Saturday 23, November 2024

Another excellent day being tourists in a large and bustling city. We hadn’t got any plans for today. We googled things to see in Taipei and surprisingly a lot of them were outside the City: Jiufen (our wonderful Old street adventure); Beitou (a hotspring on the north end of New Taipei). Google even recommended Taroko Gorge. Hardly inside the City of Taipei. We decided to go to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Also in the grounds are the National Theatre and the National Concert Hall.

We are old pros at taking the Metro and hopped on and off with ease. Although, if we stopped and looked at the map or looked at which level we should be on someone came up and asked if we needed help. This happened twice today at the Metro stations.

As we came out of the Metro, the architecture of the gateway was outstanding.

We followed the signs to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall and was struck by the stunning architecture of the National Theatre and the National Concert Hall, both built in 1987. They were built in the Chinese Palace style with distinctive yellow tiled roofs and red pillars.  The grounds were laid out in beautiful gardens and finally the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall stood at the east end of Memorial Square.

We slowly walked up to the Memorial Hall. There were a lot of people around, they were quiet which surprised me as usually there is a lot of noise. When we got closer, we saw that there was a Changing of the Guard parade. The guards were precise in their movements and the whole event took about 10 minutes.

We headed inside the hall and there was Chiang Kai Shek in bronze.  As we went further into the hall there were two permanent exhibitions. One documented the “Road to Freedom of Speech” the other was Chiang Kai Shek’s life and his rule of Taiwan.

We were able to use a headphone set which translated the information in the exhibition. The headphone set was free as was the entrance to the two exhibitions. The main hall documented Chiang’s time from when he arrived in Taiwan in 1949. and was ‘elected’ as President. Shortly afterwards Taiwan came under authoritarian rule. Although Chiang bought in major changes that were beneficial to the Taiwanese people: economically and socially. He implemented rules for education, all children will spend nine years in school. He implemented economic and tax reforms to combat inflation and promote employment and growth.

However, he also implemented Marshall law, he curtailed freedom of speech and arrested most journalist and owners of independent newspapers that would write articles against Chiang and his government. He also arrested students and anyone who may have communist or socialist tendencies. This time was known as the White Terror, thousands were arrested, killed or disappeared.

This paper mache head was created by a newspaper owner who was arrested for his articles against the regime. The paper used represented his arrest papers and subsequent trial transcripts and how he felt suffocated by the regime.

Prior to coming to Taiwan, I had read a book called Green Island by Shawna Yang Ryan. This book gave me some knowledge of this era. It was a really interesting book, and I gained a little bit of knowledge about Taiwan and this time in its history.

The Memorial Hall pulled no punches with regards to this time in its history. The final part of the audio tour was to remind people of the importance of freedom of speech and to warn people of misinformation and to be aware of the influence of social media.

After leaving the Memorial Hall we wandered the gardens and looked at the two concert hall buildings. There was a performance happening in the National Theatre. At the beginning of December the German Bavarian Symphony Orchestra with Sir Simon Rattle as conductor are playing here. I said to Ralf it would be awesome to be able to hear a symphony played in this theatre.

For my Mum and Dad.

At about 4:30 we wandered down to the Nahmen Market. This is an indoor market with food stalls and a food court. We were both feeling a bit peckish and decided on an early dinner. As we were looking for something to eat a lovely young woman came and asked if I needed any of the Chinese translating as it could be a bit confusing. I said we hadn’t decided what to eat but thanked her for her offer.