Jingmei Prison (白色恐怖景美紀念園區)
Exterior of the main prison.
(Last updated 2023/2. Judging by visits by friends not much has changed here since this post was written) Jingmei Prison is an important part of Taiwan's Martial Law era history. It was however unknown to me for a very long time and it seems I'm not the only one to have missed this place. Compared to most historical sites in Taipei there is not much information about it. I first saw it mentioned while I was far from Taipei in the Green Island Prison, which is managed by the same group. A search brought up a few good blog entries such as this one. Although I visited years after this author it still seems this site is very little known or visited even among Taiwanese. I went on a sunny Saturday, the MRT was packed with people on day trips, but I only saw about 30 people here in well over an hour. It is a shame as the museum is informative, well organized, and deals with a powerful and tragic period of Taiwan's history that everyone in the country should know about.
The cell block and a guard tower.
A quick note for those of you unaware of the Martial Law Period: This ran from 1949 to 1987 under the one party state. As the country was technically still at war with the Communists, the military, with the President at the helm, were given absolute power over the people of Taiwan. Chiang Kai Shek, President of Taiwan and leader of the Kuomintang (KMT) party, imposed it. It was finally and reluctantly lifted by his son Chiang Ching Kuo after a long struggle by pro-democracy groups. During this period many parts of public life were suppressed, including free speech and the right to a fair trial. Much of the ruling Kuomintang's real or perceived opposition were imprisoned or executed. There were thousands of victims and this prison held many.
The prison is about a 15-20 minute walk from Dapinglin MRT Station, past the large Tzu-Chi Hospital. Just inside the entrance is the "Grand", military courthouse built in 1977, where the 'Kaohsiung Eight' were tried.
The room looks much as it did during the trial. The 'Kaohsiung Eight' were a a group of democracy activists. They were involved in Taiwan's first opposition magazine, "Formosa Magazine", which promoted democracy and soon irritated the KMT. When the magazine organized a human rights forum in 1979 the KMT led a crackdown and arrested many participants. In doing so they locked up many of the key opposition movement leaders. The eight were given heavy prison sentences although Martial Law ended before their full terms were served. A few key figures in the DPP are members of the Kaohsiung Eight, including the former vice-president Annette Lu, and the current mayor of Kaohsiung Chen Chu.
Surveillance room listening devices
A huge clothes dryer
A lot of trials held in the secretive military courts were not political. Simple criminal cases such as robbery or assault could be tried here. This kept the general population quite fearful of the state. Many of the cases described in the exhibitions here are quite ludicrous. One that particularly sticks out is the 12 year sentence for one illustrator whose translation of a Popeye cartoon in 1968 landed him in trouble. In it, Popeye and his son buy an island and both run as presidential candidates. The translation of one of Popeye's speeches mirrored one of Chiang Kai-Shek’s common speech phrases. The KMT made the bizarre mental leap of deciding this subverted the government and so the illustrator (Po Yang) was arrested, tried, and sent to Green Island.
Another case saw a group sentenced to many years in prison for causing explosions that they had nothing to do with and no evident connection to. Others seem to have been arrested as soon as they gained a little too much influence in public life, such as the broadcaster Tsui Hsiao Ping.
There are a couple of other courtrooms and general buildings on the way to the main prison structure. Some of them have small exhibits inside. The former military barracks, where the guards and soldiers lived houses some displays about the victims families. Many were shunned if they had a relative in the prison and even afterwards both the victim and their families still found life tough and work hard to come by.
An old meeting hall and the military barracks.
The main building (known as the Ren'ai Building, meaning benevolence or charity) was formerly a school called The Military Law Academy. It was built in 1957 and the school moved out to make way for the prison in 1967. In many ways schools are designed to make it hard for students to leave so converting one into a prison was probably very easy. The cells and main rooms are arranged around several courtyards.
Exterior of the Ren'ai Block.
While not every part of the prison building is accessible, a fairly large part is. Part of the cell area, the laundry, workshops, dining hall, and library can all be visited, and have some interesting original artifacts and machinery. The surveillance room still has the crude listening devices in it, and the clinic is stocked with medicines and an old dentist chair. Unlike many heritage sites in Taiwan, where things are stripped out and exhibition rooms renovated with white walls and new lighting, much of the prison has been left as is. I have to commend the group that run both this site and Green Island Prison for managing to keep it intact and therefore all the more real and powerful.
Dining room and laundry.
Below is the private jail of Wang Shi Ling, who was formerly the chief of the Ministry of Defense intelligence department. In 1980, a journalist in San Francisco was murdered by gangsters operating on behalf of the KMT. A tape was found implicating the MOD and the FBI pressured Taiwan to act. As head of intelligence the buck stopped at this guy. Of course, as one of their own, the KMT treated him and his deputy to this relatively cushy house arrest style imprisonment with none of the overcrowding and bad food typical in the main jail.
The location of the prison can be found on the Hidden Taiwan Map, along with directions to it. It is not marked on maps at Dapinglin MRT. This should be a more frequented site. Perhaps, as I've seen written the KMT are indeed embarrassed by it and keep it low profile. But the Green Island counterpart is usually full of people. Maybe it's simply too out of the way for many people to bother, or too somber for a family day out. Nevertheless, I highly recommend visiting for a little more understanding of a dark part of Taiwan's history.
On a lighter note a number of these strange sayings and totally unrelated pictures appear above the urinals in the men's bathroom. I saw the same ones in Green Island Prison and it was quite bizarre to see them again. Someone from the heritage group clearly has a pet project. The adventures that make up these entries are often posted as Instagram stories at tomrookart first. So give that a follow too if you like as it can sometimes be a year or more before stuff turns up here! Also have a look at my Taiwan related art stuff here.
This steam train perfectly embodies this saying...