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Feature: Chinese tourists flock to CKS Hall

Tourists, including some from China, watch the honor guard perform at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on July 23. PHOTO: AFP

Taipei 101, the world's tallest skyscraper, stands as the pride of the Taiwanese capital, but it is around the more lowly blue-roofed Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall that hundreds of Chinese tourists buzz daily.

The tourists, who come under the guise of various exchange programs as direct links between China and Taiwan remain limited, are all eager to get a glimpse of an island about which they could only read in censored textbooks during the Cold War period.

The former dictator is the top drawcard.

Once the arch enemy of China's ruling communists, dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) fled to Tai-wan in 1949 after his Nationalist Army was driven from China by Mao Zedong's (毛澤東) forces. His Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) ruled here for decades amid a tense military standoff with his foes across the Taiwan Strait.

Though his death in 1975 altered little, cross-strait tensions have stutteringly eased in recent years, and the tens of thousands of curious Chinese tourists who now visit make a beeline for historical sites in his honor.

The memorial hall in downtown Taipei, with its blue Chinese-style roof and white walls, is a must-see, according to tour guides.

Clutching cameras and moving in large groups, the tourists shoot the mammoth bronze statue of Chiang inside the hall, an image unlikely to be seen anywhere back in their homeland.

Another stop popular with Chinese tourists is Chiang's mausoleum, some 40km away from Taipei, and the Martyrs' Shrine where 390,000 killed in battle with the communists more than half a century ago are honored.

"Chinese tourists are particularly interested in everything relating to Chiang, his wife Soong Mei-ling (宋美齡), and son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國)," tour guide Edven Lin told reporters.

"Souvenirs bearing the Chiang family's images or symbols, like watches, key rings and postage stamps, are snapped up. They hope to take something back to the mainland so they may show off to their friends they are the first ones to have visited the island after a half-century ban," he said.

Chinese tourists try hard to slip into the crack of limited civil exchanges. Government figures show some 118,900 Chinese tourists have visited Taiwan since a total ban was lifted in 2002.

Most of them travel here in the name of business groups or attending academic seminars, some of the reasons permitted by Beijing, and pay as much as 20,000 yuan (US$2,508) for a tour of the island via a third place, mostly through Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Outside the memorial hall, 47-year-old Zhang Zhi, general manager of Chongqing Lingda Automotive Textile Co recalls in China, clearly recalls the memory of bitter hostility between the communists and the KMT.

"It is part of my vivid memory," says Zhang from Sichuan Province. "I remember when Chiang Kai-shek died in 1975, a mainland newspaper carried a one-line story. It simply said: `The people's public enemy Chiang Kai-shek died in Taiwan.'"

The tensions only began to ease after Mao's death in 1976, which was followed by China's economic reform program launched by paramount leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in 1977, Zhang says.

"From that time on, the government has gradually shifted its focus from ideology to economic development," Zhang says.

It was also at that time that Taiwan's dynamic economic development, which enabled Taiwan to become one of the "Four Little Dragons" in Asia, started to catch Zhang's attention.

On his maiden trip, Zhang has found that things and the people here are not as he was long told.

"People here are very nice," Zhang says before concluding his seven-day trip.

Zhang's 13-member business group also travelled to Alishan (阿里山) and Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) -- the two scenic spots also on the must-see list of Chinese tourists in central Taiwan.

The group also paid homage to Teresa Teng (鄧麗君), a popular singer in the 1980s-1990s.

"As her songs were banned in the mainland, I used to keep myself in the bedroom secretly listening to her songs," chuckled Wu Kuntong, another member of Zhang's group.

The 45-year-old Wu, who lives with his parents in Guangzhou, says Teng was so popular in Chinese karaoke bars that there was a saying: "By day, Deng Xiaoping rules China, but by night, Teng Li-chun rules."
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