The Tay Ping: Before Reaching Keelung, Taiwan Received a Nameless Grave

On January 27, 1949, the Tay Ping departed Shanghai for Keelung. Late that night, it collided with the Jian Yuan near the Zhoushan Islands. Official records from Keelung City list 932 victims, with only over 50 survivors. ¹

In 1950, the Committee for the Aftercare of Tay Ping Victims initiated the erection of a monument at the destination of the voyage. It was not until 2018 that this monument was removed from the military zone, becoming a public space accessible to ordinary citizens. ^{1 2} The most counter-intuitive aspect of the Tay Ping is not that it sank outside of Taiwan, but that, despite never arriving, it left behind a monument, a park, and a memory regarding "who is becoming Taiwanese."

Image: Solomon203, CC BY-SA 4.0, authorized via Wikimedia Commons file page; license terms. Unmodified.

Wikimedia Commons file page

A Ship Heading to the "Shore of Refuge"

This was not an ordinary journey. In Shanghai, 1949, the war was closing in, and the Spring Festival was approaching. The Tay Ping bound for Keelung became the vessel for many families fleeing the war and seeking a new starting point for life. The Keelung City government referred to Taiwan as the "shore of refuge" in the eyes of these passengers. ²

The authorized ticket count was 508, but the ship also carried crew members, ticketless passengers, and a large amount of cargo. Historical articles from the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau record that the Tay Ping had been shuttling between Shanghai and Keelung since 1948, completing 35 voyages before its sinking. The final voyage saw actual boarding numbers exceed the authorized ticket count due to a surge in demand before the year-end holidays. ³

The cargo was not merely passenger luggage. Different reports mention that the ship carried traditional Chinese medicines, hardware, and antiques destined for Taiwan by merchants, as well as printing equipment for newspapers and government archives. For some, this ship did not just carry refugees; it packed a city in the process of disintegration into boxes, preparing to move them to another port. ^{3 4}

📝 Curator's Note: The Tay Ping is not an abstract arrow "from China to Taiwan." It is a ship that crammed people, cargo, documents, and unfinished family lives simultaneously into its hold.

This overloading later became part of the accountability for responsibility. Data compiled by the People's Political Consultative Conference website records that courts in Shanghai and Taipei accepted compensation claims from families against the Zhonglian Company, but under conditions of chaotic currency values, ongoing war, and the company's inability to bear the burden, the execution of compensation was extremely difficult. ⁴

The consequences of the accident were therefore not just a death list. They also included documents scattered across different litigation systems in Shanghai and Taiwan, many unrecovered bodies, and the need for families to maintain their own memorials. ^{4 5} This is why the history of the Tay Ping cannot be left solely to an accident report: a report can explain how the ship sank, but it does not automatically explain how people continued to live after the sinking.

A Disaster Is Not a Single Moment

Regarding the time of sinking and the number of casualties, different sources present statistical discrepancies. A 2005 report in the Taipei Times used contemporary newspaper data, recording that after the sale of 508 tickets, the ship carried approximately 1,500 passengers. The Tay Ping turned off its navigation lights at night and was struck by the Jian Yuan at approximately 23:25, stating that only 37 of the 1,500 passengers survived. ⁵

The long-form compilation on the People's Political Consultative Conference website, based on data from Zhejiang's Dongnan Daily, recorded 508 ticketed passengers, 124 crew members, and over 300 ticketless individuals, citing the official final release of 36 survivors and 932 victims. ⁴

These numbers cannot be forced into a single, seemingly precise answer. Official memorial pages, news reports, and later family studies may have adopted different statistical scopes: counting only Tay Ping passengers, including crew, or even including the Jian Yuan's crew. What is certain is that this was a maritime disaster costing hundreds, if not nearly a thousand, lives. One cannot pretend that all sources were never divergent. ^{1 4 5}

The official page attributes the cause to overloading and the failure to open navigation lights at night, recording that the Tay Ping collided with the Jian Yuan, which was carrying coal and timber, near Baijie Mountain. ¹ The People's Political Consultative Conference website further places the overloading, delays, night navigation under curfew, and crew duty issues into the context of the accident. ⁴

📝 Curator's Note: Verification is not about choosing the most convenient number, but about keeping the different statistical methodologies behind those numbers in the article.

People Left at Sea, People Waiting on Shore

The Australian warship HMAS Warramunga participated in the rescue; the Keelung City official page records that it rescued 34 people. Adding the unnamed personnel rescued by Zhoushan fishermen, the total number of survivors was only over 50. ¹ Survivors returning to shore did not mean the end of the journey. Many had to face the reality that their family members had not returned, their bodies had not been recovered, and there was no place to truly lay their names to rest.

