Ghost Boulevard

Having had no business at all for hours, the taxi driver was hailed unexpectedly in the twilight by a young man in an old‑style 3-piece suit standing in front of the historic Judicial Museum. He slowed down, and as he approached, noticed that the man was carrying an orange cat in his arms. He didn't usually take passengers with pets, especially ones not contained in a carrier, but given that he hadn't made a single cent all day, he stopped and let the man in.

"To the museum of literature, on Tang De‑Zhang Boulevard."

"What?" The driver had never heard of a boulevard in Tainan. Tainan was an old city, built more than four centuries ago; most of its roads were narrow and short. He wondered where on earth there could be a boulevard.

"Tang De‑Zhang Boulevard. Where the National Museum of Taiwan Literature is."

"You mean Chung Cheng Road?" Every city and town in Taiwan has a Chung Cheng Road, named after Chiang Kai‑Shek. It was typically the city's main thoroughfare, lined with major public institutions.

"It's called Tang De‑Zhang Boulevard now. I wouldn't have taken it if it were still called Chung Cheng Road."

Whatever, the driver thought. He drove the short distance from the old courthouse to the museum. The gentleman paid politely and got out with his cat.

In the days that followed, the taxi driver noticed that the first hundred meters of Chung Cheng Road had indeed been renamed. The road signs now read "Tang De‑Zhang Blvd.," with smaller lettering beneath: "Former Chung Cheng Road." He found himself wondering how many tasks a city must undertake when a place is renamed. Every household plaque would need to be replaced. All official records would have to be amended. And for the shops and businesses along the road, countless documents, listings, and printed materials would require updating—a small but telling measure of how deeply a name is woven into the fabric of daily life. 

There were dozens of roads and streets across Tainan named after Chiang Kai‑Shek, a practice that began after World War II, when the Nationalist Party took control of Taiwan from the Japanese colonial government. Even after the Nationalist military was defeated in the Chinese civil war and withdrew to the island, their leader Chiang Kai‑Shek was worshipped almost as a deity, and more and more places were renamed in his honor, gradually erasing the Japanese-era names that had come before.

But who was Tang De‑Zhang? Since the island was taken over by the “Republic of China,” few figures had ever been commemorated with place names—aside from Franklin D. Roosevelt, venerated in Taiwan as a defender of international order during the wars. To have one replace Chiang Kai‑Shek’s was extraordinary. Each time the driver passed the short stretch now designated a “boulevard,” he thought about looking it up when off duty, but he always forgot. There were, after all, plenty of other ways to spend his idle hours.

One afternoon in March, on a slow weekday with few tourists in sight, the taxi driver parked his car in the queue by the newly built art museum and stepped out to smoke. As he did, a cat emerged from somewhere and walked toward him with quiet elegance, its fur catching the light in subtle gradients, shifting from chestnut to deep cocoa. He recognized it at once: the cat carried that evening by the young man who had told him about Tang De‑ Zhang Boulevard.

He crouched down, reaching out a hand, but the cat dodged his touch. Yet it didn't flee. Instead, it moved a few paces away, sat down, and looked back at him. Curious, he stepped closer. Again the cat withdrew a short distance, then sat again, watching. This happened several times. Slowly, the driver began to understand that the cat was trying to lead him somewhere. He stubbed out his cigarette and followed.

About a block away, the cat slipped into a narrow alley and disappeared through the open gate of a Japanese‑style wooden house. The driver followed. Inside the vestibule, beside the wall was a standing profile cutout of the young man—the very passenger he had picked up less than a week ago. A small plaque beside it read:

Tang De‑Zhang
1907–1947

The driver stared. Dead since 1947? Then who had he driven that evening? And why was Chung Cheng Road now bearing the name of a man who had been gone for nearly eighty years? He had ridden with a ghost. A ghost who had told him, so casually, about the road's new name—the road named after himself.

Why had he died so young? 

The taxi driver walked through the living room, dining room, and a study. The house presented a modest yet elegant appearance, with a sloping roofline and pale walls accented by wooden window frames that evoked the quiet refinement of traditional Japanese residential design. Its construction combined wood, brick, and reinforced concrete—materials carefully restored to preserve the original craftsmanship. The spatial arrangement reflected a dual function: the front portion had once served as a lawyer's office, while the rear provided living quarters, connecting work and domestic life.

Outside, a small garden opened up, its floor paved in concrete. Bougainvillea spilled from the balcony in bursts of magenta. It was not, he assumed, part of the original Japanese wooden house—likely added later, when newer buildings rose in the neighborhood and walls were erected to define the property. All of it, he realized, must have happened after 1947. After the year the man died.

