Tainan, as the ancient capital of Taiwan, attracted more than millions of tourists coming to enjoy the historical atmosphere and the famous cuisine of this amazing city. The unique historical identity and the scenery of the streets are extremely special in the small country. The city had rich stories to share with everyone who come to visit.
Literature Tourism in Tainan
Talking about literature tourism, National Museum of Taiwan Literature is where you must visit. There are many exhibitions in the museum regarding to different topics and current issue, which had something to do with the historical changes from the past to the the modern world. We visited the gender exhibition, “Reading Sexualities: The Many Faces of Gendered Literature in Taiwan”, which illustrated the historical changes from Japanese colonial time to 21st century with the literature outputs from foreign and domestic authors. The exhibition was shock and definitely had great impact on everyone who visited there.
What Else than the Texts?
Other than the literature output in the museum, there are still many to see in the city of Tainan. Seven “class one historical monument” were situated in Tainan. We visited Confucius Temple, Grand Mazu Temple and Chikan Tower which were nearby each other.
In the morning there were only few of us visiting the attractions, which was rather relaxing. We could enjoy the monument quietly and used the interaction devices to learn more from the historical sites. Rather than just reading the instructions and explanations on the walls, what I could feel more was the great atmosphere at the place. The texts on the top of the building was not only telling me what did it mean, but the story behind and I could see the historical traces in every corners.
Could Tainan be Better?
With the rich historical monuments and great atmosphere, Tainan is already the most visited place for tourism destination in Taiwan. Nevertheless, what else can Tainan do to be better? What are the limitations in Tainan?
Tourists had complained about the traffic problem a lot. The public transportation is not convenient and not punctual. It led to the problem that tourists have had bad experiences using public transportation. Tainan could be a better tourism destination if the city government could improve this issue.
Due to the sensitive political issue of Taiwan, the historical monuments could not be admitted by the UNESCO. It was really a pity because there must be some visitors who had missed such a great opportunity to visit the ancient capital. There are still a long way to go to target and attract the historical international lovers.
If you are interested in Tainan, you can read my other blog post. Don’t forget to read the stories of my classmates visiting Kainuu Region here!
Comment and tell me what do you think Tainan is as a literary destination!