I. Starting with a model of architectural professionals

Just like in all the colonial territories of Western imperialist countries, the first museum in Taiwan was established in 1908 by Japanese governors during the period of the Japanese occupation (1895~1945). Consequently, the themes of these kinds of museums varied as with other colonial museums in the world, focusing on topics such as regional, natural history, aboriginal, and commemoration (colonial education) of Japanese princes or generals, successfulness of agricultural products in Taiwan under the help of Japanese researchers, financial support of Japanese Governors, etc. Although there were also many large exhibitions that displayed the achievement of Japanese governors in these museums, the first traveling exhibition about Taiwanese history and culture did not appear until 1932, and most of the exhibits were borrowed from Taiwanese collectors. There were a few ..independent.. (private) museums, and naturally, they were all government institutions with political purposes. After World War II, Taiwan was returned to their ..mother country.. (this is a term with controversy among Taiwanese now), and the martial government of General Chiang Kai-shek (1945~1987) took over and controlled the country with a ..foreign.. imperialist approach. The government devoted all its power, material and human resources, in economical development, and most of the generated profit was used for national defense. This situation changed when China replaced Taiwan as a member of the UN in 1983, and as a result, China started to open its markets to the world in the 1990s. This was the end of the economical status in the worldwide business world for Taiwan as the ..Dragon in Asia,.. and at the same time, small and local museums were launched with no cultural resources, but only visions created for political purposes again, except this time it is to win political elections.

During this period, the government was preoccupied with controlling Taiwanese people, while struggling to reinstall its power back in mainland China. It had no time to lose military preparation, and no time to consider the cultural differences between the Chinese and Taiwanese. Therefore, the easiest way to treat the complex society of Taiwan was to use the Japanese models as a colonist both politically and culturally, including the setting up of museums. This, in turn, affected the attitude that the people in Taiwan have towards museums, which are seen not as an important tool in the social changes as their counterparts are in a Western culture, but a form of political control to suppress/educate them, and prevent them from developing their indigenous cultures, no matter whether they are earlier Mainland China immigrants or aborigines. What I mean here is that decolonization of Taiwan has not been successful after the retreat of the Japanese, or you can say, after World War II. The martial law of General Chiang Kai-shek's regime was lifted in 1987, but the new opposition party has not made any changes in museum or cultural policy from the previous regime, because the new government is still preoccupied with politics. Obviously, there is a lack of knowledge in methodology and professionals, and time, money, experienced professionals, knowledge and techniques are needed to develop some new concepts and education, which should have been a priority. Instead, however, the first to improve is the hardware of museums. More cultural buildings are built whenever a political election takes place, and politicians equate cultural achievements to building constructions that resulted in simplified museums without curatorial contents. Needless to say, there is no standard to evaluate the outcome of the governmental cultural investment, either. We need models to create a new methodology for our own museographers and museology. During the 10 years of my teaching position, I have focused my research in model-searching from AAM in the US to ICR in Europe.