1969 TAIWAN REPUBLIC OF CHINA TRAVELOGUE

[Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] the city of taipei is the provisional capital of the republic of china the fastest growing travel discovery on a tour to the interesting and colorful lands of the orient than the china sea it is china mirrored in miniature old and no alike it is the only place in the free world where one can see the chinese people on their home ground a most interesting and delightful new destination we invite you to share its chinese way of life to marvel at his art treasures to serve wireless matchless cuisine to explore its scenic ranger only 17 hours flying time from los angeles of san francisco the silver wings of three international airlines will whisk you across the blue pacific and the china seas to taiwan to taipei international airport as you step from your jet airliner you were transplanted as though upon a magic carpet into the oriental fascination and glamour of this island beautiful and the portuguese named it when they discovered it formosa and incidentally flying between japan and hong kong or manila stopovers in taiwan can be made and enjoyed without paying an extra it is now one of the great new highlights of around the world adventure by plane with a history of less than a century taipei is the largest and most modern city in the country in the past score of years it has become one of the showplaces of progress in asia now we look upon a big bustling city with touches of the orient such as the old gate at one time the entrance to a wall city protected from the pirates of the once time roamed the china sea and in the heart of the busy city is a lovely park and oasis it is just in front of the presidential palace called long levity park in honor of president chiang kai-shek it is not the white house of the republic but the presidential officers it's a big bustling metropolis of one and a quarter million people his prosperity is reflected in the busy central business district streets and boulevards are jammed with cars buses taxis trucks motorbikes and bicycles morning noon and night this is one of the new high-rise buildings just completed a little over a year ago from a rooftop restitute of down upon one of the busy boulevards beneath not unlike many of our western cities or the large metropolitan cities of the cotton of europe but always that interesting touch of the far-off audience and there are many popular and wonderful hotels there today to suit every taste every purse the mandarin is the newest of 350 air-conditioned rooms it has a charming setting with a pool of lotus flowers and pagodas and bridges a delightful place to stop while you're enjoying taipei and then two along one of the busy boulevards is the ambassador hotel that is used by many of the two groups visiting taiwan the most famous of all is the grand hotel that is now considered to be one of the great luxury hotels of the audience it was built by the republic of china there are many of the great diplomats of the world are housed during their visit to taiwan is considered to be one of the finest examples of classical chinese architecture in existence nothing was fair to make it this glamorous building such as we look upon it today and it is all about the garden of the grand hotel you might come about a group of models displaying the different gowns and dresses you might purchase there these girls are displaying the old traditional costumes of china as well as the new modern dresses which reflect the chinese influence many tourists should all have them made to water while they're visiting taipei they're wonderful for cocktail dresses for evening gowns and are those the most beautiful bottles but you see as time marches on the long tiny styles are gradually getting shorter and shorter i'm sure they'll have the many types of dresses there too very sharply now isn't that a smart outfit on the right and the other model is wearing the very costly and lovely gowns of the piney dressed chinese women of all you see very few of them today but that was the grand dress of chinese women not long ago they still wear them to many of the great social functions the grand hotel is famous for this marble staircase we left the grand hotel to take a tour of the city of taipei today you can go by private motor car or by one of the side modern air conditioned buses one of the highlights of taipei is lungshan temple there you'll all find about buddhists coming there to worship to pray they like the drastics they buy fortune sticks they pray for some sacrile relative or friend seems to go on day and night throughout taipei that are very devout people i have never seen more elaborate temple rooftops the roofs sort of glazed colored tile embellished with all of this porcelain ornamentation every design is different scores and scores of these designs on every rooftop of the temple here you realize that you're just about as far away from home as you could possibly get here on the other side of the world the touch of old china at the towers temple the women were praying and lighting their drastics too many of them bring offerings and place them above the tables for the monks of the priests of the temple to enjoy this is the shrine of fertility just beyond this woman had brought offerings to the temple the chicken which would be enjoyed by the monks of the priests at that famous temple one of madame shankai checks great and important charities for the war orphans now the older often boys have a band [Music] now they may not be the greatest musicians of the world but i couldn't help but wonder what our youngsters here at home would do if they were trying to play chinese instruments [Music] and there too the small fry the youngsters are so wonderfully well kept oh i've visited many offensive asylums about travels throughout the world i've never seen finer looking children so healthy and happy well dressed clean they have the finest accommodations there dormitory rooms excellent food they're very lucky orphans and