Taiwan 101 - April 20

Kinda Sorta

We met our guide, Andrew, at the dock in Keelung, Taiwan at 8:30 am. He was rather hard to understand. Our bus was "Silver 16" - one of about a dozen buses doing the "Best of Taipei" tour.  

It was about a 45-minute drive into Taipei, and Andrew used the time to tell us about Taiwan, aka the Republic of China not to be confused with the People's Republic of China (PRC)) and fka Formosa. Between not understanding Andrew, not hearing him because of other passengers talking, and perhaps some reluctance on Andrew's part to get too deeply into politics, I may have missed some important facts. But here is what I think I heard.

Taiwan is kind of, sort of, a country. It is not recognized by the UN. I am not sure who does recognize it. Taiwan came about in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek fled mainland China, which was then under the control of the Communist Party. Chiang brought with him his nationalist government, about 2 million Chinese citizens, including many intellectuals and elites, and almost 1/4 of China's cultural treasures.

Taiwan has its own government and its own military.  Depending on where you come from and the purpose and length of your visit, you may need a visa to enter Taiwan. For now, everybody seems to be looking the other way and letting Taiwan chug along doing its own national thing.

Taiwan is kind of, sort of China. It claims to be the real China, the PRC (mainland China) claims to be the real China, also, and claims that Taiwan is part of the PRC: the One-China Policy. The language of Taiwan is Chinese (Mandarin). Ethnically, most of the population is Chinese. The culture is Chinese. But the majority of the population identifies as "Taiwanese" rather than "Chinese" or "Taiwanese and Chinese."

The Hunger Games

The anthropologist in me was very interested to learn that there were indigenous people in Taiwan before the Chinese and Europeans started coming in the 17th century. In fact, there are still about half a million of them.  They are believed to have inhabited Taiwan for 8,000 years. Linguistically and genetically, these people are tied to other Austronesian peoples who inhabit places such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Oceania.

According to Andrew, tribal initiation required a young man to kill an enemy. The indigenous tribes also practiced headhunting until the 20th century.

Up the River

Taiwan National Palace Museum

I expected the Taiwan National Palace Museum to be boring, but it turned out to be fascinating.  It is one of the few museums I have visited where I wanted to stay longer.
Unfortunately, photos were not permitted.

The museum was ridiculously crowded, and that made it hard to see everything in the time allotted. It made it hard to hear our guide, even with special earphones that were tuned into his mike. It made it hard to see exhibits. It made it hard to walk and to think straight. You'll just have to take my word for it - it was CROWDED.

One of the most famous pieces in the museum is a jade cabbage. (To me it looks more like bok choy.) It is carved out of a single piece of green and white jade in such a way that the leaves are green and the stems are white. In the gift shop you can buy all sorts of jade cabbage goodies, from key chains to bottle openers. This piece is a REALLY big deal. Dare I use the word "iconic"?

This photo came from the internet.

Call me an iconoclast, but the jade cabbage was not my favorite thing in the museum. My favorite thing was a scroll called Up the River During Qingming. This scroll was painted around 1120 CE. It is about 20 feet long. It depicts everyday life in and around a city during the festival of Qingming. The detail is extraordinary. There are said to be over 800 people in the painting. They are all distinct with different features, different clothing, performing different activities. There is so much going on! You can spend hours studying the scroll and finding all the little stories and dramas that can be seen. It's a little like a Where's Waldo picture, but the art is much better and the pictures are much more interesting.

This scroll has inspired several remakes. The museum displayed the original black and white scroll right above a scroll that is faithful to the original but was painted several centuries later using colored inks. Great stuff!

Apparently the opportunity to see both of the scrolls was part of a special exhibition. Lucky to be there at the right time. Perhaps this is why it was so crowded. This scroll is one of the most well-known paintings in Chinese art. Think Mona Lisa.

Here is a small section of the original scroll from Wikipedia. This is as large as I could get it.

Part of the later scroll

If You Have to Be a Martyr, This Is the Place

Here is another place that I thought was going to be boring. WRONG!! The National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine is an imposing compound built to honor the 390,000 people killed during the 20th Century in various wars and revolutions, including the Chinese Civil War. 

