Kaohsiung Central Park, among the first things I saw in Taiwan. After getting caught in the rain with an inadequate umbrella while leaving Hong Kong, I stopped here to dry my shoes and change my socks.
Downtown Kaohsiung from a Starbucks Restaurant, where I waited for a friend to pick me up. Kaohsiung is Taiwan's second city, and a major port.
The Love River boardwalk in Kaohsiung.
The view from Kaohsiung's Martyr's Shine atop Shoushan Mountain. From here you can admire views of Kaohsiung Harbor. Martyrs' Shrines were established throughout Taiwanese cities to honor the specific heroic deeds of soldiers and civilians.
The view of Kaohsiung Harbor.
Kaohsiung.
My hotel in Kaohsiung. Great room, 120 channels, continental breakfast, all for $600 NTD/night (about $22 US).
The Grand Hi-Lai Hotel in Kaohsiung. This is where my host Rotary Club stayed when they came to visit their sister club. Shared room, 40 channels, extra charges for everything...all for $9000 NTD a night (about $300 US). I much preferred my hotel.
In South Taiwan you won't find many national flags flying. Probably because the national flag is the same as the flag of the Kuomintang political party of Chiang Kai-Shek, which isn't well regarded around these parts. CKS imposed a powerful authoritarian police state under martial law on the native islanders when he began fleeing here in 1947. Some of the worst atrocities were committed in Kaohsiung and the surrounding area. While you won't find a national flag except on government buildings, this one caught my eye.
A Buddist Temple in downtown Kaohsiung, one of many. I remember reading this year that some bagmaker in the U.S. had to apologize for importing bags from Thailand with the Buddist cross on it, because Americans only associate it with Nazism. It's really an ancient symbol that represents Dharma, or universal harmony, in the East.
The garbage truck rolls through Kaohsiung with joyful music playing like an ice cream truck. I heard the tune, "It's a Small World" playing and looked around for the ice cream, and was surprised to see this pull up instead. Storekeepers keep their trash inside and flood out when the garbage truck rolls down the street playing its merry melody.
Sprawling Kaohsiung in the evening, as seen from the Grand Hi-Lai Hotel.
The beach at Zhong Shan (Sun Yat-Sen) University in Kaohsiung. There is a university by the same name in Guangzhou, PRC, which underscores how much culture is shared by Taiwan and mainland China. Both the Kuomintang (a.k.a. Nationalists) and the Chinese Communist Party claim him as their founder.
The Liouhe Night Market in Kaohsiung. The variety of knickknacks at the city's three night markets weren’t as good as Hong Kong. Most stalls sold food instead. But, unlike HK, it had lots of video game arcades. Something being cooked – later identified as “stinky to-fu,” smelled like Hell itself. I gagged.
Taiwan is famous for its food vendors.
There’s a neon-lit dance club on most street corners downtown. Considering that my hometown had none, I no longer feel shame it took so many years for me to gain some basic, non-embarrassing steps.
Who can resist eating here?
Hot pot, Taiwanese style. There's beef, 3 varities of dumplings, coagulated duck blood, and shredded cow stomach.
MMmmmm, more food vendor stalls.
Girls advertise for products outside of the new Dream Mall in Kaohsiung. The Dream Mall is notable for having a large ferris wheel on top.
President KC Oh of the Rotary Club of Hong Kong North is honored at the installation ceremony of their sister club, the Rotary Club of Kaohsiung South. To his right and left are the Presidents of the other sister clubs in the Philippines and Japan.
The Rotary Club of Hong Kong North.
The Rotary Club of Kaohsiung South decided to take us here, to a nature park that is also the 2nd largest reservoir in Asia.
A statue of Guanyu, a general under the warlord Liu Bei during the late Eastern Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms era of China. In Tainan.
Downtown Tainan. An hour by train from Kaohsiung, Tainan was established as the capital of Taiwan in 1661 and remained the capital until 1887.
A temple in Tainan, one of many, many, many.
Roasted chicken.
A nice shrine to Koxinga (Zheng Zhilong) is a must see for visitors. There is a large statue of him on horseback and a modest temple. Koxinga was a Ming general who fled to Taiwan when his empire was defeated by invaders. He routed the Dutch garrison in 1662 and established a short-lived kingdom. He has been universally honored by every regime to control Taiwan since.
