Taipei: Memory and Mountains

Martial-law memorials, palace collections, old ports, and misty gold hills

Six places where Taiwan argues with its own past: the marble hall of 89 steps built for Chiang Kai-shek that became the cradle of the democracy that questioned him, the park whose 228 massacre memorial was designed by a former political prisoner, the museum of 700,000 imperial treasures smuggled from Beijing in 13,000 crates, the lantern-lit gold town of Jiufen, the Tamsui fort claimed by more nations than almost any building in Asia, and the steaming volcano Chiang renamed for his favorite philosopher.

Itinerary

1. Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall — Count the steps. Two white staircases of 89 steps each -- one for every year of Chiang Kai-shek's life -- climb to a hall beneath an octagonal roof designed to venerate a single man. What the designers never anticipated was that the vast plaza below would become the birthplace of the movement that questioned everything he stood for, and Taiwan is still arguing about what the monument means.
2. 228 Peace Memorial Park — The architect of the monument at this park's center submitted his design from a prison cell. Cheng Tzu-tsai, jailed after a failed assassination attempt on Chiang Kai-shek's son, designed the memorial to the February 28 Incident of 1947 -- a massacre the government suppressed for nearly half a century. A former political prisoner made the official monument to victims of state violence.
3. National Palace Museum — A cabbage carved from jadeite, barely 19 centimeters tall, with two insects perched on its leaves -- once the Forbidden City's, now one of the most famous artworks in Asia. It is one of nearly 700,000 imperial pieces that reached this hillside in Shilin only through revolution, civil war, and an evacuation of 13,000 crates that reads more like a heist thriller than a museum acquisition.
4. Jiufen — The rumor will not die: visitors arrive convinced Jiufen's stepped alleys and swaying red lanterns inspired Spirited Away, no matter how often Miyazaki denies it. A former gold-mining town clinging to the hills of Ruifang, its name means nine portions -- for nine original households -- and its tea houses look out over the Pacific from an elevation where the clouds become neighbors.
5. Fort Santo Domingo — Built by the Spanish in 1628, dismantled on a furious governor's order, taken by the Dutch, repaired by the Qing, leased to the British, and briefly managed by Australia and America -- the Tamsui fort has been claimed by more nations than almost any building in Asia. Four centuries of construction, destruction, and reoccupation written into a single hilltop above the river mouth.
6. Yangmingshan National Park — The smell reaches you before the view does. At Xiaoyukeng, sulfur hisses from cracks in the earth, hot springs boil, and yellow crystals catch the light across the volcanic peaks northeast of the capital. Chiang Kai-shek renamed this range -- once Grass Mountain -- for the philosopher Wang Yangming, turning Taipei's geological violence into a monument of its own.