Nestled at the point where urban Taoyuan City, Taiwan, transforms into mountain forest, the Garden of the Generalissimos forms a bizarre wonderland where the image of the island’s former dictator is replicated more than a hundred times over.
After losing China to the communist forces in 1949, Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang retreated to the island of Taiwan, where he would enforce a brutal dictatorship until his death in 1975. Martial law, already in place since 1947, would continue until Chiang’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo, lifted it in 1987. During this period, thousands of suspected communists, Taiwanese nationalists, and democracy advocates would be killed or imprisoned for political crimes, many of them at the notorious prison on Green Island.
Since 2000, the now-democratic Taiwan has engaged in a tentative policy of monument removal, and approximately 150 Chiang Kai-shek statues have been relocated to this garden, placed haphazardly amidst picturesque foliage, rolling hills, and a winding river. Chiang rides on horseback, waving at imaginary crowds. Or else, he stands with a cane and hat in hand. Or perhaps he sits with a book on his knee. No matter his pose, he smiles gently, like a benevolent uncle, belying the brutality of his dictatorship.
The statues repeat the same poses and expressions again and again, giving visitors a sense of unreality, as if in a hall of mirrors. Amongst the multitude of Chiang statues, one can also glimpse the occasional statue of Sun Yat-sen, father of modern China and founder of the Kuomintang, and one statue of Chiang Ching-Kuo.
