fathomTAIWAN

When walking between Taipei city center and Ximen MRT  you might meet this small park with men placing chess under shady tree’s.  The original statue featured a noted Japanese guy but later Dr Sun Yat Sen founder of the KMT or Chinese Nationalists.

The story of the three well-educated (in USA) Soong sisters is better than “Gone With the Wind”. The youngest lived to 108 years, in New York City. They all married powerful men. Mao of China, Chiang Kai-Shek of Taiwan and Sun Yat-Sen, (shown in the memorial in Taipei, founder of the Nationalists or KMT party). Three women who helped change the direction of world politics. Best remembered in Taiwan is Mei-ling Soong who spoke perfect English and during World War 2 addressed Congress on behalf of her husband for help in fighting the ‘dreaded’ Chinese communists. There was also at the same time the Japanese army in China who are not remembered too kindly today. Time changes everything. Communist China and Japan are the leading trading partners of Australia. “Never say never”.

VIDEO – Memorial Hall <CLICK

1. Rainbow marble vases or jars are not cheap.  I priced one in a shop near Hyatt Fortune Hotel recently at NT$100 thousand.

2. It took me a couple of years to figure out the poster message.  A phone within a camera.  Unknown back in Australia in 2003.

3. The nicest view at Green Island, offshore from Taitung.

4. Ink impression of a large fish caught at Green Island, displayed in restaurant.

5. Night market in Kaohsiung is now very popular with tourists from the mainland.  Prices have fallen, value is good.  Chinese pay in yuan currency using 100 notes – a clever way to get a 10% discount for themselves.  This picture was in 2003.

6. I arrived in Taipei at the tail-end of SARS problem in 2002.  My first view of the city from front and rear windows (which in fact are digital shots taken the following year replicating the original view caught on film).

THE VIDEO (above) is a tribute to an Australian journalist William H. Donald who would have promoted Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang to the USA media.  William H. Donald also played a part in Chinese history (so says his website) with an important negotiation in Xian plus he saved the life of Madame Chiang.  Today he’s almost forgotten.  Unknown in CKS Memorial Hall apart from his picture with Chiang and a group of reporters in 1937 yet at the time of death he was given a state funeral in Beijing – memory of that erased by the later cultural revolution.

The international awards shown in the video are no longer all on display at CKS Memorial Hall.

In April 2002 which was about when the SARS problem was conquered I made my first visit to Taipei.  It seemed that 20% of the people in the street (or maybe 25%) were still wearing face masks as a preventive measure.

In Australia ignorant people still cough and sneeze in public with no regard for others.  (Stupid and dumb).  Australia is still a frontier country with rattle-trap slow public transport trains, no high-speed rail system and huge distances between towns.

Some politicians pretend to believe Australia does not need a super fast broadband for the near future to connect our people competitively  with Asia and the rest of the world.