In some of the most moving scenes of Cape No.7, the domestically made movie that dominated local box offices in 2008, a Japanese man departs aboard an ocean liner, never to see his Taiwanese girlfriend again. Set at the end of World War II, the scenes offer a reminder of an era when ships provided Taiwan's main connection to the rest of the world. The lyrics of many of the popular songs of the time also reflect the emotion of this scene from the movie, expressing the sentiments of women lingering at piers, longing to see husbands or boyfriends who have yet to return from a voyage at sea.
Visitors to the Evergreen Maritime Museum (EMM) in Taipei are able to recapture some of this rich nautical history as they learn about Taiwan's--and the world's--long, intimate connection with the sea. Through its displays and exhibitions, the museum illustrates how Taiwan's history is intertwined with the ocean and educates visitors about the important role that today's shipping industry plays in Taiwan's export-oriented economy.
Located in downtown Taipei, the museum is housed in the building that served as the former headquarters of the Kuomintang--the present ruling party. The building was purchased by the Evergreen Maritime Museum Cultural and Educational Foundation in 2006. Surrounded as it is by important offices of the central government and located in Taiwan's administrative center, the museum offers visitors a respite from the area's prevailing ambience of political solemnity.
The exterior of the museum is unremarkable and as there is no clear sign indicating its presence, some visitors are even forced to ask traffic police for directions. However, once they venture inside, visitors are enveloped in an atmosphere more of the sea than of the land, as the museum's interior is decorated with many of the features found on ships. There are round portholes for windows, three levels of white painted "decks," buoys and masts festooned with the flags of seafaring nations from around the world.
With a floor area of 9,000 square meters, the EMM is the largest maritime museum in Taiwan. Its primary holdings consist of marine artifacts, models and maps, most of which were collected by Chang Yung-fa, the chairman and founder of the Evergreen Group, Taiwan's largest transportation conglomerate. Chang worked his way up through the ranks of local shipping companies to become a captain before going on to found Evergreen in 1968. In order to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Evergreen Group, the museum opened its doors in 2008, with Chang donating more than 4,000 items to its collections.
Hundreds of Gifts
"Since 1968, when the Evergreen Group began operations, Dr. Chang has been given literally hundreds of gifts by well-wishers, shipyards and other organizations," says Lin Ting-shyang, director of the Evergreen Maritime Museum Cultural and Educational Foundation. "Dr. Chang also actively bought models, maritime paintings, nautical instruments and other marine artifacts from major international auction houses like Christie's. With so many nautical treasures in his possession, Dr. Chang hit upon the idea of founding a museum to accommodate, categorize and share his collection with the public. It was an idea that lingered on his mind for 10 years," Lin adds. Chang's dream was finally realized in 2008 when the EMM opened.
One of Chang's goals for the museum is to educate the public, particularly students who major in marine science or marine engineering. "Students who study marine subjects at colleges usually don't have the opportunity to develop an appreciation for the true nature of their chosen field, and some of them have little direct experience with ships," Lin says. "Therefore, we hope this museum gives them a bit more familiarity with ships and teaches them something more about the history of their area of study."
The museum is also considering extending its educational reach to include programs for young students. "In the future, Dr. Chang also hopes to arrange more educational activities for visiting groups of school children," Lin says. "The inspiration for this idea was the measures taken to educate young students by the National Maritime Museum in London."
Most visitors begin their tours by taking the elevator to the fifth floor, the top floor of the museum, which contains the History of Ships Gallery. The floor is divided into four rooms, which are respectively dedicated to older watercraft, Western sailing ships, propeller-driven ships, and Chinese junks and common Taiwanese boats. The vessels are presented in the form of models and range from the first boats used in prehistoric times to the steamships of the 19th century and on to 20th century luxury liners.
An Evergreen container ship (Photo by Chang Su-ching)
As there are many maritime museums around the world, one of the most distinctive features of the EMM is its collection related to Taiwan and mainland China's marine history. "The land of Taiwan is so fertile and productive that people tend to overlook its development in the fields of shipping and fishing," Lin says. "One reason this museum was founded is to remind the public of our close ties to the sea."
The room dedicated to regional marine history contains six models of Taiwanese boats. Most of the boats built in Taiwan in the past were used for fishing close to the shore or for traveling between nearby ports. Because of this, most of the craft were relatively small. Tsai Yi-fang, an EMM guide, tells visitors that the diminutive size of the local boats gave them an inherent advantage. "While the invention of steamships in the 19th century led to the disappearance of the Chinese junk, Taiwan's plain and small boats can still be seen today because of their practicality and maneuverability," she says.
Taiwan's position at the eastern edge of the Eurasian continent has long made it a jumping-off point for travel across the Pacific Ocean, and its proximity to both Northeast and Southeast Asia has made it a key transshipment link between the two regions. "Due to its location, Taiwan has played an important role in maritime history," Tsai says. "In the early 17th century, there was extensive seaborne trade with the Dutch, and large numbers of immigrants also began to arrive from China by ship. In the mid-17th century, along with the rise of a global ocean-based economy, other Western powers began to regard Taiwan as a potentially useful marine transportation link. As a result, Taiwan, which used to be at the periphery of the world economy, became an important transshipment center."
One of the more interesting items on display is a Dutch map in which the Taiwan Strait is displayed horizontally, with China at the top of the map and Taiwan at the bottom. The map details the locations of ports on both coasts and the shipping routes between them, indicating the particular emphasis the Dutch placed on cross-strait shipping.
