First, we went to Taipei 101, the former financial center of Taiwan. I was excited to see it in person, and it was an incredible sight, especially from a distance. During our visit, we learned about the architecture of Taipei 101. It looks like a bamboo stick and is divided into eight sections, as 8 in Chinese sounds like wealth and is also a lucky number. This makes sense considering the importance of 8 in Chinese & Taiwanese culture, representing the growth and prosperity of the nation. It is interesting that the architectural choices were built to have meaning to them. Just like the Empire State Building in New York, Taipei 101 is the catalyst for Taipei’s economic rise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWe also visited the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. Here, we saw the importance of Chiang Kai-Shek to Taiwan, the former president of Taiwan. The memorial hall is beautiful, from the architecture to the changing of guards and the large statue of Chiang Kai-Shek inside. Although his legacy is quite dark, which includes his brutal dictatorship from when Taiwan underwent a period of authoritarianism under martial law, the memorial hall honors his legacy as the president of the country, being a reminder of the nation’s political history after World War II. I think it also reflects the democratization of the country, where freedom of speech is allowed, and this memorial can stand. Here, we experienced the changing of guards, which represents the military legacy of Taiwan, and this was a cool experience. Besides, within the same complex were the National Theater and Concert Hall, two beautiful, large, intricate structures in Chinese architectural style, as with the memorial hall. A lot of architectural designs are taken from China. Considering the KMT\u2019s once dream of reclaiming mainland China, they preserved Chinese culture. Lastly, we visited Shilin Night Market. I\u2019ve never experienced something like this before, so it was an interesting experience. What surprised me was how busy it was. During the daytime, it was quiet, but at night, the streets were packed and full of people strolling through the streets, and cars passing by. While it\u2019s very busy, and more than I\u2019m used to, which was new, it\u2019s worth seeing. I’ve never really been somewhere like this (a night market), so it was nice to experience one for the first time. It\u2019s nice to see the vendors, try some of the food, and just experience this part of Taiwanese culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 4th, 2025 First, we went to Taipei 101, the former financial center of Taiwan. I was excited to see it in person, and it was an incredible sight, especially from a distance. During our visit, we learned about the architecture of Taipei 101. It looks like a bamboo stick and is divided into eight…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":931,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[421],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-taiwan-field-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/931"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23384"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23490,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23384\/revisions\/23490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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