Day 11: Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek Memorial

Both of these memorials are very similar, so I have blurred them in my mind and cannot differentiate between the two anymore। Unfortunately, I don't have pictures to clear up the matter because my battery ran out once we arrived at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial! Boo.

Sun Yat-sen is the founder of the country, and Chiang Kai-shek is the general who helped unify the country by defeating local warlords around mainland China. He's also the one who ended up in Taiwan after being defeated by the Communists. Both of the memorials have huge statues of the leaders sitting in chairs, basically Lincoln-Memorial-style. There are guards standing on duty who cannot move and have to stare into space like statues. The guards have a special helper who fans out their clothes and adjusts their posture for them because they cannot move! I had to giggle a lot when I saw the helper fanning one of the guard's jackets for him while he stood there solemnly। We also saw the changing of the guards at each of the memorials. The one at the Chiang Kai-shek memorial was highly entertaining because they march into an elevator and take it down. The elevator doors close with their backs toward the crowd, I can only imagine them shaking themselves out when the doors close. They must shake themselves out after standing at attention for so long!

One thing that is funny about the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial is that they have changed the name. Chiang Kai-shek was part of the KMT and the KMT wants to unify Taiwan while the DDP wants to be independent. The KMT also killed a lot of innocent people in a rebellion against them right after WWII. So while the DDP was in power for the last eight years, they changed the name of the memorial to Taiwan Freedom and Democratic Memorial. However, the inside of the memorial hasn't changed, so there is still an exhibit on Chiang Kai-shek including his personal affects and the tiles on the ceiling all say Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. Actually, they say Zhong-Chung Memorial। Zhong-Chung is the name Chiang Kai-shek gave himself. Zhong means 'middle' and is used to the name for China, while Chung means 'straight.' I just thought it was funny that they tried to change the name but the change was so superficial.

Between the two memorials, my aunt bought my mom and I pearls that were about US$6 or so. They are super cheap because they are from China. Woohoo! :)