You can accuse Taipei of being a boring modern city. You can go numb to the towering grey buildings, the narrow, suspicious-smelling alleys and the boisterously arrogant traffic. But just as you get used to all that, you'll turn the corner and Taipei will suckerpunch you with some beautifully ornate Asian architecture that will remind you of where you live.
Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall is such an interesting space. First, there's the whole political side of it. It's actually called Democracy Hall, a new name that hasn't really taken. As one of of their last orders as the governing party, the DPP yanked Chiang's name off the front gates and changed it to something more DPPish, causing major disgruntlement amongst KMT old-schoolers. A month after this, the Taiwanese legislature had an election, and the DPP went from 87 seats in the house to an abysmal 26. Two months later, they lost presidential elections to the KMT in an overwhelming defeat. Now rumour has it that as soon as they swear the new guy in, the KMT's first order of business will be to nail Chiang's name right back up on the door.
Second, the specs.
It is massive. And beautiful. Crowned with a blue-shingled roof, the hall sits atop three tiers of Ming style staircases, and towers above the masses the way only a stern, dead dictator can. It's a long 89 steps up to the pagoda-shaped hall, a step for each year of Chiang's life. At the top, an intimidating set of bronze double doors, 16 metres high, gains you entrance into the stiflingly somber hall. Everything about the building is supposed to invoke awe, reverence and somber reflection.
Inside, the hall is a political battleground of contradictions. Below the giant bronze statue of the immortalized KMT leader (who himself, hovers above on a god-like pedestal, 10 metres high), is an art exhibit condemning Chiang's dictatorial rule, and narrating all the atrocities of oppression under his party. In his
own memorial hall. Old photos and poetry celebrate the pro-independence movement of Taiwan, which, though not mentioned in the exhibit, was founded and fought for by many members of the DPP party, including the outgoing President, Chen Shui-bien.
Politics aside, CKS Memorial Hall is effectively one of the biggest and most diverse public spaces I have ever seen. From the front gate to the Hall is about 2 football fields of tiled... space. On either side, there is a theatre, identical and facing each other. Each theatre has a long set of stairs leading up to a wide set of mirrored doors and panels. Each theatre also hosts a set of teenage boys- pop n lockers watching themselves in the mirrors on the left, down rockers practising their power moves on the right. Put them together and you might actually get a decent group of breakers, but neither group seems remotely interested in this. From theatre to theatre is a massive expanse of about 300 metres. When sitting on one set of stairs, the dancers on the other side look like NSync backup dancers swishing around in a miniature diarrama.
In the middle of the vying halls of break, there is a group of 30 teenage boys and girls all dressed in identical maroon and white tracksuits. Some of the girls toy with pink and white pom poms. Suddenly, they all get into formation, and count off their routine (
yi, er, san, shi) as they shuffle into different clusters, alternately raising right arms, then lefts, facing East, then West, more shuffling, an occasional lifting of a small asian girl, a few hand claps, and then, for the grand finale, in the dying notes of the anonymous late-90s dance hit, everyone assumes the Judd Nelson pose in the last scene of The Breakfast Club- fist raised victorious, freeze-frame, fade out.
On any given night at CKS, there are different school groups using the theatre hall's mirrored doors to spot their routine. Some of them spill into the tiled square, clusters of kids, gathering for practice. The same square was the site of countless political protests and demonstrations throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
On weekends, the entire square, all 2 football fields of it, is bespekled with kids on trikes or chasing blown bubbles, parents running after said kids, old men playing chinese chess, couples having a pseudo-picnic, and hi-ho-hoo-ha-ha teens practicing their dance routines. The aural experience of walking through the square, amidst 20 amateur dance crews, is absolutely awesome- C&C Music Factory bleeds into James Brown, with background chants of Chinglish cheers like "Will you ready to rock?"
Chortle.
I don't care who wins the ideological rights to 'ol Chiang, so long as the groove is in his house.
