Taiwan: A Gift for Friends at Little Island

 

I walk through a large opening between two cliff walls. Covered by a reddish color of long time untouched soil and the green color of various plants that penetrate and grow through cracks, the walls undoubtedly look majestic. However, the Leshan Giant Buddha in front of me is the one that attracts my full attention. I can almost hear the sound of swords clashing behind me before I realize that it’s just happening inside my head. I just close my eyes and recall a memory of a kungfu movie scene which takes place here in Sichuan, China. When I open my eyes, the view around me has changed. There is only an ordinary wall surrounding me, it is luxurious indeed, but ordinarily modern compared to the beauty of those disappeared cliff walls. There is still one Giant Buddha in front of me, the same majestic yet very clean and well maintained, placed inside a giant glass box.

In the urge of continuing my journey, I leave the Giant Buddha behind and arrive at a beautiful imperial palace. I never knew that the distance between Sichuan and Beijing’s Forbidden City could be traveled in such a short time. I enter a living room and saw them in front of my eyes. The emperor and empress of the Qing dynasty are discussing their princess’ marriage plan while elegantly sat at a classic wooden chair. It’s a dark brown long chair with a small tea table placed on right in the middle, separating the emperor and his empress. The whole living room is decorated in a perfect symmetry and harmony with a set of splendid Qing style’s furniture.

Since I’m afraid to disturb their discussion, I walk to another room next door which turns out to be an emperor’s study room. Its furniture similar with the furniture at the living room, but it has more study material in it. Plenty of beautiful Chinese painting and classic Chinese calligraphy are hanging on the wall. A bookshelf with a rich collection of books and documents from the palace archives attracts my attention. I take a closer look and immediately feel amazed with how beautiful those lines of Chinese characters looks like. It written perfectly neat in a vertical direction so that I almost think that it’s typewritten instead of handwritten. I definitely can’t think of a way to produce such a beautiful character by using only brush and ink.

I can no longer count how many books and documents I’ve read, but those lines of beautiful characters start to make my head dizzy. This place starts to looks like a maze and I’m not really sure where I am now. The next room I enter seems to be the palace’s treasure room though I don’t know for sure. I just know that it is full of splendid valuables. While admiring the beauty of ivory carvings, I catch a glimpse of a eunuch carefully cleaned up a collection of various elegant ceramics. From a corner behind my back, I could hear soft voices of a princess and her maid discussing which jade hairpin will looks the most graceful on her wedding day. A moment later, the further I walk through many rooms inside the palace, once more I feel a change not only at the view around me, but also at the atmosphere inside the room.

Once more, I look at the same ordinarily modern wall that suddenly appears at Sichuan before. A noise from a group of people talking to their tour guide starts to annoy me. I nervously try to find out where the emperor, empress, and princess are, but all I can see is a line of display window with various palace treasures inside. I look at the information paper that is attached in front of each display window and found this place’s name written on it. I slowly regain my consciousness and realize that I’m in Taiwan’s National Palace Museum now, not China’s Leshan Giant Buddha or Forbidden City Palace. It seems that the beauty of various historical heritages inside the museum drives my imagination to a faraway place through a time tunnel to the past. It allows my mind to be completely free, to escape from place and time limitation.

I see a glimpse of China in the past from Taiwan today. After all, historical heritages in this museum and their fellow friends at China share a same long history in the past, just like Taiwanese share a same long history in the past with their Chinese friends. Until today, there are a lot of China’s tourist visit this museum everyday, maybe because they curious to know whether their gift for friends at this little island still carefully kept or not.

About the Author: I was a professional banker for five years before finally encourage myself to follow my passion to write. Leaving my job to become a beginner writer was a perfect decision since it allows me to have more time to get involved in my passion.

Independence

We hope you enjoyed this entry in the We Said Go Travel Independence Writing Contest. Please visit this page to learn more and participate. Thank you for reading the article and please leave a comment below.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

We Said Go Travel