Contrasts

I just received some more excellent photographs from Stev Pitchford, former USTDC photographer. The photos and his comments follow:

An Air Force officer at TDC, Lt. Colonel Tinsley, pointed out an area of Taipei that I probably wouldn't have discovered on my own. He was not a photographer by job description, but he was an avid amateur and liked to get out and take pictures of life around the city. After leaving USTDC and crossing the bridge, if you wandered into the area between the road to Grass Mountain and the Keelung River, you would see scenes like these.






While both areas were quite busy, downtown Taipei was quite a contrast to that part of town.
I don't know what the chances are of Colonel Tinsley ever seeing these. But just in case: Colonel, thanks for pointing me in this direction.

Stev

More On MiGs

Les Duffin has provided several great images here, including some 1984 shots of the old Headquarters Support Activity compound, and also the diagrams of the various buildings that were in the compound.

Les recently sent a few photos of the MiG-15 aircraft that was flown from the mainland to Taiwan by a defector back in 1962. His comments follow:

I just saw your May 11th entry on the MiG-15 flown to Taiwan by PLAAF defector Liu Cheng-szu (also spelled Liu Ch'eng-ssu or Liu Chengsi, depending on which Romanization you prefer) in March 1962. Here are some photos of the same aircraft on display in front of Taipei Stadium sometime later in 1962.
I was in Taiwan for two more defections after that. The first was an IL-28 bomber flown to Taoyuan Air Base by Li Hsien-pin in November 1965, and the second was a MiG-19 flown into Tainan Air Base in July 1977 by Fan Yuan-yen.

The Fan defection resulted in some really hard feelings in TDC. There was a team of US military ready to go down to Tainan to inspect the aircraft and I think some of them had come in TDY from the States. But the night before they were to head south, the US Ambassador issued an order that no U.S. officials were to have anything to do with either Fan or his airplane. The order had actually originated from the White House; apparently the Carter administration was afraid to do anything that might offend their new-found friends in Beijing.

So the U.S. gave up an opportunity to inspect what was then the Chicoms’ front-line fighter and perhaps to debrief its pilot. I didn’t know anyone who was there at the time who didn’t consider it stupid.

American Military Housing of Yangmingshan's Shantzuhou

A few days ago, I came across a 2006 article in Taiwan Panorama, a publication of Taiwan's Government Information Office, about the old American housing area in Yangmingshan. Here are a few things that I found especially interesting:

• 217 houses were built in the early 1950s, all designed by and for Americans.
• Average floorspace was 264 square meters (about 2,800 square feet) with large lawns surrounding the homes.
  
• Each contained a (totally impractical) fireplace and chimney.
• There were no fences within the community but there were guards at the entrances to it.
• The atmosphere was almost that of a country within a country.

The article describes an incident during 1957 in which a local man was shot and killed by an American. It sparked large anti-American riots and became known as the Liu Tzu-jan Incident. When I was in Taiwan sixteen years later, I don't recall hearing about this.

The article also talks about the disposition of the old Armed Forces Network Taiwan (AFNT) radio station, which I've written about previously.

The website is sometimes slow to load, but it contains a lot of good historical information.

Formosa (Beautiful) 1

Sarj Bloom penned these verses to describe his arrival on Taiwan many years ago:

Formosa (Beautiful) 1

Arriving

Far below everything is green
Yet close like a lush blanket
Mountain and valleys never ending
Green on green a living dream.

Descending the scenery changes
Bomb craters and dirty streets
Simple buildings, strange sounds
Bicycles and pedicabs scurrying around.

Asking around I find where to stay
A long ride up a steep mountain
To an old strange looking building
Chinese men welcome me to Grass Mountain Hostel

The smell is surfer and old wood yet not offensive
It rains very hard that night and the room leaks
Servants change the sheets and clean up
In the morning a fresh, yet strange new start

First Day

The bathroom is communal with many windows
Looking out it seems like clouds or maybe mist
Strange feeling of being alone yet a peaceful newness
Down to breakfast served by Chinese gentlemen.

