Zhongzheng Park Audio Guide

Zhongzheng Park: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Chung Cheng Park

   Welcome to Chung Cheng Park, known in Chinese as 中正公園, a hilltop park in the port city of Keelung, in northern Taiwan. It sits across Xinyi District and Zhongzheng District. Not every corner of this park has detailed written coverage, so I will stay with the parts of its story that are well established: its beginnings in the Japanese era, its change of name, its temples and its great statue, and how to find your way to it. This is a place you climb to. The park rises above the harbor town, and the way up involves a long slope and a good many steps. Your reward is a broad, open view and a hillside thick with trees. As you go, keep an eye out for the layers. Chung Cheng Park has been shaped by more than one era and more than one culture, and you can read that history in its gates, its temples and even its name.

2. 02

   A Park Born in 1933

   The story of Chung Cheng Park goes back to 1933, during the period of Japanese rule in Taiwan. It began as a park created by the Japanese, and it was later given to the city of Keelung. That makes it a rare kind of place, one that has passed from one era's vision of a public space to the next. In those early years a Shinto shrine stood here, and the shrine and its torii gates were part of how the park looked. Together they made the hillside one of the best-known emblems of Japanese influence in Keelung, and it appeared on Japanese postcards of the time. That Japanese heritage still echoes in a quieter way. Temples in Taiwan often show the influence of Japanese architecture. In Japan, where mountains are seen as homes of the divine, shrines and temples are often built on high ground. The idea that Chung Cheng Park's hilltop temples reflect that outlook is an interpretation rather than a documented fact, but it is a lovely lens to carry with you as you climb.

3. 03

   New Gates, New Name

   After the Japanese colonial period ended, the park was rebuilt and renamed Chung Cheng Park in honor of President Chiang Kai-shek. The change went well beyond a sign on the gate. Most of the old shrine, along with its torii gates, was torn down. In its place rose buildings in a Northern Chinese palace style, resembling the Forbidden Palace in Beijing. The torii were exchanged for Chinese-style pailou gates, the ceremonial archways inscribed with the characters for the park's name. The Keelung Martyrs' Shrine followed a pattern set by the Taipei National Martyrs' Shrine, which served as a model for later reconstructions across Taiwan. So as you pass beneath an archway here, you are standing in a place where the landscape itself was reshaped to express a different idea of national identity. Few parks let you read the shift from one era to the next so clearly in their architecture.

4. 04

   Guanyin, Temples and the Long Climb

   The park's most famous resident is the great statue of Guanyin, the Buddhist goddess of compassion, standing at the top of the hill. It is 25 meters tall and is described as the largest goddess statue in Southeast Asia. It is also counted among the most scenic spots in Keelung. Getting there is part of the experience. The park lies on a hill, so you climb a long slope and many steps. When you arrive, the open view is the reward. The grounds are green, with trees growing across the whole site, and there are many temples and Buddha statues to discover as you wander. For your route, one entrance along Yi 2nd Road has a Chinese gate and a long flight of stairs. Next door is the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist monastery. A short walk south of there brings you to the Miaokou Night Market, which many local people regard as Keelung's most famous attraction.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Chung Cheng Park rewards slow looking. Each time you pass a gate, a temple roof or a flight of steps, ask yourself which era shaped it, and whether you can see traces of the Japanese period, the Chinese-style rebuilding or the Buddhist devotion that fills the hilltop today. If you are arriving from Taipei, local trains from Taipei Main Station to Keelung have run about every 30 minutes, with a journey of around 47 minutes. The Keelung Visitor Information Center, at 1 Gangxi Street right outside Keelung Station, is a handy place to start your day in town. And when you reach the top and the view opens out over the port, pause for a moment. Look at the harbor below and the green hills around you, and let that scene settle in. Then see what else this hillside has to show you.