Koxing's Shrine became part of the ongoing modern political saga. In 1947, KMT defense minister Pai Chung-Shi was sent to Taiwan to crush the resistance of Taiwanese natives. His soldiers began firing indiscriminately on the crowds. Those who fled were ruthlessly persecuted across the island in the coming months, an era now known as the "White Terror." In a later attempt to make amends with the aggrevied southern Taiwanese, Pai passed through Tainan and made a sacrifice to Koxinga. He also installed a gateway arch featuring a large version of the 12-rayed Kuomintang star at the entrance. There has been a long movement to have the archway removed as a desecration of shrine, but the locals eventually decided it was better to keep it as a reminder of the 1947 atrocity.
The old South Gate of Tainan City.
Stores in Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong Province maintain humble red shrines outside with offerings of fruit to the Daoist Gods. In Taiwan, however, entire feasts are left out. They have 6 drinks (tea cups, coke cans or juice boxes), unless they have 7, in which case the middle one is different and grander. Piles of fruit, cookies and entire roast chickens surround.
Tainan's Uni-Lions baseball team has sent many major leaguers to the USA.
Tainan is also a heavily militarized city because it is on the famous Taiwan Strait. Military fighter jets flew overhead like clockwork, and i was passed by a train full of equipment and soldiers while at the station. I couldn't get my camera out in time to snap a pic of a low-flying F-14, but I did manage to get this cargo plane.
This humble shrine in Tainan is known as the Temple of the Five Concubines. Apparently, five lucky young ladies got to loyally follow their King, Ning-Ching, into death. A couplet on the wall reads, "Mourning your noble spirit and fidelity. The cuckoo weeped blood while the spring rain fell chilly. You were buried in the famous mountain. Your virtuous deeds will be immortal." Yup.
Chihkan Tower in Tainan, formerly Fort Provintia. It was built in 1653 by the Dutch during their occupation of Taiwan. During the era of Nationalist rule beginning in 1945, it was renamed 'Red-topped Tower.' The bulk of Dutch might was located at nearby Fort Zeelandia in Anping, where Koxinga defeated the garrison.
This monstrosity is the Taipei train station.
Go no further to buy your Kuomintang political party souvenirs. You can have President Ma and his buddies on pins, banners, or stylish vests.
The yellow taxi cabs really make Taipei look like NYC.
A historical marker at 2-28 Peace Park in Taipei. On February 28, 1947 -- the day when the aggrieved native population of Taiwan stepped up to voice their frustration over the incoming Kuomintang administrators -- the park became a scene of interest. Angry protestors took over the broadcasting station located within the park and announced their sufferings. The rest is well-suppressed history; anyone suspected of having a grievance was viciously silenced by the Kuomintang. Six decades later, the park was renamed and a 228 Monument and Memorial Museum are now located within it.
228 Peace Park monument. On February 28, 1947 -- the day when the aggrieved native population of Taiwan stepped up to voice their frustration over the incoming Kuomintang administrators -- the park became a scene of interest. Angry protestors took over the broadcasting station located within the park and announced their sufferings. The rest is well-suppressed history; anyone suspected of having a grievance was viciously silenced by the Kuomintang. Six decades later, the park was renamed and a 228 Monument and Memorial Museum are now located within it.
228 Peace Park Museum. On February 28, 1947 -- the day when the aggrieved native population of Taiwan stepped up to voice their frustration over the incoming Kuomintang administrators -- the park became a scene of interest. Angry protestors took over the broadcasting station located within the park and announced their sufferings. The rest is well-suppressed history; anyone suspected of having a grievance was viciously silenced by the Kuomintang. Six decades later, the park was renamed and a 228 Monument and Memorial Museum are now located within it.
This woodblock carving, entitled "TheTerrifying Inspection," depicts the 228 Incident. In 1947, KMT defense minister Pai Chung-Shi was sent to Taiwan to crush the resistance of Taiwanese natives. They became upset and rose up after a female cigarette vendor was shot for refusing to submit to a random search by KMT soldiers. The soldiers began firing indiscriminately on the crowds. Those who fled were ruthlessly persecuted across the island in the coming months, an era now known as the "White Terror." This depicts that initial event...note the pile of cigarette boxes in the lower left corner.
More depictions of the White Terror at 228 Peace Park Memorial Museum. Natives are rounded up by KMT soldiers. “Citizens Roar!” is the main headline, but the smaller blocks list transgressions by KMT police, including the beating to death of native citizens without charges or trial
More depictions of the White Terror at 228 Peace Park Memorial Museum. Natives are shot in cold blood by KMT soldiers.
"228 Peace Day" -- perplexing caption on this flag, as nothing was peaceful about it.
A series of comments left by visitors. The English language ones are worth a zoom-in.
