228 Peace Memorial Park

228 Peace Memorial Park
Traditional Chinese:	二二八和平紀念公園
Simplified Chinese:	二二八和平纪念公园
Transliterations
	Mandarin
- Hanyu Pinyin:	Èrèrbā Hépíng Jìniàn Gōngyuán
	Min
- Hokkien POJ:	Ji-ji-poeh Ho-ping Ki-liam Kong-oan

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2-28 Peace Park and National Taiwan Museum

Taihoko Park, 1931

Taipei 2-28 Monument

228 Peace Memorial Park is a historic site located in the Zhongzheng district of Taipei, Taiwan. The park is home to the Taipei 228 Memorial Museum, housed at the site of a former radio station that operated under Japanese and Kuomintang rule. The park contains a number of memorials to victims of the 228 Incident of 1947, including the Taipei 228 Memorial that stands at the center of the park. The National Taiwan Museum stands at the park's north entrance. The park also features a bandshell and exercise areas.

[edit] History

The park was established in 1908 as Taihoku Park during the Japanese colonial period. It was the first European-style urban park in Taiwan, placed on the grounds of the Colonial Governor's Office (today's Presidential Office Building).

In 1930 Taiwan's Japanese authorities established a radio station at the site. The station initially housed the Taipei Broadcasting Bureau, an arm of the Government-General Propaganda Bureau's Information Office. The following year the Taiwan Broadcast Association was formed and given responsibility to broadcasts island-wide. The Taihoko Park radio station became the center of broadcast activity for the Association.

The park was renamed Taipei New Park in 1945 by the Kuomintang authorities who replaced the Japanese at the end of the second world war in 1945. They renamed the broadcasting agency the Taiwan Broadcasting Company. The station became the primary broadcast organ of the Kuomintang government and military.

In 1947, a group of protesters, angry over a brutal police action against Taiwanese civilians, took over the station and used it to broadcast accusations against the Kuomintang government. The action formed part of a chain of events now referred to as the 228 Incident. A subsequent, more severe crackdown by the Nationalist government restored the station to Kuomintang control and ushered in Taiwan's period of White Terror. Two years later the Kuomintang lost ground in the Chinese Civil War and its leaders retreated to Taiwan. Concerned to establish themselves as China's true national government in exile, they renamed the bureau the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC).

The Taipei City government took over operation of the radio station building when the BCC relocated in 1972. City officials made it the site of the Taipei City Government Parks and Street Lights Office.

As Taiwan entered its modern democracy period in the 1990s, the reforms of President Lee Teng-hui invited free discussion of Taiwan's past. For the first time the 228 Incident of 1947 was officially acknowledged and its significance openly debated. In 1996 the Taipei City government designated the former radio station building a historical site. The building was made the home of the Taipei 228 Memorial Museum and the park was rededicated as 2-28 Peace Park.^[1]