Chiang Kai-shek statue park
- UPDATE: I've recently visited this extraordinary site and will replace this stub with a proper chapter with an elaborate photo gallery, once I've finished processing all my material. Please bear with me.
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This is the place, in Cihu, where Taiwan’s dictator from 1949 to 1975 had his favourite residence and where he still resides, so to speak, namely in the mausoleum where he is lying in state, on his orders, until such a time that he can be repatriated to his home province in mainland China, once the Kuomintang have liberated the PRC from communism and reunified it with Taiwan (on Taiwan’s/Chiang’s terms, that is) … in other words he will probably never be buried and will stay in his black marble coffin for perpetuity (unless the PRC invades Taiwan and takes him away).
The mausoleum was vandalized on 28 February 2018 (see 2-28 Museum) with red paint, and ever since then the room with the sarcophagus has been closed to the public – though allegedly you can still peek in through a glass panel.
The main, rather weirder attraction here, however, is something else now. In the park next to the mausoleum about 200 statues of Chiang Kai-shek have been assembled, allegedly “donated” by the places where they used to stand all over the country (in other words they got rid of them and dumped them here). It’s a very weird sight! Hundreds of Chiangs giving you that frozen pseudo-benign gaze. Bizarre.
The statue park is open from 9 a.m. to 4.45 p.m. and admission is free.
To get there you either need a car or get a bus (line 7 or 116) from Taoyuan.
Location: in the Daxi district on the southern outskirts of Taoyuan City, northern Taiwan, ca. 25 miles (40 km) south-west of Taipei.
Google Maps locator: [24.8415, 121.2943]