the older often girls have their orchestra too a classical type of chinese orchestra with the traditional instruments [Music] another abandoned madame tankai sex favorite charities is a home for crippled children these unfortunate youngsters were mostly victims of polio the brave kitties that actually taught not to cry when they fall to protect their faces and heads and then picked themselves up they too were a wonderful group of youngsters rather sad to see but we can certainly appreciate the wonderful way in which they are taken care of here in this home they've got a group for the youngsters together to sing this song for our cameras and recorders jesus loves space inside each other [Music] in taipei the building which they're very proud their new science hall inside they have an educational television station as well as a planetarium next to it is the historical museum the facade is of true chinese design the most famous of all is the new national palace museum considered to be one of the world's finest museums of oriental life it was built there at a cost of many millions of dollars how they got to the royal collections from the palaces of pekin and ankin is still a mystery here to the main hall is a statue of sannyasen the father the founder of the chinese republic and in those great glass cases of many paintings centuries old some of the greatest art treasures of old china this is one of the paintings on silk centuries old showing the method of travel of the empress and empresses of old tidal so wonderfully well preserved the colors so brilliant you'd think that had been painted but yesterday here in the museum is one of their ancient bronze bases a double wine container this was an ancient type of distilling apparatus and this old wine jug in the form of an elephant and they did not have elephants in china so they must have had some communication of course at that time with the peoples of ceylon or possibly india this is a bronze incense burner now this bronze bowl is actually the symbol of the national palace museum then too they must have had some communication with persia for these pieces are certainly persian in design encrusted with semi-precious stones and of course all of these pieces of prices are kept in heavily guarded cases they took them out of their cases so that we could fill them they locked all of the doors of the museum they had guards with big locked metal cases bring them from the cases to our filming tables in the basement this is a magnificent porcelain base centuries and centuries old that is this porcelain incense burner this vase was one of my favorites looking at the wonderful work in the hand-painted designs of that base you cannot appreciate it's difficult to appreciate the fact that with painted so many many centuries ago again it looks as though it had been done but yesterday and of course they have a wonderful collection of hundreds of pieces of jade this is a white jade incense container and this magnificently carved light green jade piece about 14 inches in height one of the most valuable pieces of jade in existence is a 21-inch carving in green jade one of the most valuable pieces in the entire collection and one of thousands you'd find in that great museum and then two they have opera in the taipei we attended a performance one evening all of their operas are really [Music] every movement every costume every mannerism has a symbolic meaning to the chinese people they all know that these are generals of the army because only the generals carry the banners of their regiments upon their back and i think the idea of a good show there is one that lasts a long time the performance started at seven o'clock in the evening it didn't let out and it lasted twelve o'clock at night [Music] [Applause] well i think it's time that we had a little nourishment don't you well they say you'll have the very finest chinese food in the world in taiwan i'll never forget this dinner that we had at the grand hotel the soup was served from this scoop down to melon a fruit soup delicious that the melon was all hand carved on the exterior [Music] lobster is one of the many courses as many as 17 courses in a pine chinese dinner now here's the dish fit for the king [Music] roiled or roast squash vegetables and fish dishes in their marvelous sweet sour sauces and chicken and shrimps cooked with walnuts well it takes about three hours to dine how to find chives dinner and while you're dying you're entertained by the music of their typical orchestras in here too they had another display of the modern chinese gown [Music] all of course can be made to order purchase could you desire to bring back such lovely dresses from taiwan for your festivities here at home [Music] [Applause] [Music] well one morning we left the grand hotel this time by bus for a tour of the countryside of taiwan not many miles from taipei you'll come upon these quaint picturesque little fishing towns and villages the fishing boats are so interesting their design their colorings the painting they usually go out to sea late in the afternoon and early the following morning they will bring back their catch of silver from the china sea and along the coast uh many interesting formations of rock and erosion such as this natural arch looking out toward the sea beyond and on sunday hundreds and hundreds of people from taipei drive out to iloilo national park there they have these unique formations they look like giant mushrooms growing out of the golden sand actually they're rocks the formation is caused by thousands of centuries of wind and sand blowing in from the china sea carving these huge rocks into these mushroom-like shapes the only place in all the world where we've come upon such formations and as you drive through the countryside through the deep valleys and over the hills of taiwan you look upon thousands of acres of rice fields or rice paddies as they call them and there the water buffalo is the valued beast of burden after the wealth of a farmer is judged by the