Yesterday's museum actually has a second building, and this is the one I most wanted to visit. This second location is inside of an old bank building also built during Japan's occupation of Taiwan. I partly wanted to visit because this building had been abandoned for years and I had always wanted to see the inside. But mainly I wanted to check it out because they were calling it a banking museum which seems horribly boring, so boring that it must actually be good.
As usual I was right. As a museum it was lacking. They didn't have much info or artifacts relating to banking history in Taiwan. Most of the things just seemed to be random items they found on the floor while cleaning up the building. Nothing of any value or worth.
But as an unofficial student of architecture it was a fun experience. Most of the building has been modernized and houses some of the exhibits for the main museum, but the banking part is in the old bank vault. It was a very nice touch and cool to see what an old Japanese style bank vault was like.
But the stars of the show were the pictures of the bank being constructed nearly 100 years ago. These pictures were great because it showed what the surrounding neighborhood looked like back then. It was exciting to see those government buildings which still stand today surrounded by so many traditional Japanese style homes, restaurants and shop. It was almost like being transported to a parallel universe's Taipei.
I do wish that more of those buildings were still standing. Over the past 100 years there have been three or possibly four major influence and style changes in Taiwan regarding architecture, and it would be great to see more examples of all of those, rather than the old being torn down to make way for the new. Granted a lot of it has to do with new regimes tearing down those styles of the old.
For the picture I tried to get some good shots of the vault, but while It was a large two story vault, the inside was too cramped to get any decent picture. Instead I leave you with a picture of the last thing you see as you exit the vault. These are for lack of a better phrase "wishing cards." They are kind of popular in Taiwan, but much more so in Japan. Essentially you write down a comment or wish or whatever you'd like on a card and hang them up, and then it's supposed to come true.
I found it interesting that they had it here at a museum though, as I don't see why it would make wishes come true. Normally things like this are at places of good luck such as temples or holiday events (people like to hang them on Christmas trees). Then again all of the people I saw at the museums on this day were Japanese, so maybe it's a Japanese tradition to have these things at museums, and they are catering to this fact.
Of course I had to stop and try to read a few in Chinese. And I did chuckle at a few that were written in English. I deeply admire anybody who has the stones to write something in another language, so I'm definitely not slighting them, but a few were funny none the less. I still am thinking about the one which says "This place is hunted." Because Taiwanese are soooooooooooooo scared of ghosts, that just mentioning a place has a ghost will make people leave that place. But I wonder if the word is spelled wrong, do they still get scared?