I feel a beauty about the surrounding quaintness
I'm no longer the same person
I am so far from home, from my culture
How will I change and what will I discover?

Down the mountain into town
We are going to drink and eat American style
Typical American dinner and beer at military club
This doesn’t make me less lonely, just confused

Back up the mountain to my hostel
Amazing how I feel at peace and secure
I’m comfortable with my new surroundings
The kind and gentle ways of the service people

Highway Improvement

These are from Stev Pitchford.





































Within a month or two of my moving into Grass Mountain Hostel #1, a highway improvement project was started to widen the road near the hostel. I had always thought it was especially nice of the authorities to do this for me.

But looking back, I'm wondering if the real reason they did it was because Chiang Kai-shek lived just up the road.

Minding Our Manners

I received a very nice email from Mr. David Yang, who has given me permission to quote part of it here. The area that he describes is near what used to be Taipei Air Station.

When I was a high school student in the early 1970s, I had to cross Roosevelt Road to get to the bus station. I had to walk slowly because I am handicapped and sometimes cars would stop to wait for me as I walked across the street. I could tell from the license plates that most of the cars that stopped were driven by US military people. I want to say thanks from my heart for their kindness.

I'm sure that all of us who had the honor of serving in Taiwan appreciate David's kind words.

English to Chinese Name Translation

This has nothing at all to do with USTDC, but it's an interesting website that I found today and I thought I'd pass it along.

During their assignments to Taiwan, many military folks had their names translated into Chinese. The characters might then be engraved or imprinted on something like a plaque or coffee mug. It was a nice souvenir of time spent in that country.

Those of us who never got around to having our names translated can now do it on-line by going to this website. There are first names for both men and women, as well as many family names. It displays gif files of the Chinese characters that you can then save to your computer. I don't have any idea how accurate these are, but I thought you might enjoy them. There are several other links at the site (tattoos, anyone?) so be sure to do some exploring.

Fishing For Photos Of Taichung

Michael Turton is an American educator working in Taiwan. He writes a blog entitled The View From Taiwan, in which he discusses everything from political issues to his numerous travels (and excellent photographs) around Taiwan, especially the Taichung area.

He was recently contacted by an American who was stationed at Ching Chuan Kang Air Base, near Taichung, around 1973. This person asked for a photograph of his old apartment building, located on Ta-peng Rd, Lane 2, Alley 52, numbers 44-50 in Taichung, near Morrison school.

Michael went to the area, but believes the buildings he saw were newer than the one requested. You can read about his adventure here.

Anyway, if anyone has any photographs of that area, especially from the early 1970s, please let me know, or you can email Michael directly through his blog.

Bringing Home The Bacon

Back in March, I posted an entry called "Still Getting Around Taipei," which contained a number of photographs from 1973-1974 that were taken by Dennis McNelis. Among the photographs, there was one of a utility tricycle with a cargo bed on the back. I mentioned at the time that I remembered seeing farmers transporting swine on those things.

Stev Pitchford just provided an excellent photo that shows what I was talking about. I think this one has just two wheels, and is being pulled instead of pedaled, but it's otherwise very similar to the vehicles I remember.

Can you imagine one of these trying to navigate the streets of Taipei today? This was taken near the entrance to the US Taiwan Defense Command, which was located very close to today's Museum of Modern Art.

Taipei Temple

Stev Pitchford provided these photographs that he took in January, 1960.

He says that he always referred to it as "The Temple of a Thousand Steps" but we're wondering if anyone knows its actual name and exactly where it is located. Stev thinks it was in the northeastern outskirts of Taipei, but isn't sure about that.

He also wondered what the little girl in the third photo is doing today. Stev, I'm guessing that she's happily bouncing her grandchildren on her knee and that she would be thrilled to see this photo!