number of water buffaloes he may own they look like a very sturdy hearty animal and so they are but the water buffalo has an unusually sensitive skin if left out of the hot sun for more than a few hours of the time his skin is up to crack and become sore hence every hour or so they're given a response in their work to cool off in the water and mud of a nearby pool and brought back along the roadways to be harnessed up to a plow go to work again in one of the rice paddies after the field of the paddy is plowed it is flooded with water and then the women do the work of planting the young rice shoots this overseer is dealing out these different bundles of uh of uh rice shoots they're planted very carefully almost with a ruler hard laborious work crunching about up to their knees you might say in mud and silt bending over the hot sun day after day for they have three crops of rice in taiwan quite unique in the world of agriculture so their work is never ending while they're planting one rice paddy they're harvesting another i was amazed to find little very little modern equipment of machinery there most of the rice was harvested by hand you might say they pick each individual stock some told us it was a religion of old chinese belief after they harvest a bundle of rice they'll come to this one rather krug unique device which separates the grain from the stock it's peddled by foot so they have a big large metal cylinder that revolves the exterior is covered with little sharp protruding nails in my call which actually pull the rice from the stock but it's very efficient you know as well as you travel about the world seeing all the different methods they use which will finally give the very same result and if you drive about the hills of taiwan you come upon women picking the leaves from the tea plants but mostly you know it's always famous for the wonderful quality of tea it still is they pick only the young tend to leave the women wear those long gloves which protect the backs of their hands for the twigs are very sharp on the bushes of the teapot they gather the leaves together that basket of a bag later they're processed and shipped across the wall parts of the world and out here in the lovely hills of taiwan is sun moon lake there too they have this very fine very comfortable hotel with excellent food the evergreen hotel for the rooms you look out upon the delight of the beauty of one of the most charming results in all of china sun moon lake it's an interesting name he got his name from mythical legend of old china to which they said that a huge dragon captured the moon in one clause of sun in the other till they're both captive in the water of this lake the little island of the center is actually the geographical center of the island of taiwan the old island of puramosa oh you can spend wonderful vacation days there just gliding about the carb waters of the lake enjoying the beauty of the lovely mountains and hills surrounding it or many of the estates there the states of some of the wealthy people of [Music] no telephones televisions blasting radios to annoy you [Music] and buildable slopes of a hill is another very fine hotel the sun moon hotel [Music] at one end of the lake is an army's village the arby's are called the aborigines of taiwan the original people of the old island of formosa [Music] the zombies girl was rowing back to her little village along the shore of sun moon lake we visited one of the army's villages there we had this very unusual and a very wonderful welcome as you can see well they knew we were coming so they put on the exhibition of their different traditional dances this is the type of one of their old sacrificial dances performed on this religious hair in front of its 22-foot image of one of their deities or gods they have many different types of dances and their music i think is most interesting as you look at the faces as well as the costumes of these armies [Music] i should say melanie it is believed that they originally came from some part of mongolia that of course was thousands of years ago settled here in this island in the china sea they also came from mongolia and crossed over into our continent into the bearing straight oh about 15 000 years ago perhaps that account for the fact that they enjoy feathers in their costumes and headdresses [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is one of their harvest dances [Music] [Music] [Applause] hey [Applause] well an unforgettable and thrilling trip by kara bus is over taroka gorge called one of the seven wonders of yori's they have that very elaborate entrance to the gorge the gorge is almost 20 miles in length cut right through this range of marble mountains it was built by eleven thousand veterans of the chinese army 425 of those men lost their lives building the gorge in memory of those men is a shrine built down in the bottom of the gorge called the shrine of eternal spring it is in the army's country so as you stop your car to admire the beauty of the gorge you lost and come upon many of the pretty harmonies girls there all in their traditional dress oh they have a score of bridges zigzag back and forth across the deep rushing waters of the river beneath the thousands of centuries that river has carved out this natural gorge in these mountains of marble unpassable not many years ago until they built the roadway through this gorge down in the bottom of this glistening white of course the waters of that rushing river has cleaned of the marble there are 51 tunnels you might say they were hewn out by hand without the great modern equipment of the scenery we have to build our tunnels today how many tremendous windows where you can stop your car and look down into the dizzy depths of the gorge beneath you come up on many waterfall rivers of water coming down from the high mountains beyond falling into these natural basins of marble glittering in the sunlight like jewels this is the real scenic ranger and beauty of the hills and the mountains of that old island