Chen Kuo-tung, a research fellow at Academia Sinica's Institute of History and Philosophy, wrote much of the historical background text that accompanies the models of local boats. "Countries such as Spain and the Netherlands attempted to colonize Taiwan because of its advantageous position, but only Japan was successful," he says. "Today, although major international shipping routes pass near Taiwan, the sensitive relationship with [mainland] China limits Taiwan's role in the industry."
Although it is widely agreed that China's contributions in the field of navigation include major breakthroughs such as inventing the compass and developing a method to navigate by the stars, there is not much historical evidence of long-distance Chinese marine voyages. Much of the extant records center on the travels of Chinese ships in Southeast Asia. Records of naval expeditions led by Admiral Zheng He from 1405 to 1433 mark an important exception, however, and not surprisingly, the EMM features a model of one of his ships. Zheng's fleet ventured as far as India, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the east coast of Africa.
Mysteries of Zheng He
Guide Tsai Yi-fang points out something of a mystery concerning Zheng He's travels. "We have been surprised to learn that although more than 200 vessels in Zheng's fleet were large ships, evidence shows their sails were relatively small," she says. "How could such small sails propel such big ships? Researchers are still working on this problem."
Simon Tseng, a model-ship master craftsman who has served as an advisor to the EMM and also built several of the models of Taiwanese vessels, points out another historical conundrum concerning Zheng He's ships. "According to my research, the ships in Zheng He's fleet should have been shaped more like wooden rafts than modern ships, no matter how big or small they were," he says. "Based on the maritime knowledge in China at the time and the raw materials that were available, wooden rafts would have functioned the best then."
A ceremonial boat built by the Tao aborigines of Taiwan's Orchid Island (Photo by Chang Su-ching)
After moving down to the Modern Ships Gallery on the fourth floor of the museum, visitors can view nearly 100 models of ships employed for various uses in the 20th and 21st centuries. These models include ocean liners, cargo ships and modern warships. There are also several Evergreen container ships in the collection, reflecting the company's role in facilitating Taiwan's export-oriented economy. Evergreen Line, the group's shipping arm, operates a fleet of more than 150 container ships that serve more than 240 ports in 80 countries, and it is the ships plying these routes that deliver locally made products such as high-tech electronic goods to the rest of the world.
One of the museum's most famous items--a wooden plank written on by a passenger who sailed aboard the Titanic--is displayed on the fourth floor. Historians have identified the writer as John Jacob Astor, a British entrepreneur who died when the ship hit an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic Ocean in 1912. Although some of the words on the board are misspelled, visitors can gain a vivid sense of the desperation and hopelessness he felt during the final minutes as the Titanic was going down.
The warship models are a top attraction for naval enthusiasts. Model builders painstakingly created these miniature works of art, with some even reconstructing the vessels' interiors, even though few people will ever be able to see the results of this effort, as the models would first have to be disassembled. "Although I haven't served in the navy, I still feel excited when I see these warships," says museum visitor John Lee, who was visiting the museum with a group of friends. "They look so magnificent that people can imagine the spectacular scene when they were engaged in battle."
The Marine Paintings Gallery on the museum's third floor features paintings of maritime subjects from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The collection contains more than 700 paintings by 44 artists, making it the most extensive grouping of maritime paintings outside the National Maritime Museum in London. The paintings portray the majesty and grace of ships at sea as they engage in raging gunfire and turn their white sails to the wind.
The centerpiece of the EMM's painting collection is a watercolor work entitled The Japanese Fleet Offshore with Mount Fuji Rising Beyond. The artwork was a study for an oil painting commissioned by the Japanese Navy from renowned British painter William Lionel Wyllie (1851-1931). It depicts the navy's new warships after they were purchased from Britain during the Meiji Restoration at the beginning of the 20th century, with the oil painting created to celebrate the 20th birthday of Prince Yoshihito, who later became the Emperor Taisho. The museum and Evergreen founder Chang Yung-fa particularly prize the watercolor work as the Japanese royal family owns the final version, in oils.
While the museum's permanent exhibition features art by Western painters, a special rotating exhibit displays paintings by local artists such as Huang Chi-tsung (1927-2004), Juang Yaw-ching (1930-2008) and Hsiao Fu-rong. Their paintings offer vivid, precious images of life in fishing villages, ships and ports in a time before the use of photography became widespread in Taiwan.
The Navigating and Exploring Gallery on the second floor of the museum offers visitors a first-hand look at marine navigation via displays of navigation equipment, multimedia presentations and interactive learning facilities. For those interested in pursuing a seafaring career, this gallery offers an introduction to the technology used in the shipping industry. Other exhibits in this gallery include displays on whaling and cable and wireless communications.
When visitors arrive at the ground floor of the museum, they are greeted with three large wooden ships--an Arab dhow, a ceremonial boat built by the Tao aborigines of Taiwan's Orchid Island, and a model of one of the treasure ships of Zheng He's fleet. "These three ships reflect the three aspects of maritime education that concern the museum, namely those relating to Taiwan, China and the world," says EMM guide Tsai Yi-fang. "This arrangement has a deep symbolic meaning for us, and we hope that visitors from all walks of life will come away with a deeper knowledge of worldwide maritime history and Taiwan's place within it."
Write to Tso Lon-di at londi@mail.gio.gov.tw