Camera in hand I’m trying to portray this bizarre place but I keep failing. I either stand too far away which makes the statues look small and insignificant, or get too close so you cannot see the big picture. Then it strikes me, I have an excellent way of portraying something that can’t be captured on camera: these very words. So what is it that I find so hard to take a good photo of? The memorial sculpture park in Cihu is a rather stretched out park in a remote township in northern Taiwan. The green lawns are criss crossed with stone walkways and littered with statues in different sizes, materials and colours, and they all depict Taiwans former president Chiang Kai Shek. When Taiwan was freed from the KMT dictatorship in the 80’s, statues of the leader were thrown out from the public places all over the country, and ended up here. What makes it even more bizarre is that all the statues, though different in minor ways, are very much alike on another. Most of them show a bald, smiling man standing straight in some sort of formal attire. The sculptures have been arranged in small circles facing inwards towards a statue of the same man sitting in a chair. It is as if Mr Chiang is having a lively discussion with himself. Taking a picture of one of these circles is easy but the weirdness comes from the fact that, not only is the smiling mustached man having a conversation with himself, he is having several at the same time. And when you walk from one circle to another, the walkways are lined with busts of the same man. The only thing stopping me from walking around longer is the heavy drizzle.
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