Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum in Chiayi

I spent much of the week off poring over books and various documents at the NTU library. Right now, I am studying missionaries in the 19^th century, and some of their stories – especially those of Spanish missionaries, who are often neglected in secondary literature in favour of anglophone Presbyterians – are truly fascinating. Nevertheless, after three full days of reading Spanish letters from the 1860s to the 1890s, I felt like a little bit of a break from studying would be in order.

The decision came suddenly on Wednesday night after I consulted the weather forecast to find that perhaps the only sunny day this whole week would be Thursday, and the good weather would likely be restricted to the south. Without really considering what else there was to see in Chiayi, I remembered that it was one of the remaining places in southern Taiwan that I still wanted to visit, its main attraction being the Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum. I bought my train ticket late in the evening and left the following morning at around nine o’clock.

As I rode out of Taipei, the sky truly did clear up, a testament to how bad the weather is in the capital. I arrived at the high speed railway station a little after half past ten, and – having found the museum’s website instructions for how to use public transport to get there highly unuseful – I let myself be snatched up by a taxi driver who charged an absurd amount to make the short trip over.

I have heard that the Taiwanese sometimes refer to the Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum as the “museum of flies” because of how few people visit it. I took that to be a bit of a hyperbole, but arriving at the oversized and overstaffed, hypermodern edifice convinced me of the nickname’s fittingness. When I entered the lobby to buy a ticket, I was the only tourist there, and my conversation with the lady at the till caused three others to lean in and listen, having absolutely nothing better to do.

Now, the most famous item in the National Palace Museum collection is a stone called the Jadeite Cabbage, famous for the precision with which it was crafted, but especially for the appropriateness of the medium itself, the jade’s natural white and green hues complementing perfectly the piece of art. In the winter, the stone is housed here in the Southern Branch, while in the summer, it is transported back to Taipei, where hordes of tourists line up to see it. I expected to find at least a decent crowd huddled around the cabbage. Instead, I found absolutely no one. I toured the museum at a leisurely pace, not having to worry at all about being in anyone’s way or having to wait to get to see an artefact. The few tourists here and there seemed equally bewildered, though relieved, by the lack of people.

Having now visited both the National Palace Museum in Taipei and its southern branch in Chiayi, I can objectively say that although the latter has fewer items on display, it is equally worth the visit, especially for the opportunity to see treasures like the Jadeite Cabbage, and plenty of beautiful Buddhist art, in relative solitude. The reason why so few people make the trip is because it is long and there is little else to see in Chiayi – having convinced myself of the latter fact by an intensive google search, I decided not to venture into the city and instead headed back to Taipei. As usual, the capital greeted me with cloudy skies.