Staying In A Luxurious Oriental Palace

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30190, 23 July 1963, Page 2

Staying In A Luxurious Oriental Palace

[By SUSAN} On my return to Taipei, I moved out from the centre of the never«sleeping city to an utterly fabulous hilbtop hotel on its cool green outskirts. Inadequately named the Grand, it deserves a far more romantic oriental name. It has three wings straddling the little hill and these do have worthier names.

They are the Golden Dragon, which is the symbol of the Emperor, the Jade Phoenix, which is the symbol of the Empress, and the new and almost incredibly-beautiful Chi-lin wing, named for another heraldic beast, the Chinese unicorn.

The whole hotel is built and decorated in traditional Mandarin palace style, but the new wing, even more richly colourful and exotic than the others, embodies a new principle in hotel management. Subsidised by the Government. it is to serve when required as a State guest house. But when it is not required for honoured guests the whole wing becomes available to ordinary travellers. who then enjoy the rare thrill of actually living in an Oriental palace

Fragrant Woods The first royal guests were the King and Queen of Thailand. who were to arrive shortly after my departure, and as I also was in my small way the guest of the Government. I had the privilege of moving into this truly beautiful Chi-lin wing and warming it as it were, for Sirikit. “Warming” is not the illchosen word it sounds, either, for though Taipei is very tropical in summer, the airconditioning was going full blast wafting throughout the building the rich spicy fragrances of sandalwood, campborwood and teak, all fresh and strong frov.i the newly sanded parquet floors and elaborately carved woodwork.

The Chi-lin is like a museum of Chinese art in itself, for its huge murals, its delicate carvings of wood and marble. its magnificent bronze lamps, elaborate ceiling and gilded lacquer screens, are all authentic copies of ancient and priceless treasures.

The upholstery of the teak furniture is in heavy satin brocade, sapphire and jade in colour. The bedheads are carved with bold Chinese characters wishing the occupants sweet sleep and prosperity and all that life holds good. The carpets were so deep and rieh in pile and pattern that I asked where the wool came from in this sheepleas

country, and was told “New Zealand.” I understand there is a pound, and a half of wool to the square foot in these almost everlasting carpets. In much the same way, tiny Formosa offers the tourist the world's most beautiful aeroplane—the Mandarin Jet in which I flew away. Its central partition is a golden Moon Gate. Its murals delightfully depict the travels of Confucius. Dragon and phoenix are rampant on the screens and the whole decor reflects the gold and black and vermilion of traditional Mandarin art. Yet once again, what makes the decoration of this mighty Convair so exquisite is not

vast expenditure of money, just sensitive and artistic expenditure of imagination. There are lessons here, as I have always insisted, for New Zealand. And so I flew away from Formosa, a different person from the one who flew in only a fortnight before. In my head I had long acknowledged that we ware one family in the Pacific. But I am so radically a Westerner that I never imagined East and West could meet so simply in my heart, that it would be so easy to make friends with Chinese people and to borrow and learn from the gentle, patient Chinese philosophy and the full, rich, contented pattern of Chinese life. Above all I had learned how deeply precious, how essential to human dignity, how vital to the survival of a people is this freedom which we in New Zealand often seem to take for granted.