From the exhibits, he learned that Tang De‑Zhang was a Taiwanese lawyer and former police officer of mixed Japanese–Taiwanese heritage, remembered for his courage during the February 28 Incident. Born in Tainan, he was the son of a Japanese officer killed in the Tapani uprising; left to grow up in poverty with his Taiwanese mother, he overcame hardship through discipline and studied law. He eventually served in the Japanese colonial police before establishing himself as a respected lawyer in Tainan, where he defended ordinary Taiwanese people. After Taiwan's "retrocession" to Nationalist government and relocated from mainland China, Tang De-Zhang joined civic organizations, advocating for freedom and human rights. He expressed optimism about serving his people and indicated his willingness to take an official position in the new government.

Reading to this point, the taxi driver made an involuntary sound in his throat. Another victim of the February 28 Massacre. He shook his head. The Nationalist government had never cared about human rights. He had no interest in reading further and began walking back toward his car.

Then a thought dawned on him. If the man he had driven was a ghost, what about the cat? It had vanished once inside the house and never reappeared. He had heard countless stories of wronged spirits lingering among the living, but never a ghost story about a pet. What could possibly drive an animal to haunt?

He agreed to the renaming of Chung Cheng Road to honor a man whose death was tied, directly or indirectly, to Chiang Kai‑Shek’s power. His regime had deceived too many: followers in China who fled to Taiwan as refugees, Taiwanese who had hoped for autonomy after Japanese rule, and even the international community that called the once authoritarian Republic of China “Free China,” an ally in the anti‑communist camp.

In Tainan alone, there were thirty‑eight streets named Chung Cheng—a ridiculous redundancy. Whenever passengers asked for “Chung Cheng Road,” he had to stop and clarify which one they meant. The process was often time‑consuming, especially with visitors unfamiliar with Tainan.

Not just in Tainan, roads named after Chiang Kai‑Shek were everywhere in Taiwan. In Taipei, the boulevard in front of the Presidential Office was once called Chieh Shou Road, meaning “Long‑life President Chiang.” It wasn’t until 1996 when the capital elected its first mayor rather than having one appointed by the ruling Nationalist Party that the road was renamed Ketagalan Boulevard, after one of the area’s earliest indigenous peoples. Today, Ketagalan Boulevard—once a solemn, heavily guarded avenue—has become the place where citizens gather to protest and voice their political demands.

The taxi driver had long considered the 228 Massacre a closed chapter, something best left in the past. Each spring he avoided thinking about it—after all, nearly eighty years had passed. Surely by now it should have been possible to leave such horrors behind.

But after his visit to Tang De‑Zhang's house, the dream came. One evening he parked in the narrow alley beside the Tang residence, waiting for the young lawyer. They set off, and once they were moving, Mr. Tang told him he was headed to the city council. The driver felt as though he'd been struck by thunder. He wanted to shout—Don't go! Don't go there at all! That's where they'll frame you as a riot agitator, and the military police will kill you.

But no matter how hard he tried to cry out, no sound came. Trembling with fear, he woke in a cold sweat.

History never really passes. For eighty years, those touched by the 228 Massacre have lived each day in its shadow, silence amplifying their fear. Otherwise, he would have heard Tang De‑Zhang’s story long ago.

Since the dream, the taxi driver lingered near the courthouse at twilight almost everyday, waiting—for what? To pick up Tang De‑Zhang’s ghost again? And if he did, then what? To warn him away from the protests? To dissuade him from his noble attempt to mediate between an enraged public and a corrupt regime? To tell a man already dead not to get himself killed?

The ghost of Mr. Tang never appeared again. But he saw the cat.

One early spring afternoon, he parked by the road near a university, under the shade of a banyan tree, waiting for customers. Sunlight filtered through the canopy, dappling the windshield with shifting patches of gold. Across the street, old shophouses stood with tiled roofs and faded wooden shutters, some freshly painted, others worn by decades of neglect. The air smelled faintly of baked bread. He leaned back in his seat, the fingers of his left hand draped over the window twitching absently. As he debated whether to light a cigarette, the orange cat emerged from a lane.

The cat walked alongside a white man carrying a camera and a canvas book tote—an explorer of the city’s culture. The orange fur of the cat stood out sharply against the man’s blue sneakers.

The man waved and stepped into the car. In perfect Mandarin, he gave his destination: “No. 1, Chung Cheng Road. The Museum of Literature.”

The driver wanted to ask about the cat, but it had already vanished. He paused for a moment, then started the engine. As he eased into traffic, he said quietly, “Tang De‑Zhang Boulevard. It’s called Tang De‑Zhang Boulevard now.”

He circled the roundabout, hoping the passenger would notice the white lilies laid beneath the monument. He wondered whether he should tell this foreigner that it was the place where Mr. Tang had been shot eighty years ago and why the road now bears his name.