Taipei 101 台北101 – Taiwan, China

        Can you guess what is the tallest building in the world now? You will find out the answer if you go to Dubai. However, before the construction of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, from 2004 to 2010 Taipei 101 in Taiwan had fetched the crown as the highest skyscraper in the world. Formerly known as the Taipei World Financial Center, the building is located in Xinyi District, Taipei. It was awarded LEED Platinum Certification and became the largest green building in the world. Designed by C.Y. Lee and partners and established mainly by KTRT Joint Venture, the building was finished in 2004 and cost approximately 1.7 billion dollars. It was officially opened for public on December 31, 2004 on the New Year’s eve. Ever since, it has become the icon of the modern Taiwan.

Read More

National Palace Museum 国立故宫博物院 – Taiwan, China

        The next day our friends took us to the National Palace Museum. Just like its name, the museum is a national museum of the Republic of China that exhibits almost 700,000 pieces of Chinese antiques and artifacts dating back from the Neolithic age to the Qing Dynasty including ancient bronze castings, calligraphy, scroll paintings, porcelain, jade, and rare books. Due to its huge number of collections, the museum becomes the largest museum that exhibits Chinese ancient antiques in the world. The displays are among China’s best quality pieces collected by ancient Chinese emperors.

        The Palace Museum in the Forbidden City in Beijing, Mainland China shares the same origin with the National Palace Museum in Taipei. The National Palace Museum was originally founded in the Forbidden City in Beijing that explains why the word "Palace" is used in its name.The division of the two was caused by the Chinese civil war. The Chinese call the one in Mainland China, Beijing Gugong (北京故宮), while the one in Taipei is called Taipei Gugong (台北故宫). In 1931, when Chiang Kai Shek was the President of the Republic of China in Mainland China, he commanded the museum in Beijing to prepare the most valuable pieces of its collections ready to be evacuated out of the city to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Japanese Army during the Sino-Japanese war. Following that, the Chinese civil war in 1949 imposed Chiang Kai Shek to evacuate about 600,000 of the most prized items to Taiwan. However, before all the pieces could be transported to Taiwan, the communists had conquered the museum so not all collections could be evacuated to Taiwan. Since then, the collections have been a matter of dispute between the government of the People’s Republic of China and the government of Taiwan. The Mainland China accused that the collections were stolen and they actually belonged to the People’s Republic of China. Countering the accusation, Taiwan argued that they were just trying to save the collections from destruction during the Cultural Revolution. However, nowadays the tensions between the two governments have warmed and the Mainland China has agreed to “lend” the collections to the Taipei museum considering that the relics in both the Mainland China and Taiwan are China’s cultural heritage.

 

Read More

The National Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall 国立国父纪念馆 – Taiwan, China

        Our next trip after the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall was the National Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. The Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall was constructed to commemorate the wisdom, benevolence, courage and spirit of the legendary revolutionary founding Father of Republic of China, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, who are revered by both the PRC and ROC. Dr. Sun Yat Sen was regarded as the pioneer of the establishment of the Republic of China after he led a revolutionary movement to overthrow the dictator leadership of the Qing dynasty. Until the present time, even the communist government in Mainland China hangs Dr. Sun’s portrait at Tian An Men on National Days. Most tourists tend to skip this site but if you are interested in the history of China and Taiwan, a visit to the memorial hall is worth it.

       

 

Read More

The National Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall 国立中正纪念堂 – Taiwan, China

        Of all the rainy days we had in Taipei, finally there was a good enough day for us to explore the city. Although it was not raining, the sky still looked a bit gloomy so it affected the result of the pictures. We grabbed our chance to visit the famous landmark in Taipei city called The National Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. I did not remember how to get there from our lodging because my friends guided us and we just followed them. When we arrived there, I was amazed at the imposing structure of the building.

        Chiang Kai Shek was the former president of Republic of China (ROC) who escaped to Taiwan and established his own government in the island after his defeat at the hand of his communist rival, Mao Tze Dong in 1949. After his death on 5 April 1975, the government decided to build a memorial hall in memory to this legendary leader. A design competition was then held to select the best architecture design. Of all the models, the design of Yang Cho Cheng, who was also the architect of the Grand Hotel, won the committee’s heart. On October 31, 1976, the 90th birthday of Chiang Kai Shek, a groundbreaking ceremony was held and the construction began. The memorial hall was officially opened on April 5, 1980, exactly five years after the leader’s death. In 2000, Chiang's party, KMT, lost its presidency. Due to the political conflict between two major parties, the name of the memorial hall was at one point (between 2007 and 2009) changed to National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. The reason behind the renaming of the hall is to suit the present ruling party who worked for the Taiwanese independence. Chiang’s figure is either seen as a brutal and dictator leader who applied martial law in Taiwan for over than 38 years or a brave leader who defended Taiwan against the Chinese communist invasion. Because of this controversy, a new name for the hall, the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall was unilaterally announced by President Chen Shui-bian on 19 May 2007.

        Located at the heart of Taipei in Zhongzheng district near the East Gate and occupying an area of 62 acres, the memorial park is the major attraction in Taipei. Besides the main hall, there are also nicely landscaped gardens, walkways and exercise areas. The park is open daily from 9 am to 6.30 pm but the plaza is open 24 hours for evening jaunts or jogs. The admission to the park is free.

 

Read More