The plan was in place, but loose. I’d ride down to Kaohsiung with my cousins, we’d spend the day there, then I’d check into a hotel and fly to Jinmen the next day, alone. But I’d told my grandmother that my cousins were going with me. Not because I thrilled in lying to her, but because she was not allowing me out of the house un-chaperoned. Yes, I am in my mid-30s, and had lived in Taiwan for 4 years, but certain reasons on her part overrode all these.
One, a prominent gangster had recently been killed in Taichung and the police were bracing for retribution.
Two, I speak Mandarin as a second language, which obviously meant I couldn’t understand a thing and needed the assistance of the 24-year-old Indonesian woman who lives with my grandparents and speaks even less Mandarin than I do.
Three, the world is dangerous place!
In any case, what she did not know would not hurt her (and what she did know would cause no small amount of stress and shouting), so I set off with the complicity of my cousins.
The adventure started before I even got to the airport. Since all of us were unfamiliar with Kaohsiung, my cousins took me to the nearest moderately-priced hotel we could find behind the airport.
For about $40 US, we found a “Motel,” which are quite unique in Taiwan. You pull in past a drive-thru check-in window, then drive to your room, which has a private garage. After parking and lowering the garage door, you enter your room via private stairs located inside the garage. The door to the room is also private, so it’s possible to enter the motel without being seen by anyone. I don’t have to be explicit about the function of such a place.
The room was outrageously ornate: pattern upon pattern: wallpaper, bedspread, moldings on the ceiling. Blackout curtains on tinted windows and soundproof walls. Plus, the clincher--a window peering into the bathroom that was etched with a wild-haired woman hugging a tiger. The whole place scared me.
I slept with the TV on.
The next day, I got on stand-by for a flight to Jinmen. We flew low, the ocean always in sight. As we approached the island, low white clouds covered it in the exact shape of its shorelines, which was quite a magical image. I tried to take a picture and was reprimanded by the flight attendant.
I arrived around 3:30 pm. I wanted to take advantage of every minute so I flagged down a taxi and asked the driver to take me to the Jiang Jing Guo Memorial before it closed at 5. The driver said she’d never had a fare who’d asked her to do that—especially directly from the airport. I suppose it’d be akin to a young Taiwanese woman landing at an airport and asking a driver to immediately take her to the Ronald Reagan Library.
Jiang Jing Guo was the son of Chiang Kai Shek by his first wife. JJG also took over the leadership of Taiwan after his father died. Most importantly, he helped move Taiwan towards democracy when he finally ended martial law in 1987.
And what fascinating artifacts are to be found at the Jiang Jing Guo Memorial? A noodle bowl he ate out of at a certain hotel on a specific date. The contents of his dopp kit: his toothbrush and cup, comb, razor, aftershave, and the aptly named hair crème called “Top Brass.” And, of course, a friendly wax figure sitting at his desk.
A particular fascination of mine has been the transformation of event into “history” and tourism.
I first began thinking about it when I began studying Taiwan’s 228 Incident. A horrible massacre was memorialized with not only a museum, but concerts, t-shirts and hats—items that seemed to neutralize the power of the event.
Then in Vietnam, where the tourist industry seems to be based primarily on the war. At the Cuchi Tunnels, not only can one squeeze her way through the tiny tunnels built and inhabited during the war, but one can also buy sandals made of tire tread that the soldiers wore, or the checkered scarf that was part of the uniform.
In Jinmen, in just the past five years, this has happened too.
Like I mentioned in my last Jinmen post, Jinmen was the front line of defense for the Chinese Nationalists (who ruled/s Taiwan) against the Chinese Communists. Everyone on the island was conscripted into the defense effort. The island was also, in a way, a military base.
Now, there is still a strong military presence, but the rest of the island are truly civilians again. “Mr. Bird” announces tourist routes that have been organized through the bus system. An $8 ticket is good for 24 hours and there are four loops—with tour guides—that hit all the battle museums and defense tunnels one can dream of.
One can also buy cookies shaped like bullets that come in little tins shaped like soldiers, or don a hard hat and walk along a civil defense tunnel. Or go into a museum room that recreates a multi-sensory bomb experience—the tour group is crowded into the middle of a moving platform that shakes as a black-and-white bomb explosion footage flashes on the wall and thunders from the speakers. Even mainland tourists take the ferry from Xiamen and come over to check things out. And perhaps they could take another ferry over to the battle museum on Little Jinmen (just a short 15 minute boat ride away!) and look back at Xiamen through the binoculars that are set up there trained on the mainland coast—where the mainland officials have helpfully erected a large red sign for the Taiwanese:
“One Country, Two Systems, One China.”
Stay tuned for Part 3: Little Jinmen
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