台灣最丟臉的觀光景點

《富比士》雜誌撰文   台灣最丟臉的觀光景點

http://www.3kirikou.org/article_detail.php?SerialNo=3550

台灣最丟臉的觀光景點                    / 一賢  2017-02-13

專欄作家詹寧斯(Ralph Jennings) 在《富比士》雜誌撰文《看看台灣最可笑的觀光景點Meet the funniest tourist attraction in Taiwan》，訕笑桃園縣政府維護的所謂「慈湖紀念雕塑公園」，在這裡，兩百多個蔣介石的光頭銅像，或站立或半身，放置在道路兩旁和草地上，讓蔣光頭面對自己的兩百多個分身喃喃自語，或看他對自己招手微笑，這樣的觀光有什麼價值？只有北韓式的獨裁國家才會出現這般景象，如今竟然變成台灣知名的觀光景點，豈不讓人覺得丟臉丟到國外了！   

台灣號稱已經轉型為民主國家，但是像中正紀念堂和慈湖這樣的地方，還保存著過去威權時代獨裁者的銅像、遺體、文物等，讓人紀念景仰，就知道轉型正義還沒有真正啟動，威權的影響力還深植人心，而且過去威權時期的舊公務系統和行政官僚還在藉口「信賴保護原則」鋪天蓋地掌控著行政事務。民進黨號稱全面執政，實際上仍是財金幫、司法幫、黃復興幫、教育幫、交通幫的影武者充斥，面對這樣的情境，不會覺得難過不堪嗎？ 

把蔣光頭的「偉人」銅像群聚在慈湖，是想要讓對獨裁者還有迷思的人來這裡景仰，但這樣的點子其實再蠢不過了。這樣做不但沒有一點點的美感，而且適得其反。因為任誰都看得出來，這反而襯托出從1980年代台灣走向民主後，蔣光頭的尊榮不再，也由於他在白色恐怖和戒嚴時期的重大惡行，各地校園都有反對聲浪，因此這些雕像就陸續從各地校園被清理出來，丟到這個號稱與南京中山陵媲美的「龍穴」，這還不足夠引人發噱嗎？ 

在慈湖這個偏僻的山區，以前是老蔣休閒和準備中共打過來避難躲藏的地方，說好聽是1961年蔣中正秘密計畫反攻中國大陸的戰時指揮部，據說有一條長達20公尺用鋼板混凝土製成的防空洞，足以承受原子彈的轟炸。現在是他的墓地，蝙蝠也住其間。 

觀光客除了這些沒有價值的雕像之外，也只能觀賞憲兵交接的儀式，這樣的旅遊有什麼意思。 

根據桃園觀光局的統計，參觀人數從2011年的372萬人次減少到2016年的228萬人次。以前中國遊客因為好奇，成團到慈湖觀賞，但這樣的好奇心也隨日漸消逝。現在根據學者如淡江大學教授黃介正的說法，這裡已經不是正式的景點，反而是大多數旅遊都把它結合其他景點來吸引遊客。 

至於除了中國人以外的外國人，看到這樣的觀光旅遊景點，除了會在內心訕笑之外，大概也會對台灣的民主形象産生一種負面的感受吧！ 

原文：

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2017/02/09/he-imprisoned-thousands-now-hes-the-funniest-tourist-attraction-in-taiwan/#4bb72cf5f40f

Meet The Funniest Tourist Attraction In Taiwan

Ralph Jennings ,   CONTRIBUTOR

Travelers in Taiwan who are keen on history often visit the central Taipei memorial to former Nationalist Party strongman Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang ruled all of China from 1928 and then Taiwan alone from the late 1940s through his death in 1975. The Nationalists had fled to Taiwan after theCommunists beat them in the Chinese civil war.

But the modern story of Chiang is told better through a seldom visited landmark in the forested hills of Taiwan’s fifth largest city Taoyuan. This site inadvertently tells the story of Chiang’s plunge from grace after Taiwan democratized in the 1980s.

If it makes you laugh, it should.

A bust of Chiang Kai-shek smiles from its perch at Cihu, a hilly Taiwan park packed with unwanted effigies of the former strongman. (Photo by Si-ting Sui Jennings)

Visitors to the area called Cihu, a pair of forest-ringed lakes, will find more than 200 statues of Chiang perched along a path or standing on an expansive lawn behind a roadside parking lot and a column food stalls. Schools and government organizations donated those effigies of the balding, grinning man to the government-run Cihu Memorial Sculpture Park. Once upon a time public agencies had to display them.

The lakes, one more secluded than the other, and secluded low-rises in the surrounding forests made up Chiang’s former resort and hideaway in case he needed protection from a Communist Chinese invasion (never happened). His tomb is there now and visitors can watch a change of the armed guards.

The visit is a hoot because so many statues and head-shoulder busts of the same guy occupy the property that it often appears Chiang is talking to his double, his triple and more. In some cases, the mustached man is raising a hand as if to greet someone, perhaps another likeness of himself.

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You might laugh darkly knowing why so many statues are there. You see signs on a lot of the blue, bronze, grey and white busts saying which school or other institution gave the statue away. Yet they don’t usually explain that the donor organizations didn’t like Chiang. They don’t want to see his image on their own premises anymore. Distaste for Chiang stems from his “white terror” and martial law reign over Taiwan before the island democratized in the 1980s. Those measures allowed Chiang to imprison about 140,000 people for suspected opposition to his party.

Under ex-president Chen Shui-bian, modern Taiwan’s first non-Nationalist leader, the government encouraged local institutions to dump their Chiang effigies. Chen ruled from 2000 to 2008 but the donations keep coming. Now the park has only 31 statue spaces left. “Because of the policy under Chen, a lot of places said they didn’t want their statues,” says Hsu Chia-ling, a section chief with Taoyuan’s tourism agency.

And as the effigies pile up, headcounts have fallen. The Taoyuan tourism agency that oversees Cihu says visitors have declined from 3.72 million in 2011 to 2.28 million last year, with a fifth of the 2016 total from outside Taiwan. Visitors tend to be pass-through people with other final destinations.

“My hunch is that most of the people visiting there just see it as a point of attraction and combine their visit there with other places to go,” says Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan. “It’s more of a tourist attraction thing than a formal one.”