Have you always wanted to tour the Presidential Office, but simply couldn't muster the patience to wait in lines?
Now you need wait no longer, after the Presidential Office launched its online virtual tour last week. All one now needs to visit the nation's locus of executive power is a Java-equipped computer.
With just a few clicks of the mouse, visitors are free to explore Taiwan's most important administrative compound, in a virtual tour offering 360-degree panoramic views.
"The availability of the virtual tour is significant, in that it allows visitors to view places that otherwise are not open to the public during normal touring hours, due to security concerns," said Presidential Office spokesman Chen Wen-tsung (陳文宗).
For instance, President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) office is not normally open to visitors. But on "walking" into the office in the virtual tour, one sees the room -- about 79m2 -- furnished in soft colors.
"This is where A-bian works everyday," Chen says in a voice-over in the tour, referring to himself in the third person, as usual, with his nickname.
"Since taking office on May 20, 2000, A-bian has been working, pondering, making decisions, mapping out strategies, even having meals here ... working over 10 hours almost every day. The office has therefore becomes A-bian's second home," he says.
The president's office is situated on the third floor of the building. If one maneuvers the cursor to view parts of the room, one sees that behind the president's desk on the wall hangs a giant world map.
Pictures of Chen's inauguration and family photos are posted on the walls as well, in addition to a painting which portrays his residence in Tainan County.
Also on the wall hangs Chen's favorite motto, which reads "A merciful man has no enemy; a wise man has no worry." The couplet was written and given to Chen as a present by Master Sheng Yen (聖嚴法師).
The president's office is one of the 10 sections featured in the newly launched virtual reality tour on the Presidential Office's Web site at www.president.gov.tw.
Placed under the Web site's "Tour and Art Gallery" category, other sections of the virtual tour include the main entrance, the entrance hall, the auditorium, the president's reception room, the southern and northern courtyards as well as the Taiwan Green Hall and Taiwan Rainbow Hall (used to receive visitors), the exhibition of presidential documents and memorabilia, and the exhibition of the archives of the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period.
The online tour also enables those who live afar, and can't make the pilgrimage in person, to take a glimpse into the real Presidential Office, the spokesman added.
Simply by guiding the cursor on the computer screen, cyber-surfers can explore the building, which also features tall cylinders, long corridors and exquisite arches.
Accessible in both Chinese and English, the presentation of this online tour was the Presidential Office's latest effort in shortening the distance between the government and its people, and is in line with Chen's call to "liberate the space" so as to implement what would truly be a "people's administration" in his first term in the presidency in 2000.
Completed in 1919, during the Japanese occupation (1895 to 1945), the Presidential Office has often been associated with authoritarianism, and for much of its history the surrounding areas were off-limits to the public.
During the Japanese colonial period the building was called the Governor-General's Office, and housed the Japanese governor-general. Taiwanese were generally not allowed to come close to the building.
The five-floored building continued to retain its authoritarian image after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) retreated from China in 1949. The KMT declared Taipei its wartime capital and proclaimed martial law, and ever since the building has since been used as the office of the president.
It wasn't until 1995, several years after martial law was lifted in 1987, during former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) term that the Presidential Office was opened to visitors.
In 1998, the building was declared a "national historical site" and, in line with the Cultural Heritage Preservation Law (文化資產保護法), which stipulates that historic sites should be opened to the public, the building was opened for public tours four times a year.
Dance parties were subsequently allowed to be held in front of the building during Chen's tenure as Taipei mayor, and the road in front was at that time also opened to motorcycle traffic.
However, it wasn't until September 2001 that this epicenter of political power was opened to the public for sightseeing every weekday morning. More than 940,000 visitors have visited it in the past four years.
Various cultural exhibition or entertainment events have also been periodically staged either inside the Presidential Office or in the square in front of the structure to provide an opportunity for the public to tour the vicinity.
Given the colonial background of the building, the two-dimensional layout as well as aerial view of this architecture are in the form of the first written character for Japan (
The building's main entrance, designed to face eastward (toward the rising sun) where Japan geographically situated and suggested a strong sense of Japanese imperialism at the time when the building was constructed.
"These designs reflect the philosophy of the Japanese colonialists," said Su Tser-cheng (蘇哲震), one of the volunteers giving tours of the building to the public.
Designed by Nagano Uheiji and Moriyama Matsunosuke, the red bricked-towered building was severely damaged during the final days of World War II, when it received direct hit by a US bomber in 1945.
The bombardment destroyed the building's left front main porch, part of its northern wing and caused a fire that lasted for three days. Reconstruction was completed in the following year.
Since the completion of the building, the seat of the nation's power has housed 19 Japanese governor-generals and five presidents, including Chiang Kai-shek (
With the introduction of the online tour, the curious may now get a unique peek into a corner of Taiwan's history.
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