Log in
Join travelers community
Your Profile
Logout
1994
Taiwan South East Asia
Bec2004-09-21 11:16:35
Displayed times (last time: )
Taipei
It took me six hours to get here from Bangkok via Hong Kong. I was not impressed by Taipei which I found crowded, noisy, severely polluted and not particularly clean. This is the City Centre near the train station.
Here is the Train station. Maybe I was in a bad humour but I saw nothing in Taipei to seduce me after the charm and subtlety of life in Vietnam, Laos and northern Thailand. I found the huge Chiang Kaishek Memorial gross and in poor taste. As for the people, I found them busy, obsessed with work and insensitive when not frankly hostile to strangers.
The one redeeming factor was the National Palace Museum. It is worth putting up with the high prices and other negative aspects of Taipei to enjoy the wonders of Chinese art and culture stored in that remarkable Museum.
Retrospectively, we have to thank Chiang Kaishek for robbing China's finest jades, ceramics and other art when he fled in 1949 for he might have unwittingly saved them from destruction during the 1966 - 1970 cultural revolution.
Somehow, I have the feeling that my negative assessment is not completely fair so I'll have to go back someday to visit the rest of the island. Anyway, I did not linger more than two days in the museum and continued on to Seoul.
Copyright Bernard Cloutier
All rights reserved.
Please visit my website
See photographs from:
Taiwan Gallery
