Taipei Air Station - 1966 - - - " What you have in the end are memories"......... Photo Courtesy of Richard Reesh.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Japanese Remnants

A Torii gate sits over a main road near Hsinchu, circa 1957.

More photographs depicting the Japanese influence in Taiwan begin HERE.

3 comments:

Misty said...

More great museum quality photographs.

Do any of the Aandahl family still live in Taiwan today?

Taipei Air Station said...

Loren Aandahl replied to Misty's question in an e-mail to me...
"No members of the Aandahl family have lived in Taiwan since Rev. and Mrs. Aandahl retired in 1977. I go back to visit on a regular basis (every 2-4 years) and continue my photography collection of the Taiwan railway that dates back to the mid-1960s."

Johnny JIang said...

I remember a nationalist Chinese saying in a movie "A Brighter Summer Day" (牯嶺街少年殺人事件, a film depicting the lifestyle in Taipei in 1950s) that they've succesfully struggled to win the 8-year war with Japanese (1937-1945) only to live in a Japanese house for the rest of their life? Don't know how a US soldier would feel at the sight of so many Japanese remnants all over the island? Hatred or peace? Especially for those who suffered from the Pearl Habor attack in 1941.

Back to the issue. The Chinese nationalist government has destroyed numerous historical buildings and replaced them with concrete, ugly ones. Sarcastically the Taiwanese Governor General's Office built in Japanese colonial age that survives today has remained to be the supreme administartion building.