David on Formosa

After visiting the exhibition of Tasmanian art at the National Museum of History I wandered along Nanhai Road and discovered another 228 Museum. Curious I went inside to have a look. 

I asked a man in the museum what the relationship between this museum and the 228 Museum in 228 Park was. It turned out the man I asked was the museum's English tour guide and he answered my question and we had an interesting discussion.  

The 228 National Memorial Museum (二二八國家紀念館) at 54 Nanhai Road (台北市南海路54號) currently has a temporary exhibition entitled "Division and Rebirth" that runs until 1 April. After that the museum will close for renovations for two years. During this time however, the current exhibition will travel to Central and Southern Taiwan. This museum is run by the National Museum of History. The Taipei 228 Memorial Museum (台北二二八紀念館) is under the auspices of the Cultural Affairs Department of the Taipei City Government.  

The tour guide told me that many young people in Taiwan are unaware of the history of the 228 incident and subsequent events. I also remarked that in Siam (Thailand) many young people are also unaware of the events of 14 October 1973 even though this occurred much more recently in the country's history. It was only in 2002 that the government there created an official memorial for the victims of that event.

The tour guide then went on to talk about how major events in South Korea post WWII have often occurred at similar times to those in Taiwan. For example the Gwangju massacre took place in May 1980 while the Kaohsiung Incident was in December 1979.

He also said that George Kerr's book Formosa Betrayed is a very important record of the events surrounding the 228 incident. Although he did say the book was an American point of view. The contents of this book can be downloaded as a pdf file here.