Less Traveled Path

Taipei, a big city with bright lights as my good friend describes it, reminded me of Hong Kong, but not as busy. Her parents learned that we were going to be in Taipei and offered to show us around. Her father used to be a department chair at a state university in the United States, but now serves as the president of university in Taiwan (with an enrollment of about 16,000). As it turns out, we discovered that his family and my mom’s family are from the same village. (Family origin generally comes up within the first few Chinese conversations.)

They live about an hour away and drove in to Taipei and greeted us with various tropical fruits for our journey: bellfruit (crunchy, juicy, without a strong flavor), guava (lots of seeds and doesn’t taste as sweet as the boxed juice version), and Chinese oranges were among the welcome gifts. We were also treated to various dusk and night views of Taipei including the Presidential Office Building, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Taipei 101 and its shopping complex, and The Grand Hotel.

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park consists of the CKS Memorial Gate, the CKS Memorial Hall, and two performance halls (Taiwan National Theater and Taiwan National Concert Hall), all of which follow traditional Chinese architecture. We were told by both my friend’s father and later, our Taipei City tour guide, that there are current political struggles with the name of the area involving potential plans to rename the area with references to freedom and democracy instead of CKS.

Our night tour ended with The Grand Hotel which is a monstrosity situated on YuanShan Mountain. From the freeway, judging by its ancient Chinese architecture with bright red columns, curved roofs, and its sheer size, I initially thought it was yet another temple in Taiwan, but it’s a famous hotel operated by a non-profit organization (which might explain the roughly $100 USD/night rate). The hotel’s rumored secret passages for Chiang Kai-shek’s benefit were proved to be true in the last decade.

My friend’s parents took us to Yuan Yuan restaurant on the second floor of The Grand Hotel which serves cuisine from Northern China including Shanghai dumplings (xiao long bao) and Thousand Layer Cake. Even the decor including the bamboo colored stools and tables made me feel like I was sitting in the streets in Northern China having a meal, only nicer. It was the perfect setting for some guy out of an old Chinese martial art movie to cause a ruckus and break some tables.

The Photos.