The entrance to the Shrine complex (viewed from inside)

The main part of the Shrine

Don't forget to look up!

Inside the Shrine

We got there just in time to see the Changing of the Guard. I was totally impressed.

They are about to begin

Forward, march!

 



  Here is a short video of part of it (1 min, 50 sec):

The lines on the ground were made by repeated marching over the exact same route.

Time for Lunch

We had lunch at the Grand Hotel Taipei. When I first saw it, sitting there on top of a hill, I thought it was a super-sized temple or an important official building or historical landmark. It is just a hotel and always has been. It was built in 1973.

Let's look up. Oh! Didn't we see this at the last place?

 

In the lobby, a reminder that Taiwan is the world's largest producer of orchids.

Dragonland

Our next stop was Taipei Confucius Temple.  Compared to all the Buddhist temples and Hindu shrines that we had seen in other places, this temple was less ornate.  But it was still quite ornate. It was also deserted except for tourists.

Dragons are important in Chinese culture.

The main part of the temple complex

 

 

You probably can't read the sign in this photo. It says "DO NOT TOUCH." Do you really need a sign to know that you shouldn't touch it? Several "adults" in our group felt compelled to show their respect for a holy religious site by hitting the drum as they walked by.

Paoan Temple

Less than a block away is the Paoan (or Baoan) Temple. Although the Paoan Temple and the Confucius Temple may look similar at first glance, they did not feel similar on the ground. 
 
The Paoan Temple is part of Chinese folk religion. It happened to be some kind of holiday or festival day when we were there. It was full of activity. In addition to tourists, the place was packed with local people, praying, burning incense, and making offerings. There were places to buy offerings. There were tables and tables full of offerings.
 

A turtle made out of the local equivalent of Rice Krispie bars

The cool thing about the whole idea of the offerings is this: the deities obviously never eat the food, or spend the money, or whatever, so after you have left the offering and waited a short time, you get to take it back and eat it yourself. 

The buildings themselves were interesting and beautiful.

Offerings in front of the main temple building

Inside the main building

More dragons!

 

They were also getting ready for a parade. There were big parade puppets that could be put over someone's head.The puppets had holes in the abdomens so the person inside could see out (and breathe). 

The parade puppets on the left side

The ones on the right side

I am pretending to be a scary parade puppet

Outside there was a group of musicians sitting in the street.

See the dragon in the background?

There was a lively sort of commotion. It seemed to be as much a social gathering as a religious one. It was very festive.
 
An elderly woman was offering to do free calligraphy. You could choose from about twenty lucky words or phrases. I got one, and if I find it, I'll scan it and post it here.

So, it really annoyed me the next day when a woman on the ship complained about how boring Taipei was. She particularly disliked the temples because "they are all the same" and there was nothing to see or do there. If you guessed this person was American, you would be wrong. She was Australian.

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial

Liberty Square includes an enormous memorial to Chiang Kai-shek, the National Theater, and the National Concert Hall.

Entrance to Liberty Square. CKS Memorial in the background

Getting a little closer. There is scaffolding from a concert obstructing the view.

A slightly better view here. I have drawn a box around some people on the steps to give a better idea of the scale of this monument. It is ginormous. Huge statue of CKS inside.

This is either the theater or the concert hall. They look almost the same.

Taipei 101

Taipei street scene

The marathon is almost over. One more stop before we head back to the port. We are going to see Taipei 101 and we are going to get time to shop at a tourist trap, oops, I mean "market," nearby.

Taipei 101, the world's tallest building until 2010 when a taller one was built in Dubai

Reminds me a little bit of a pagoda. Some say it looks like a piece of bamboo.

The tourist trap was worse than usual. The prices were high and the merchandise was uninteresting and of low quality. But I heard that one of the other buses from our tour also stopped at a jewelry shop. It was not on the schedule and was not an authorized stop. I guess I shouldn't complain.

It was nice to get back to the ship. Taipei is very intense and it was a long day.