The Presidential Mansion. This huge brick building is located just beyond the 228 Peace Park. If you stand at its front gate and look left you can see the Park; if you look slightly to the right you see Chiang Kai-Shek’s Memorial Hall. What a juxtaposition.
The Taiwanese Supreme Court which would, eventually, be granted the authority to end martial law in Taiwan.
Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. It is impressive. A large, bronze, seated CKS overlooks a large, rectangular courtyard with a beautiful gate at the other end, more than vaguely resembling Lincoln’s view from the Lincoln Memorial. In 2007, Chen Shui-bian, the first Taiwanese President from the opposition DPP party, removed the traditional honor guard and changed the name to “Democracy Memorial Hall.” Indeed, CKS’s likeness is offensive to the native Taiwanese who suffered for decades under the “White Terror” of his autocratic rule. Nonetheless, the KMT seems resolved to restore CKS’s Memorial with pomp and circumstance. The new Kuomintang President, Ma Ying-jeou, declared the renaming exercise “ineffective.”
Chiang sits and smiles, perched in his memorial hall. His many supporters including several older people came in and bowed before his likeness.
Chiang's view. Look familiar? All you need is a large rectangular pool.
Lingchian Street Night Market, Taipei.
A town at the southernmost tip of Taiwan, where the train turns northbound.
Rotary sighting! Taitung Train Station.
Taitung train station has a lot of interesting statues of Taiwanese aboriginies, like this one. The aborigines are notoriously violent here, and their habit of decapitating shipwrecked sailors brought reprisals upon the local government throughout history.
The wave barrier at Taitung.
Just outside sleepy Taitung, on the way to the Green Island Ferry.
Another view of the Taitung Ferry Terminal. Note the plentiful palm trees on the hill
The Green Island Ferry Terminal. It is a challenging trip. Most of the passengers got sea-sick on the extremely choppy waters. There are three ferry runs a day, morning, 1pm and 5pm.
This new store on the Green Island takes advantage of the local history. The island is used as a prison, for Taiwan's worst felons and, notoriously, for political prisoners during the administration of Chiang Kai-shek.
Mie gong fu guo (Eliminate the Communist Party and Revive the Republic of China on the Mainland), marker at the exterior of the Green Island penal colony
Luzhou Shanzhuang (The Green Oasis Lodge), marker at the exterior of the Green Island penal colony. Conditions were extremely poor.
The front door, now a small visitor center
“The Green Island Memorial Park for Human Rights” in entrance chamber
Propoganda on the walls of the Green Island Lodge. The signs say, from left to right, "Duty First, Honor First," then, "United, Strongly Supportive of Government, Independent and Work Hard for the Prosperity of the Nation."
Propoganda on the walls of the Green Island Lodge. These say, "Long Live The Three Principles of the People" (i.e., Nationalism, Democracy, and Human Rights -- the three principles of Sun-Yat Sen), and "Long Live the Republic of China."
Barbed wire and bullhorns at the Green Island Lodge.
A faded piece of Nationalist propoganda under the barbed wire of the Green Island prison. It says, "Resolutely Anti-Communism" next to an angry KMT soldier superimposed over a picture of China.
More prison propoganda. "I love my national flag, and I love my country."
A storyboard about a romance and marriage within the prison
Storyboard tells of a broken family. The mother is so ashamed her husband has been arrested that she tells her children that their father is really in the United States. They are so close geographically, yet don’t see each other for many years.
Storyboard tells of the White Terror, and how a prisoner wrote a poem from the perspective of a dead inmate’s mother, expressing grief on her behalf.
Interesting pictures, histories and artifacts in the museum's main chamber, focusing on the lives of the prisoners.
A humble museum is now being formed inside the old barracks, with pictures and stories of the imprisoned. As many were intellectuals, a great deal of artistic work was done here.
This particular panel shows torture techniques used periodically on the Green Island political prisoners. Some where held here for over 25 years.
"Long palm tree shadows, memories never to be erased, home away from home." Is this a reference to the lyrics of "The Green Island Serenade"?
The exterior wall, inscribed with Sun Yat-Sen’s slogans juxtaposed with, “Attack the Mainland!”
Speaks for itself.
"Wu wang zai ju!” The largest big character inscription, it is one of Chiang Kai-shek’s most famous inscriptions. The final character is very old/obscure/challenging, only my Chinese teacher really knew what it meant. "Ju" refers to an ancient Chinese kingdom. This inscription is on the hill facing the prison -- the only view of the outside that the prisoners had. It reads, "Don't Forget the National Humiliation During an Era of Peace and Security."
