Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Taipei: Some History

Evidence for human settlement of Taiwan goes back 30,000 years, a history detailed in the National Taiwan Museum, the country's oldest, established in 1908. Its cases are full of artifacts like those below, detailing the natural and human history of the island.

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If those totems look similar to what you might find in Polynesia, that's because they are: the indiginous tribes speak varieties of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, and many linguists think that Taiwan is the homeland of the language group, and thus the original population center from which sea-faring peoples dispersed across southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Still, mostly it looks like pretty standard museum fare, though I gotta love this enormous carving:

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Through the centuries, Taiwan has been claimed by many seafaring nations including the Portugese, the Spanish, the Dutch, the English and of course the Japanese, as well as the Chinese. The main reason for this is the island's strategic location. Imperial Japan ruled Taiwan from 1985 to the end of WWII when control was given to the Republic of China.

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Dr Sun Yat-sen is revered on mainland China as well as in Taiwan (technically, the ROC) as the Father of the Nation--Dr. Sun Zhongshan. I visited the Zhongshan Gardens in Beijing, right beside Tiananmen Square, in Beijing back in 2009 (scroll down a bit). I arrived at the SYS Memorial in Taipei just in time for the changing of the guard. The bronze statue is 5.8 m tall and weighs 16.7 tons.

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Taiwan's other "father" is Chiang Kai-shek, the ruling strongman from 1948 until his death is 1975. Well, he started out as President of the ROC, the constitutional government of mainland China, but fled to Taiwan when Mao's Red Chinese won the Chinese Civil War in 1949. With him came about 2 million people, mostly members of the Kuomintang, the political party begun by Dr Sun, soldiers and most importantly the intellectual and business elites.

The CKS Memorial includes a de rigueur giant bronze, and a selection of memorabilia, including a pair of his specially-built Caddies (one posted earlier), sedan chairs, photos with world leaders, military decorations, and a wax likeness in a replica office attending to his Presidential duties.

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Before Chiang relocated to the island, administrative duties were managed, or rather mismanaged, by a provincial governor named Chen Yi. His poor treatment of the locals famously led to a revolt and an absurd, murderous overreaction that is known as the 2-28 Incident. The 2-28 Freedom Park and a well-done museum record the episode.

The people were suppressed and discontented:

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A 40-year-old woman, trying to scrape by by selling cigarettes, was accosted then pistol-whipped by a government agent in February, 1947:

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News of the incident spread, in part by people who took over the local radio station (the station bulding is now home to the museum). Confrontation became more and more heated, with the result that a police officer shot a bystander named Chen Wen-xi. Protests continued to mount, and in "The Suffering" unknown thousands of Taiwanese were killed, exiled, improsoned or "disappeared".

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Many of the known dead are memorialized in this elegant structure at the museum:

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The state of Martial Law continued all the way until 1987--though Chen Yi was recalled and later executed for unrelated excesses. Chiang Kai-shek continued the lockdown on dissent, and kept the Kuomintang as the only legal political party throughout his rule, sometimes called the White Terror.

With a new democracy begun in 1987, the 2-28 Museum and Peace Park was opened in 1995.

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Taipei: Lantern Festival

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My visit to Taipei coincided with the Taipei Lantern Festival; a large number of entrants surrounded the Dr Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. 2012 is the year of the dragon in the Chinese zodiac, and so the dragon is a common theme among the floats.

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My apologies for not putting up pics from my trip in a more timely manner, but I have been really quite ill, the kind of can-hardly-move, stay-in-bed 'flu-like illness that I virtually never fall prey to. Well, except this time. Still, mostly fine now, and posting will pick up, I promise!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Taiwan-Thailand 2012

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That's always good, if slightly ungrammatical, advice.

Regular visitors in the Seoul Patch surely know that I am dedicated to my teaching; I work hard to create and improve lessons to help my students feel more confident and fluent in speaking English. Still, I know I won't live in Korea indefinitely, so it has become important to me to use my proximity to east Asian points of interest for travel. Sure, it costs money to galavant around, but not nearly as much as it would if I was coming from the States--I'm not saving money, but I'm making memories.

To wit, I just returned from eighteen days in Taipei and Thailand. Even though I stayed in Taipei for only four nights, there was lots to see, including Taipei 101, for some years the world's tallest building ...

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... the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, which houses two of his specially-built Cadillacs ...

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... and some of the most awesome street food I've had to date (and that's saying something). These are steamed/fried buns with delicious fillings, like pork, cabbage or chives:

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After arrival at Suwarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, I made my way via the new Airport train to Praya Thai and thence via a 57 Baht taxi ride to Hualamphong train station for the 7:30 night train to Surat Thani. A bus ride, a ferry and a taxi later, I am ensconced at my bungalow.

I make no claim to be a photographer, but I have to justify spending lots of money on a serious digital SLR (Nikon D5100) somehow, so I think I got a pretty good shot of the full moon ...

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... and a good pic of a Thai shrimping sampan with Koh Phangan in the background:

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Most mornings, I claimed my sunbed at 7:30 AM, swam and laid in the gentle sun to read a book; after breakfast around 9:30 I would return to sunbathe for a couple hours until lunch. A new application of suncream and a return to the chaise lounge from 2 to 3:30 would generally complete my regimen. Yes, I turned red as a lobster, but I did not peel!

The latter part of the day was usually relaxing with a frosty beverage at the Chill Out Cafe, a twenty second amble from my sunbed.

Buddy Kevin arrived at the midpoint of my stay in Maenam, which only increased my enjoyment. We did stuff, like cultural stuff. For example, we visited the "Big Buddha" at Bophut:

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After several days of enjoying this amazing beach, we made our way back to Bangkok for a couple of days of sightseeing in Krung Thep. More on that, and more on my visit to Taipei, coming soon.