Two China?

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Time flies when you have fun and that's why I haven't written in a while.

My first full day in Taipei...after some nice Thai breakfast...me, Mavis and Jessi (our hostess) went to the National Palace Museum. It hosts the worlds biggest collection of Chinese art and historicial pieces...strange it might seem, but I'll try to explain why:

After the second world war, China was a scattered country. The power was first given to the nationalists led by Chiang Kai-Shek but soon a civil war broke out between the nationalists backed by the US and the Mao Zedong led communists backed by the Soviet Union. The nationalists lost and Chiang Kai-Shek had to flee to Taiwan which, after Mao created the People's Rebuplic of China on the Chinese mainland, became the last remaining piece of the old Republic of China. When Chiang Kai-Shek fled to Taiwan, he brought with him most of the Chinese national treasures from Beijing. The finest part of this collection is on display at the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

This also explains why the relations between China (People's Republic of China) and Taiwan (Republic of China) isn't the best. They both simply consider themselves to be the real China.

Back to the summary of my first day...

After the museum we went to Danshui, an old part of Taipei close to where the Danshui river meets the sea. There we walked along the water front, played games and had delicious local food as well as the famous tall soft ice cream! In the evening we went shopping at the night market where I made some real nice buys at great prices! Clothing is real cheap here.

Yesterday we went to the Longshan temple and talked to the gods, and then went around the city before we met up with Jessi to have dinner followed by Karaoke. Of course we got one of those private Karaoke rooms! Three hours and as many Bon Jovi songs later (I blame the bad selection of songs in English, ok!), it was time to take a taxi home and let my sore throat rest.

Today's been slow, which was nice. We watched a Taiwanese movie about a religious drag queen dealing with the loss of his late boy friend, and then I did some more shopping. The day has continued in a nice and slow way and it won't be late tonight. I might watch a movie, but that's all.

Not many days left now. I will miss this.

/M

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Comments

[erika]

hej! verkar som du har det fortsatt gott, kul att hora! njut sista dagarna ocksa, och med tanke pa att fotbollsvm snart drar igang sa kommer det nog att vara ok att komma "hem" igen. har hort att ze germans are getting ready... ;-) kram!