Big and Tall

I went to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial today. Blimey, they must have liked him. He was the General who with Dr Sun Yat Sen, founded the Republic, unified China and got rid of the last Emperor (thereby allowing an extravagant Hollywood movie). Now he was the president of ROC until the seventies and after he died Taiwan put up his memorial.

Now it's a cross between a temple and the sort of thing a megalomaniac would build for themselves ( think Mussolini if he'd not been found hanging around that lampost). It's a massive traditional chinese structure in the middle of a massive parade ground with a massive statue of the man himself smiling beatifically down on his flock. I think they were going for the Lincoln Memorial kind of thing but overshot somewhat. It's full of his old belongings and all his honours, mostly from South American dictators and the odd Order of the Bath from Blighty. There are also his bullet proof cadillacs (gifts from the grateful people of Taiwan. Although how grateful if they need to be bullet proof?) and some pictures and old artifacts. What is amusing to me is the vast amount of stuff about his great leadership up to about 1945, then a bit of a gap until about 1950. Can you guess what happened during that time? Something to do with a balding bloke called Mao I believe. All a bit hillarious really. It's as though the KuoMingtan always planned to decamp to Formosa in 1949. Which for all I know they might have.

There is also a permanent honour guard at the Memorial too and they have the most complicated changing of the guard I have ever seen. It's so amazingly well choreographed with goose stepping, step ball changes, gun twirling and box steps. I'll say this, if ever the PRC invades the ROC and asks for a dance off then the Taiwanese Army is in with a chance.

I also went to Taipei 101 today. This is/was the tallest building in the world, depending on when you read this. That's the trouble with the TBITW race, someone is always going to beat you and make your building merely very tall. At least this one still has the fastest lifts in the world: 60 kph, 90 floors in 26 seconds. I should mention this makes your ears pop like a champagne opening contest. The view from the top was spectacular but really I don't know why I get sucked into the tall building tourist thing. I've done it in Seattle, Vancouver, Paris, London and New York and really you just go up to see where you've been. This might be cool in Paris and NYC but in Taipei you just get to see the top of semiconductor plants.

There's also a shopping mall funnily enough. And another on across the road. And another next to that. All full of very high end shops. Really how many Chanels does one city need. Suffice to say all the shops were completely empty. You have to go to the electronics malls to see people buying stuff. Me included (8GB CF card for $28 Australian!).

Now for some more observations. There seems to be an inordinate amount of lesbians here. Unless, at the risk of perpetuating a stereotype, I can't tell pretty asian boys from pretty asian girls. I can bust one stereotype though. The Taiwanese are tall. Nearly everyone is as tall as me. People must still be evolving or they are eating a lot more Maccas and Starbucks.

That's enough as I'm in the lobby and trying to type this on a mac, running windoze, with some sort of prophylactic covering the keyboard.

It's a weird sensation on so many levels.