Yesterday we went down to the Koxinga shrine and museum, a fascinating place full of history and religion. Koxinga was a half-Japanese half-Chinese Ming loyalist who fought the Manchu and the Dutch and established a short-lived kingdom in Taiwan. Like Dr Sun Yat Sen he seems to be celebrated everywhere (except by the Dutch) and his life as told at the shrine was full of mythical elements, from his birth by a stone in the sea in Japan to the many ceremonial suicides that surrounded him. On the mainland I gather he is remembered more historically, but in Taiwan the rational and magical merge into each other and are both equally true. Outside the shrine was a gate erected by a general involved in the 228 Massacre and with the sun of the Kuomintang in its centre. There was a plaque by it, admitting how it was contested, and I understand that Koxinga himself is viewed with mixed feelings by those opposing the KMT and its goals. Interesting stuff.
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