university where he lived one summer during high school. If there's one thing this trip to Taiwan has taught me (and it's taught me many things), it's that Kevin's love of 紅燒牛肉麵 is by no means a personality quirk, as it seems in the US. It's more like an island-wide obsession. I bet if Taiwan has a citizenship test, one of the requirements is an undying love of beef noodle soup, because there is hardly a person on the island who doesn't live for the stuff.
After a bit of confusion, and a ride in two different taxis, we all arrived safely at the "college-town-like" series of alleyways across the street from Si Da. I passed on the 紅燒牛肉麵, and got some stir-fried noodles and egg-drop soup instead, both of which were scrumptious.
After that, we wandered the streets a bit and bought mango and red bean shaved ice at a nearby shop, whose walls were covered with post-it notes written by students to one another, in all kinds of different languages. I had a great time trying to read the ones in Chinese and Spanish, and imagining what life must be like for university students here. Before long, though, we were off once more to meet Kevin's dad in the car and take off for Taipei's main downtown area.
We arrived just in time to see the famous "changing of the guard" at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, in which honor guards perform military precision exercises, twirling guns and clicking their heels as they switch every hour on the hour. (There is a video of it, taken by somebody else, here). Sun Yat-sen is regarded as the Father of the Republic of China, the founder of the Kuomintang (Nationalist) party, and the creator of the three "Principles of the People" on which the political philosophy of the ROC is based. Like Chiang Kai-shek, Sun is far from uncontroversial, and it was fascinating (for Kevin and me in particular, given our recent experience studying modern Chinese history) to see artifacts from the history and lives of the people who had done so much to shape China and Taiwan into what they are today.
After that, we had only a few minutes left to quickly look around the rest of this area of downtown Taipei before Kevin and I needed to hop back on the subway to catch our bus to Taichung. We crossed the street to a government building area...
...where we saw Taipei 101! The picture above was taken just outside Taipei's City Hall, which afforded an excellent view of what is, for a few more months at least, the tallest building in the world. We just had a few moments to look around the bottom of the giant skyscraper, which was built to resemble a tall, graceful stalk of bamboo ringed by traditional Chinese painted clouds, but we made the most of our time. We bade a quick goodbye to the Jwos, who are leaving for China later this week, and then began our long journey home. As we finally disembarked from the bus that took us from Taichung to Asia University and crossed the scrubby lawn to our dorm, we were hailed from behind by a pair of familiar voices shouting "What are the odds?!" Who had arrived back at campus at the exact same time as we had? You guessed it! The only other couple at our camp: Christian and Sarah. They say the third time's a charm, right?
posted by Kelly @ 3:37 PM
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