Last Day in Taipei

What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do - especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road. -William Least Heat Moon

July Fourth in Taiwan meant little and I really should have thought about going to the American Institute in Taiwan for part of the day to see what they did. Maybe if I find my way in Taipei again I can go visit, but instead I wanted very much to go out and explore and take pictures. Not pictures for the sake of proof, but pictures for the sake of good, maybe even artistic, shots. I had gotten pretty good at getting around the city on my own. I could take the subway anywhere, I was good at wandering, meeting people, and when necessary, asking for direction. There is a lot of freedom in being able to go around a foreign city alone. It was fairly lonely at first, especially when everything was intimidating and difficult. But as I got used to the city and my terrible, terrible Chinese, it became more enjoyable and I came to cherish my time alone, traveling through the city. I don’t doubt that I would have had an incredibly fun time if I traveled with a friend or two; so if anybody wants to travel, or needs a travel buddy, let me know. I think traveling is a great way to really understand someone.

Anyway, so on July 4th I first went to Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. It wasn’t too far from my hostel and I had studied Sun Yat-sen in my Modern Chinese History class so I thought it would be really interesting. It was, and it was also a beautiful place. There were gardens and trees surrounding the building where old men were doing Tai chi. My favorite sight from the whole place though was an older man standing in front of the memorial hall flying a kite hundreds and hundreds of feet up in the air. It was amazing; I’ve never seen anything like that before. Then again, there a lot of things that have been new to me, but that one particularly stood out for some reason. Far more unusual than that though were the teenagers gathered along the walkway outside the entrances of the memorial hall. They all had boom boxes and were practicing dance routines. I couldn’t figure out why they gathered where they did, but it was fun to watch. I filmed some of it if anybody wants to see.

The memorial hall itself is pretty much a giant museum. As I walked in a young woman approached me and asked if I wanted an English tour, so I figured it would be better than just exploring on my own. She showed me all of the exhibits on the main floor and explained some of the history of Dr, Sun Yat-sen. She was really surprised that I spoke Chinese (I thought rather poorly, but she was very nice) and thought that I was an American who lived in Taiwan. One of the coolest things that I saw in the place though was the changing of the guard ceremony. In the middle of the memorial hall is a giant bronze statue of a seated Sun Yat-sen and in front of it are two guards facing each other, perfectly still. It is very similar to the British guards I guess, and they only move once an hour when they change places. There was a rather elaborate ceremony that went with it and I was glad that I got a video of some of it. There was a lot of twirling rifles and marching in place and slowly moving to the pedestals where the new guards stood, equally still, for the next hour. It was pretty cool. My tour guide was surprised to hear that guards in the United States are allowed to move.

We parted ways after that and I explored the rest of the museum carrying the touristy souvenirs that she had given me. I say museum now because there were art exhibits covering that top two floors that had nothing to do with Sun Yat-sen. But they were really cool.

I had a little time before I was meeting with Professor Shih and his students, so I went to the Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall. If I thought Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall was large, it was nothing compared to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. It was massive, absolutely massive. It housed several parks, the large memorial hall, the national concert hall and the national theatre and large open squares. They must have been setting up for some festival or event since there were tents and inflatable everywhere. The memorial hall was the most interesting place by far. Underneath there was a large museum that had a lot of Chiang Kai-shek’s possessions as well as decorative war medals from a lot of countries. I don’t know if they were his or not, but it was really cool to see all of the different styles of medals of honor and such. Afterwards, I climbed up the steps to the memorial hall and saw a massive statue (it put Sun Yat-sen’s statue to shame) looking out over Taipei, also guarded by two men. The lack of subtlety was pretty amusing. I mean having a massive statue high above everyone else looking down upon all of the people is perhaps a little haughty. But he didn’t build it so I shouldn’t blame him. Anyway, the view from the top was spectacular, but I was running a little late so I had to rush home to find my way to Professor Shih

It was a little complicated finding his apartment. I took a train and a taxi to a local hospital that was supposedly nearby and waited for one of his students to find me, and it eventually worked. I went up to the apartment and met Professor Shih, who was an incredibly interesting person and very nice. He is one of the most connected Professors in the country and is the Chair of Taiwan’s Political Science Foundation. There were four other students there including the one who picked me up, all older than me. The one just one year older than me and I got along really well. He is working for a newspaper in Beijing this coming year so we had a good talk. One of the other students had just returned from Wales (where he got his PhD) and it was fun to ask him to try and pronounce Welsh words with a Chinese accent. He said it was incredibly difficult. The last student was the most interesting to me though and proved that no matter where I go, it is a small world. He had just returned from Cornell where he was pursuing his PhD and had just TA’d and shared an office with Danielle. I mean come on. I go to Taipei, meet a professor whom I have never had contact with before this summer, go to dinner with him thousands of miles away from home, and in attendance is one of my sister’s colleagues. I couldn’t believe it, but anyway, we obviously had a lot to talk about so we sat across from each other at dinner at talked about political science, all of us did in fact, Professor Shih as well, and it was a lot of fun. Sitting in a Japanese restaurant in Taipei talking about soft power with a professor and four other students is a memory that I will not forget easily.

(I hate doing laundry in a foreign country, with no dryer, and no clue how to read the washing machines…my clothes are going to be destroyed.)

Oh yeah, one of the topics of conversation at the dinner was the 1992 consensus in which the then Kuomintang government signed an agreement agreeing to the existence of “One China” though with little specific definition. Apparently the man sitting next to us at dinner was one of the men responsible for that agreement. He was a very high-ranking secretary who personally made about 10 secret trips to Hong Kong between 1991 and 1992 and negotiated the agreement. After the Kuomintang lost to the DPP (the Kuomintang is now once again the governing party) he slipped out of the limelight and quietly bought a company so as to avoid any attention whatsoever. So that was a really cool chance encounter.

I was really excited that night preparing for my next day of photo adventuring. However what I hadn’t remembered, since I hadn’t spoken to Mrs. Kao and Celeste for a couple of days, was that we were leaving for Taitung the next morning at 6:30. So I hastily packed and set a couple of alarms and trudged my way to the train station the next morning with my luggage. And thus ended my adventures in Taipei, very abruptly, but on a good final note with a good dinner, good conversation, and a few new contacts.