Day Trip - Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall

The main gate after dusk. 

The CKS Memorial Hall is monumental. I would guess, area-wise, it is about half the size of the federal mall in Washington, DC. For a long time, it was visited as a site of pilgrimage for many Taiwanese. Today, it's mostly an arts and culture and tourist attraction.

A little history:

Chiang Kai Shek is considered the political founder of Taiwan, officially known as The Republic of China (China is officially The People's Republic of China). He was originally a military and political leader of China and brought unity in the early part of the 20th century.

However, he and his nationalist forces engaged in a civil war with the Chinese communists. After World War II, with support of the USSR, of course, the communists won and Chiang and his forces were expelled from China and were forced to take refuge on the island of Formosa ('beautiful' in Portugese, as these were the sailors whose name for the island stuck). After this, China was officially known as the PRC and Formosa was internationally recognized as Taiwan and officially the RoC (it even represented the mainland in the United Nations). By that point, Taiwan already had a large Chinese population who had gone to live there just by regular immigration.

Chiang is revered by many as a founding father, but understood by others to have been an iron-fisted dictator. As is the case with most national emergency situations, this can be understood. He ruled Taiwan under martial law while he schemed how he would re-invade the main land. A lot of people were jailed and executed. Eventually, Chiang aged and I think he must have softened because his ambition turned from taking back China toward liberalizing the Taiwanese economy and political structure (mostly accomplished by his son). This liberalization is the reason why Taiwan has such a vibrant society today. It's also the reason why we came here, so I guess we should thank him.

See Chiang's Wiki article.

The memorial is composed of four main buildings: the two national arts halls (one theatre and one symphony), the impressive gate, and the memorial hall itself.  There also gardens around the hall which are pretty nice to walk around in. Much bigger than the American memorials I remember, save for, perhaps, the Washington Monument, one gets a general impression of grandeur.

You can get to the Memorial from the MRT Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall Station on the red line. It has its very own MRT stop! Get off the MRT at exit 5, as you can see below.

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The Memorial Hall itself as viewed from the national theater. 

The national symphony hall. There are two buildings that look just like this one. The one I'm standing at to take this shot is the theater. Those little white dots you see are people. There were a whole bunch of vendors that day. I don't know how often they are there (this was a weekend), but it was pretty cool. 

The main entrance gate. The gate is pretty awesome when seen up close and it is absolutely massive. 

Me standing on the steps of the national theater. I'm less than half way up the steps. 

You can find these treats all over Taipei, and I'm assuming all over Taiwan. The one of the left is a squid ball. Usually they come lightly seasoned in salt and pepper; not too overpoweringly fishy. The one of the right is a Taiwanese sausage; slightly sweet and delicious. Obviously we couldn't wait to get a picture before we bit into these! We haven't really met a Taiwanese snack that we didn't like!   

These are both some sort of game that the vendors had set up. You fish up some turtles and some... baby lobsters? Shrimp? Crawdads? I don't know if these are to be eaten later, caught-and-released, or just kept as pets.

The vendor stalls.

Chiang himself. Kind of like our own Old Abe. Chinese people (I mean China Chinese) really love to come take pictures of him. I'm not sure why, considering he was an enemy of the state. He faces west toward China. This symbolizes his ultimately unattainable dream of one day retaking the home land. 

Underneath the hall there is the museum and shops and stuff. This is one of the entrances.  Please don't wear your hotpants in here, as Megan showed in another post. 

  

These are all pieces of art that are for sale in the museum shop. I don't know if they are ancient or anything. They are carved from jade.

There are some cool gardens around the hall. Old people and moms come here to walk around and exercise. 

There are some cool things to see underneath the hall in the museums and such, but we were a little lost as we couldn't find any English directories or maps, so I think there was a lot we didn't see.

The memorial and museum are free, so check it out if you have a chance!