of formosa now with many touches of china such as that pagoda entrance to a temple along the roadway and the markings here on this boulder telling us when the road was built at the end of the gorge it is rather new but very attractive pagoda you'll find pagodas not only throughout taiwan but throughout all china they were the symbol of classical architecture as well as the as the cast of the people only an emperor and empress could have more than seven roofs on a pagoda from the pagoda you can walk across this little footbridge a suspension bridge to that lovely and comfortable hotel beyond where you could spend the night start out back over the gorge of the morning or continue your tour along the roadways of the island of taiwan oh it's such an interesting trip every turn in the road brings something of beauty or interest before your eyes are the lenses of your cameras they're the use of water buffaloes to pull their carts along the roadways there too we came upon this duck boy with his flock of ducks they seem to thrive in the watery rice paddies after the rice is harvested of course those ducks bring a very high price in the markets of taipei every time we set up our cameras to film them they'd turn and rush away in the other direction and then two you'd pass many queens of little villages tucked away in the valleys of these high mountains and along the roadway we came upon these young men drying noodles of all things right along the roadway well you know noodles really originated in china not in italy they were brought there by marco polo centuries and centuries ago they've always been one of the main staple foods of the chinese people and then two along the roadway they'll put out their rice right on the road so that the wheels of tyres will do the threshing for them very practical people the chinese and you'll drive through lower score of these smaller towns and villages in one of those towns we came up on these youngsters selling their chow pups oh they were the cutest little pups here in this cage on one of their bikes and acquired the price they brought about 20 cents to the youngsters in our money and of course the chinese have been world renowned for their wonderful wood carving oh they are real artists this class you know five chinese furniture and chests and screens are famous throughout the entire world i've never seen finer cobb panels in these in fact my associate and bill moore and i ordered two of these we want to use them at home on a hi-fi set that we're building the car from tekwood i think this was the was the finest at least the most attractive but they're all lovely something that you'd only find in china there too in taiwan they have the largest image of the lord buddha in all the world most people think of the kamada buddha in japan as being the largest this one is 12 feet higher then there is a city of tainan that is the second largest city in taiwan it lacks the high-rise buildings the greats the top metropolis of the metropolitan atmosphere of taiwan bill was interested in this side he said now they'll know that they have all modern conveniences there in tainan as well here we could be on the streets of pekin or canton then you'll not find supermarkets there something we're accustomed to at home most of the fruits the vegetables the produce is sold in the open-air marketplaces and of course they're all such interesting places to visit there you can see what the people reduce what they buy and sell the ways of life are melded into the marketplaces you visit you can spend hours browsing about here we get a glimpse of the china of old even in the modern cities of new taiwan nearby xinjiang lake is the reproduction of an old imperial palace the most attractive building another lake beyond is the nine-point bridge that is typical of some of the architectural design of bridges in old china and the twin pagodas won the pagoda of spring and the other the pagoda a bottom and towering above one of the highest hills as a reaching up into the heavens is one of the finest pagodas of the land everything that they have built there had been done with an idea of beauty and color and of course the grandeur of old china well from our drive about the island we return to the city of taipei it was dark when we arrived there it looked like a different world seemingly hundreds of these large and very attractive electrical signs and neon lights and i shall never forget the dinner we had that evening in the fine dining rooms of the president's hotel there they feature one of the finest classical orchestras of thailand i thought many of you might be interested in the types of instruments they use many so different from our instruments at all this is a type of chinese violin an exotic looking stringed instrument this instrument was not unlike one of our men to live a different shape of course i was intrigued with this very unusual type of flute or piccolo for you [Music] their type of cello and a base vial and many different kinds of drums and gourds [Music] and a zipper-type instrument and then a display of wonderful dancing [Music] go the tiniest opera this is the favorite chinese dance the flower dance the dance of spring [Music] another one of their great dancers is called exactly like a monkey [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] end of the finale probably the best zone it's called the ribbon dance actually the waving in the ribbons represents the wind the wind in calm the wind in turmoil in the storm [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well everything has come to an end even a delightful trip through the orient we have traveled halfway around the world to these exotic and colorful lands this rich sample of china a free democratic china all in the frightening shadow of communist china and north korea and north vietnam with our help they may survive they should have the backing and the support of the entire free world for this is the frontier where either democracy or communism will live or will die you