Thousands of paper lily flowers, yellow ribbons and wish cards were hung up around the 228 Memorial Museum yesterday in remembrance of the tragic events that occurred 53 years ago leaving as many as 30,000 Taiwanese dead.
Hundreds of Taipei residents, many of them with small children, spent a day of their three-day weekend remembering an event that up until recently was not allowed to be mentioned in public.
"This is a very good opportunity to educate children about our history," said Mrs Lin, a visitor to the park yesterday, as she made paper lillies with her fifth-grade daughter.
The 228 Incident refers to a brutal military crackdown on civilians protesting the corrupt administration of Chen Yi, a Chiang Kai-shek appointed governor sent to assist in the rebuilding of Taiwan after World War II.
Taiwanese frustrations with the administration reached boiling point on the night of February 27, 1947, when a woman selling cigarettes in Taipei had her cigarettes and a small amount of money taken from her by corrupt officials who claimed the cigarettes were contraband. The woman, Lin Chiang-mai (
In the following year, tens of thousands of Taiwanese were killed by KMT-led troops from China, including a generation of local intellectuals and the cultural elite.
Up until three years ago, to talk about the incident in Taiwan was taboo. Successive KMT presidents painted the incident as a communist rebellion, rather than a protest against the government, and branded anyone who mentioned it a communist.
The breakthrough arrived when President Lee Teng-hui made a public apology to victims' families at the unveiling ceremony of the 228 monument in 1997.
According to Lap Phok-bun (
"The Taiwan lily is of a special kind that grows from flat lands to mountains. It stands for purity and life-force, just like the Taiwanese who survived the old authoritarian regime and also disasters like the 921 earthquake," he said.
Lap said Taiwanese were only just beginning to learn the truth about past tragedies, and these incidents have quickly become a rallying call for Taiwan's opposition and independence movements.
The theme for the 53rd anniversary is "seeking the truth and rebuilding historical memory." This theme was taken up in the opening ceremony yesterday by speaker Chen Yi-shen (
A highlight of the three-day ceremony is the screening of the newly released Taiwanese Film "March of Happiness" (天馬茶房). Directed by Lin Cheng-sheng (林正盛), it depicts people's lives inside the Tien-ma Tea House, outside of which street vendor Lin Chiang-mai sold her cigarettes 53 years ago.
Yesterday's screening of the film in the 228 Memorial Museum proved popular with the crowds.
The film accurately reflected the melancholic atmosphere among Taiwanese at that time, said one viewer. "Taiwanese thought the retreat of the Japanese would reduce the suffering as a colony. We never imagined that the coming of the KMT would bring us more pain. They extorted Taiwan's grain stock to the mainland. Corruption prevailed and social order was broken down," he said.
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