Yangmingshan National Park

"Hello! My name is Kevin," our guide said as we settled into the small but comfortable tour bus, "but you can call me Handsome Kevin."

I had decided kind of spontaneously to sign up for a group tour to Yangmingshan National Park and Beitou, some of the most beautiful and scenic areas just north of Taipei and had met the tour group early in the morning just outside the exit to the city metro.

We climbed up and up into the hills above Taipei, along winding roads and past extremely expensive walled villas. Handsome Kevin explained that the neighborhoods in the hills outside of Yangmingshan National Park are some of the most expensive in all of Taiwan, and are home to celebrities, politicians, and other wealthy and powerful people. I guess it's kind of like Taipei's Beverly Hills.

We arrived about an hour later. It was a cloudy morning in Taipei, but by the time we had gotten up into the mountains and parked at the national park, it had gotten so misty that we could barely see a thing. I would have liked to have seen the park's famous sprawling visas, rolling hills, and fields of roaming water buffalo, but the fog and mist gave it a sort of spooky, quiet, ethereal feeling that I actually kind of liked.

For reference, this is what the park is supposed to look like during good weather:

via Pixabay

But on that foggy December morning, it looked like this:

We collected umbrellas from the bus and set off on a walk along the paved trail.

The national park was originally established during the Japanese colonial period as Daitong National Park but was re-stablished in 1985 as Yangmingshan National Park, becoming the third national park in modern Taiwan.

Because of its close proximity to Taipei, it's very popular with day trippers as well as those who want to stay overnight at the nearby lodges and campsites.

As we walked along the trail, the guide pointed out a small red pagoda nearby in the mist. He explained that the concrete base of the pagod was originally the top and vent of a WWII Japanese bunker, but after the Republic of China took control of the island, Chiang Kai Shek mandated an intense Sinicization of Taiwan in an effort to erase Japanese influence on the island, and the abandoned bunker was topped with a distinctly Chinese pagoda.

It was cold, windy, and rainy, and despite the umbrella and my hoodie, I was soaked through within minutes. I never saw any buffaloes either, but that's fine. When I was an English teacher, we had two buffaloes on campus, and I got to walk past them every day on my way to and from my office.

The weather was honestly pretty miserable, and I was absolutely not prepared for it on this supposedly "subtropical island"!

Don't get me wrong, though, despite the icy cold rain and my general discomfort and the unfortunate fog that spoiled what could have been an amazing view, I still really enjoyed visiting the park. The air was fresh and clean, and from what I could see, it was very beautiful.

After a short hike, me and two Filipino guys who were in the group with me decided to head back to the park headquarters. Along the way we stopped in at a very small Chinese shrine where we met up with our guide, Handsome Kevin.

This shrine, he told us, has been here for centuries in one form or another. It was mostly used by local sailors and fishermen who would trek up to four hours to make offerings and pray for safe journeys on the sea.

As I mentioned in a previous post, in Taiwan, a relatively isolated Pacific island, fishing and sailing is paramount, but the waters surrounding Taiwan are treacherous for most of the year with the exceptions of short calm periods in April and October. It makes sense that Mazu, the goddess of the sea, is so highly revered here.

"Do you want any of the shrine candy?", Handsome Kevin asked us, explaining that, while people leave offerings of candy and sweets at the shrine for Mazu, the offerings are free and anybody visiting is welcome to take one to enjoy.

Back at the park headquarters, I ducked into the shop for a much-needed cup of hot coffee. When I returned, Handsome Kevin was showing us the topography of the park and explaining to us where our journey for the rest of the day would take us.

Yangmingshan National Park is a geothermal hotspot; a volcanic range that is still relatively active. He told us that he would be taking us down the mountain later in the day to visit some famous hot springs.

Our guide decided to amend our route a bit due to the weather and loaded us back into the minibus to drive us about half an hour down the mountainside to a more pleasant part of the park where the rain had slacked and the temperature was just a tiny bit warmer.

It was still damp but no longer raining. This part of the park was extremely verdant and lush even though it was winter, and Handsome Kevin told us that if we had been there in the springtime, we would have seen some of Taiwan's most beautiful Sakura blossoms.

Yangmingshan National Park (which translates to Yangming Mountain) is named after the famous Ming dynasty Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming (1472–1529). Though Wang never set foot on Taiwanese soil, Chiang Kai Shek admired his philosophical teachings so much that he changed the previous name of the park, which meant "Grass Mountain" in honor of Yangming.

Basically, he taught that knowledge and action are one and the same and to genuinely understand what is right, one must live it. Wang believed that every person possesses an innate moral sense, and that ethical wisdom comes not only from studying texts, but from sincere self-reflection and the discipline to act according to one’s conscience. I can't really say that I disagree with him.

Apparently neither could Chiang! A statue to Wang Yingmang stands in a place of prominence atop a marble pillar at the park.

Earlier, I mentioned the Sinicization of Taiwan during the rule of Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang was a hard man, and in many ways he ruled harshly. His government imposed decades of martial law and silenced dissent. However, at the same time, Chiang was also the man who ensured that the Republic of China did not fall to Communist rule, preserving Taiwan, today probably the most democratic country in all of Asia.

Chiang was a Methodist, often speaking of forgiveness and claiming to have forgiven his former enemies, especially the hated Japanese. And yet, upon taking control of Taiwan, he ordered the destruction of nearly every Shinto shrine the Japanese had built across the island. He was nothing if not a complex figure, and yet, without his leadership, I'm truly not sure that Taiwan would have survived to this day.

A lone torii gate, no longer leading to a shrine, stood alone off a side path in the park. Our guide explained that this land had once belonged to a wealthy Japanese landowner and had once housed his personal shrine until it was torn down by Chiang's government.

At one time during Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan, there were 204 Shinto shrines on the island. Today, only one active Shinto shrine remains (the Gaoshi Shrine in the far south of Taiwan).

As we walked through the park, we crossed over a zig-zag bridge, a common feature in a Chinese garden. The bridge is designed in such a way so as to force the walker to slow down, stop, and take in more of the scenery as they make their way to the other side of the stream.

It's one of the more prominent features in gardens designed under the principles of feng shui and is meant to encourage people focus on and live in the moment, lest they fall like Michael Scott into the koi pond.

After a while we returned to our minibus. It was time for a lunchbreak before continuing on to explore the volcanic and geothermal history of the area.