Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

On Sunday we went to see the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, which is one of Taiwan's major landmarks. Mr. Chiang is one of those love-him-or-hate-him characters in history- he was the guy who brought the Chinese government to Taiwan after the Japanese were voted off the island in 1945. The grounds of the Memorial Hall are really impressive. In the above photo you can see the west gate in the center, the National Theater on the left and the National Concert Hall on the right. Can you imagine going to see an AC/DC concert in that building? New Brunswick needs to re-evaluate what they consider a "concert venue".


Here's Mel and I striking a touristy pose in front of the Memorial Hall. See those stairs? There's one step for each year of Chiang's life: 89, Well, there's a changing of the guard ceremony every hour at the top of those steps, and we could hear them starting as we approached the building. As it was over 40 degrees and we were running up all those steps to see the ceremony, sweating to bits, you couldn't help but wonder why he couldn't have just lived to the ripe old age of 3 or 4 instead. Kidding! I kid!

You should have seen how sweaty the soldiers' suit jackets were! They must have been so hot wearing all those clothes and performing what I'm assuming was their interpretation of Beyonce's "Single Ladies" dance. Look at those moves. If you liked it then you should've put a ring on it, boys.


Inside the Memorial Hall is a Lincoln Memorial-type bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek. When you see statues, paintings or photographs of leaders from his era they usually have very serious, noble faces but look at the big grin on his face! I like this fellow.


We thought the soldiers had finished their ceremony since they'd left the Hall, so we went down to the basement where there's a good-sized free museum. As we entered the museum we saw the soldiers again, still working their Sasha Fierce-ness all the way into their office where I hope there was a tall glass of ice water waiting for them (though there probably wasn't)!


The museum was pretty nice, and full of even more grinning images or Mr. Chiang. His wife, Madame Chiang, was an artist and we enjoyed some of her fine paintings but mostly just enjoyed repeating the name "Madame Chiang" over and over in a breathy voice. Since we didn't know a thing about Chiang Kai-shek, the museum was very informative as we tried to piece together the bits of history (wikipedia later that night helped as well). Among the many treasures inside the museum were Chiang's two awesome Cadillacs, as seen above.


So, we had a pleasant day at the Memorial Hall. If you're thinking about paying a visit, you'll be glad you read this blog first because as you can see in the above photo you'll want to choose your dress very carefully on the day you visit. NO hot pants!! And no exposed thongs either. I'm looking at you, Jason Keddy....