the quiet eye: Checking on Chiang Kai-shek

Historical Sites & Street Life

[ subway art exhibit from a local school ]

Today we explored art antiquities in the massive National Palace Museum of Taipei. We had to take a subway, bus, and a walk to get there.

[ the navigator determining exactly which bus ]

Chiang Kai-shek brought all of the art in the museum in crates from China and hid it until he built the museum near his Shilin residence in 1965.

[ the entrance to the museum ]

We got to the museum relatively early and started on the top floor, working our way through jade sculptures to bronze antiquities and ceramic objects to cloisonné jewelry. The Chinese artworks included objects from before the common era through the 19th century end of the Qing dynasty. There was no way to look at everything so we followed a roadmap of 16 pieces suggested by the museum as the Classics tour. We were most excited about seeing a carved jade bok choy from the 1600s and we went straight to the gallery where it was housed. Much to our chagrin, it was traveling to another museum and missing from its case. We cried. Here is a picture of it. There is a locust and katydid alighting on the top leaves, a sign of prospering with many children.

We continued on and by the time we reached the first floor of the museum we were in an art delirium. It really was a spectacular walk through Chinese art history. I saw many things that I loved but for some reason I just took one photo of this beautiful ceramic horse.

[ ceramic horse, Tang dynasty, 900 CE ]

Norah took a photo of a bronze wine vessel in the shape of a very cute, dog?

[ wine vessel, 1000 BCE ]

We left the museum and wondered the streets of the Shilin neighborhood, ventured down an alley and found a wonderful local cafe, the Happiness Cafe, nestled between people’s apartments.

[ approaching the Happiness Cafe ]

[ are you following?? There’s air-conditioning!! ]

[ I was busy taking photos

of the neighbor’s doorway across the street ]

We were quite hot and sweaty when we arrived and I ordered my daily dose of iced espresso and it was served in a fancy parfait glass!!

[ an antidote to hot weather! ]

After a lunch respite we set off to find the Chiang Kai-shek memorial. I know there is much to discuss regarding his place in history but he does have a place and I needed to see the memorial.