I still remember my second day in Taiwan as one of the most exciting and incredible days of my life. Our tour started fairly early in the morning and began at the Martyr’s Shrine in Zhongshan, a monument built to honor those killed in the second Russo-Japanese war and China’s civil war between the communists and imperialists, as well as those killed in various other wars. Back in Canada I had done some reading on the rise of the communist government in China, so I was particularly interested in seeing this monument.
The Martyr’s Shrine is absolutely breathtaking. The craftsmanship of the architecture is so richly detailed and the coloring of the structures is so vibrant and dynamic that my eyes were never able to fully absorb my surroundings while I was there. The main building is enormous, constructed largely of vivid red columns and doors. All of the ceilings contain elaborately detailed ornamentation painted bright red, green, blue, white, and gold. There were several hundred people at the shrine when we went to see it despite the fact that it was raining heavily, and even with the large number of tourists it felt somehow vacant.
The shrine site also houses a large pavilion that we were able to enter and explore.
After visiting the Martyr’s Shrine we went to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, which was equally fascinating for me. Chiang Kai-Shek was the leader of the imperialist government that was overthrown by the communists in the late 1920s. After the communists won the civil war, Chiang Kai-Shek and his supporters—as well as many wealthy landowners who were brutalized by the communists—fled to Taiwan. For decades after the civil war, Chiang Kai-Shek and his supporters claimed that the communist government headed by Chairman Mao was illegitimate and that it shouldn’t be recognized globally as the Chinese government (this is still a subject of controversy today, actually). Initially America supported the imperialists, but the global situations following the Second World War, the Korean War, and the war in Vietnam necessitated an uneasy friendship between the communist Chinese government at the American government.
After having read about Chiang Kai-Shek and Chairman Mao, it was surreal to be standing in a memorial hall that commemorates the imperialist leader, and it was especially strange to see the enormous bronze statue of him.
Stranger still was the changing of the guard. The changing of the guard is a special display that honors Chiang Kai-Shek; it was performed largely by a young man in his late teens or early twenties, who had to have been younger than me. It lasted for about twenty minutes, during which he marched in front of the statue and shifted the position of his gun between his shoulder and hands. It was interesting to see, but the display took a turn for the bizarre when another man who worked at the memorial approached the kid and started straightened his uniform and correcting the position of his gun right in the middle of the display.
In any case, I felt extremely lucky to be able to personally see monuments concerning a period of history that I’m so interested in.
After the memorials our tour headed to the Dalongdon Baoan Temple, which is one of the most amazing structures I’ve ever seen. The Martyr’s shrine was richly detailed and bursting with color, but the Baoan Temple presented a whole new layer of architectural intricacy. Every corner of the temple’s roof was upturned and had elaborate carvings of dragons, water, people, and myriad other figures.
Besides the roof, there were also fascinating stone pillars carved with images of dragons, bamboo, and birds, as well as incense burners, murals, and ornate altars. We visited a few other temples in the city, but none were as impactful as the Dalongdon Baoan Temple.
We also visited an enormous museum, where we saw the famous Taipei cabbage that’s captured the hearts of the Taiwanese. As I mentioned in my first entry concerning my trip to Taiwan, pictures were prohibited in the museum. But I was clever enough to get a Taipei cabbage cell phone charm, so you can take a gander at this picture if you’re dying to know what the cabbage looks like:
By the time we left the museum it was early evening and we were all pretty tired. Fortunately, one of the stops on the tour was a foot massage parlour—well, I thought it was fortunate before the massage began, anyway. No, it wasn’t an establishment offering “dirty” massages, but it was almost as bad: as it turns out, different cultures sometimes mean different things by the word “massage”. As a Canadian, when I think of a massage I think of someone gently but firmly placing his or her fingers on your body, rubbing your tight muscles in a very relaxing way.
In Taiwan it was different. I sat reclining in a chair while my pant legs were rolled up. The woman administering the massage rubbed some lotion onto my feet. So far, so good. Then, when the flesh of my feet was nice and soft, she started ramming her thumbs and fingernails into the most sensitive areas of my feet and toes. It was a huge shock, and she just wouldn’t stop. “This is good for your knees,” she say, and knead the knuckle of her thumb into the arch of my foot. “This is good for your heart,” she’d add, digging her thumbnail into the webbing between my toes. At a couple of points I swear she was actually punching my feet. I shed no tears, but I was definitely crying out in pain during the procedure.
To be honest, I have no idea whether or not what she was saying was true. I’ve heard people talk about how different parts of your feet are connected to your entire body, but I don’t know the science behind it, if there is any. When I went to Fukuoka a while ago I had a similar experience with a back massage (you’d think I’d start wising up to these massages) and despite the pain I actually felt great once a few days had passed. My shoulders were painfully tense and sore beforehand, and they relaxed a lot after the massage. I don’t remember any such results, but my feet and legs were in pretty good condition to begin with, so maybe that’s why I didn’t really notice anything. In any case, I’ll never forget the torturous Taiwanese massage.
After some shopping the tour was over and my friends and I decided to grab dinner in the heart of Taipei. It was pretty exciting; I live in Japan, which people tend to associate with big cities, but my area is definitely out in the countryside. I don’t get many chances to see thriving metropolises such as Taipei often. It was exciting being out in the heartbeat of the city, especially after spending so much time the quieter temples and memorials. Strangely, Taipei was a lot more like the Tokyo I imagined back in Canada than Tokyo actually is.
After dinner we went to another night market where we bought some souvenirs, and then it was back to the Pretty Hotel, which more or less marked the end of our Taiwan adventure. We were up bright and early the next morning for our flight back to Japan.
As I mentioned in my first post, my trip to Taiwan was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life, and it took me a while to realize why that was. I think what it comes down to is the fact that it was my first time really being a tourist in another country and travelling just for the fun of it. I love Japan and I’m happy and grateful to be here, but living in a country exposes a person to the stress of the work environment there, as well as the social problems (which every country has) and the many mundane moments that exist in the course of ordinary life. Traveling for pleasure, on the other hand, provides a quick, clean snapshot of a country, one that is often polished and pre-packaged. Nevertheless, I still love Taiwan and I’d be thrilled to have the opportunity to visit it again.
Nihonglish 