Visual Art of Taiji and the Living World

Ju Ming (朱銘) is a contemporary visual artist of Taiwan. He created his most famous series in the the eighties and nineties, the Taiji Series (太極系列). His earlier works in this series were derived from the movement of Taiji, hence these sculptures are more human-like figures. The later works evolved into something more abstract.

All these larger-than-life sculptures are now house at the Juming Museum (朱銘美術館) near Taipei City.

The Living World Series (人間系列) were created to depict the daily life using his imagination in visual art. They consist of the armed forces, modern ladies and the village ladies.

Along the long corridor at the museum entrance are another Living World Series (人間系列) consisting of collage works. There were created with murals pasted with fabrics, newspapers and other materials.

If you like visual art, this is a place not to be missed when you visit Taiwan. You can always visit the official website of the museum if you would like to find out more about the latest news on exhibits.

The Queen of Rock

Who's the Queen of Rock? Tina Turner, Madonna or Lady Gaga? The one that I met in Taiwan was none of them, but she is literally the Queen of Rock at the Yehliu Geopark (野柳地質公園) who is already 4,000 years old!

Apart from the famed Queen's Head, there are actually many other interesting rocks to see at this geological park. The shoreline is equally interesting as well.

The mushroom rocks are formed with spherical heads supported on thin cylindrical pillars, probably due to greater erosion on the weaker rock materials at the bottom. The Queen's Head is actually one of them.

Does this rock look like a fist punching right in your face?

The geological formation here is still evolving everyday under the forces of nature, the wind and wave.

This is the Queen's Head, as the rock looks like the side face profile of Queen Elizabeth II. Erosion is still taking place and the rock may fall down one day once the thin pillar is too weak to support it.

Most of the tourists who come here are for the Queen's Head. This is the only rock at Yehliu Geopark that you have to queue up to take a picture with it. Sometimes the wait can be up to one hour. Luckily when we arrived, there were not that many tourists, and we queued for just about five minutes.

This is one of the sea candles that can be found around the park. Beside it is the Peanut rock.

A fairy left a shoe behind, and it has become the Fairy Shoe rock. Another sea candle rock is beside it, and the Pearl Rock is also there.

This rock looks like a volcano.

This one looks like a monkey head.

There are actually more rocks that resemble the animal heads and body parts, but we couldn't see them all in just about one hour.

If you are to find all the rocks which resemble something, it will easily take half a day. Other than all the famed rocks, I find that the landscape is equally stunning. This is a place not to be missed in Taiwan!