Taipei
- UPDATE: I've just returned from a trip to Taiwan, during which I also spent several days in Taipei. Based on all the material I gathered, and the countless photos I took, this chapter will soon see an update and expansion and get a proper photo gallery. Please bear with me.
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Taiwan’s glitzy and bustling capital city is the usual entry point for most travellers to this country, and it’s a worthwhile place to spend some time in and take in the sights, such as the most prominent one of the all – the impossible-looking skyscraper “Taipei 101” (at over 500m once the tallest in the world). The city is also a good base for excursions to the north of Taiwan.
For the dark tourist there are also a couple of sites worth visiting within the city, in particular these two main ones:
In addition, there’s the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in the north of Taipei, the holy of holies for died-in-wool Nationalists which mainly honours military personnel who died fighting the Japanese before and during WWII. It’s a bizarre sight, especially the changing of the guard ceremony in slow-motion goose-stepping.
The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, opened in 1980 bang in the centre of the city on the fifth anniversary of the dictator’s death, is another weird place featuring a large bronze Chiang sculpture and at least until 2020 housed an exhibition about the big man, including his office and a couple of his limos. What the fate of the site may be is hard to ascertain. It could well be that is has meanwhile undergone changes – or that it will in the future – given that the unabashed cult-of-personality and Chiang-worship no longer wash with modern Taiwan’s democratic leaders and more enlightened liberal population.
A relatively new addition to Taipei’s tourism/dark-tourism portfolio is the Ama Museum, which deals with the topic of the “comfort women”, who were forced to serve as sex slaves during the Japanese rule over Taiwan. Founded in 2016 and originally located at Dihua Street in the Datong District it recently moved to a new site further east in the same district at Chengde Street. [UPDATE: unfortunately this place has meanwhile closed down!]
Taipei is a modern metropolis with plenty of choices for accommodation in all price categories, and similarly a wide range of eateries. Public transport is fastest by metro, called MRT here (standing for ‘mass rapid transit’; cf. Singapore), but there are also buses, which are said to be quite user friendly too even for foreigners as stops are announced in English as well as Mandarin.
Locations:
National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine: [25.0799, 121.5329]
Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall: [25.0347, 121.5219]
Ama Museum: [25.0645, 121.5181]
Main train station: [25.0479, 121.5172]