Special exhibition · Ground floor · Since 17 May 2025
Where Freedom Lies
Chen Ding-Nan and the Freeing of Thought
Through Taiwan's long years of martial law, some chose silence, some chose protest, and some worked for reform from within the system, pushing the door to freedom open one step at a time. This exhibition follows Chen Ding-Nan's work as Yilan County Magistrate and as a legislator to protect freedom of speech, thought and conscience under authoritarian rule.
About the exhibition
The exhibition opened on 17 May 2025 as part of the National Human Rights Museum's programme for White Terror Remembrance Day (19 May). Exhibition panels are in Chinese.
Part 1
The road into politics
How a businessman entered politics, the Lin family murders that changed his course, and records of how Taiwan came to confront the 228 Incident.
Part 2
Ending the cult of authority
Audiences once stood for the national anthem in cinemas, schools raised and lowered the flag every day, and portraits of former leaders hung everywhere. As magistrate, Chen Ding-Nan began to change this from within.
Part 3
Keeping order?
From the 1970s to the 1990s, informants were a more real presence than spies. This section shows the surveillance system of the party-state era, its security offices and blacklists, and Chen Ding-Nan's questioning of it in the legislature.
Part 4
Freeing thought from state control
Why did freedom of thought require education reform? Recordings of Chen Ding-Nan, in Mandarin, set out his hopes for textbooks, schools and local-culture education.
From the exhibition
Where freedom lies, responsibility lies.
Freedom is not doing as one pleases, but the right to choose and the courage to bear the consequences. Democracy is never won once and for all; it depends on the continued attention and participation of everyone.
Also on view
Special exhibition
After Martial Law, Before Freedom
Breaking through authoritarian rule in the 1990s.
Permanent exhibition
The life of Chen Ding-Nan
Thirteen stops through the family home and the museum, with a free English audio guide.
Contact
Chen Ding-Nan Education Foundation
No. 52, Lane 65, Section 2, Yizhou Road, Sanxing Township, Yilan County 266, Taiwan
Telephone: +886-3-989-8855
Email: [email protected]
Enquiries in English are welcome by email.