Writer Chang Dian-wan stated in a 2013 interview that her mother had taken the Tay Ping to Taiwan in December 1948. It was not until her mother passed away in 2000, when she encountered old Shanghai telephone directories, notebooks, and ID cards among her belongings, that she returned more deeply to this history. She also noted that relevant materials were scarce; the Shanghai Municipal Archives still held old files, while materials in Taiwan were even fewer. ⁶

A 2015 report from Hakka Television Network included the memories of victim's family member Zhang Zhaoxiong. He said, "It was the Little New Year. When the ship set off, including the captain, the first officer, and the second officer, everyone was happy to be returning to Taiwan. I heard they were drinking." ⁷

The most important thing in this sentence may not be "drinking," but "I heard." Families often had to rely on retellings, newspapers, scattered objects, and others' memories to piece together a night they did not witness with their own eyes. The maritime disaster took away the parties involved, but also the witnesses who could have confirmed every detail. ^{6 7}

A Monument, First Hidden Away

In 1950, the Committee for the Aftercare of Tay Ping Victims initiated the erection of a monument, hoping to commemorate those who did not go ashore at the destination of the original voyage. The monument featured calligraphy by Yu Youren and was originally located in the Dashawan area of Keelung. Later, due to port construction and changes in military facilities, the monument was incorporated into the military zone, requiring families to apply for entry to pay their respects. ^{1 2}

A 2006 reflection report from the Democratic Progressive Party's Ethnic Affairs Department recorded Wang Shuliang's hope, 57 years after the sinking, for her brother's name to be carved on the monument. She said that after her brother perished, her sister died of depression two years later, and their parents, even in their old age, still refused to believe their son had died. ⁸

Zhang Zhaomei recalled that when she was young, she went to the monument to perform a soul-leading ritual for her father. Years later, land reclamation and port construction caused buildings to obscure the monument that originally faced the sea, making mourning difficult. ⁸

If a family cannot enter a memorial, is it still public memory? It can prove that the government once knew of this tragedy, but it does not necessarily allow subsequent generations to truly encounter this history.

📝 Curator's Note: The longest voyage of the Tay Ping monument was not at sea, but from inside the military camp walls back into the city.

Image: Solomon203, CC BY-SA 4.0, authorized via Wikimedia Commons file page; license terms. Unmodified.

Wikimedia Commons file page

📝 Curator's Note: Images are not the event itself. They only fix what can still be seen today—the monument, the plaque, and the public space—and cannot replace the oral histories of the victims and historical sources.

From Military Camp to Pocket Park

Starting in 2017, under the support of the Keelung City Government's Keelung Historical Scene Recreation Project, efforts were made to retract the surrounding walls of the monument and implement greening. In March 2018, a pocket park was completed, allowing the monument to leave the military zone so that families and the general public could visit. ¹

The Keelung City Tourism official page named this place the "1949 Tay Ping Memorial Park," placing the monument's inscription, the land-sea trail, and the change where families no longer needed to apply for entry into the same site narrative. ²

A 2022 report on recreating historical sites from the National Cultural Heritage and Museum Affairs Bureau recorded that the Keelung City Culture Bureau held reflections at the memorial site and set up a Wall of Names, connecting the Tay Ping with the Shawan Historical and Cultural Park, the French Cemetery, the Fortress Command Headquarters Residence, and other places. ⁹

This change is not merely a landscape project. It transforms a family tragedy once placed in a military space into urban history that anyone can approach. The park did not make the sunken ship surface, but it gave names a position where they could be seen again.

Beyond the Movie, Who Preserves Historical Facts?

After the release of Wu Yusheng's film The Tay Ping in 2014, the event re-entered the public eye. Hakka Television Network reported that families felt a gap between the film's aesthetic love narrative and the real maritime disaster. Wu Suping said, "I originally had high expectations for him (Wu Yusheng), but to say the truth, he wanted to make this film, using a thousand lives to create his aesthetic century-long love drama." ⁷

This is not a demand that history cannot be adapted, but a reminder that adaptations have their own responsibilities: a film can choose the perspective of a couple, but a memorial site must accommodate those who were not written as protagonists. Victim's families, crew members, ticketless passengers, and those on the Jian Yuan cannot merely become a vague "nearly a thousand people" at the end of the credits.

In an interview, Zhang Dian-wan stated that families had been paying respects and offering flowers on January 27 of each year since 2005. She also opposed simplifying the sunken ship into a conspiracy story, believing that the currently available materials better support an understanding of accidents intertwined with institutional failures. This is the judgment of the interviewee, not a conclusion that has already settled all controversies. ⁶

Articles from the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, compilations from the People's Political Consultative Conference website, and reports from the Taipei Times all place overloading, navigation lights, routes, delays, and the order of shipping in wartime into the background of the accident. But their numbers and details are not entirely consistent. ^{3 4 5} This inconsistency itself is part of the Tay Ping memory: archives are incomplete, families preserve fragments separately, and later authors piece these fragments into readable stories.

Why This History Almost Disappeared

The silence of the Tay Ping has several sources. It occurred at a time of regime change and overlapping war, with families scattered in Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas. Litigation crossed different courts, and materials were scattered across different archive systems. In an interview, Zhang Dian-wan said that Shanghai still had some old files, while materials in Taiwan were even fewer. ⁶

It also lacked a single ending easily co-opted by national narratives. Some see it as a history of refuge, others remember shipping responsibilities, some trace through family oral histories, and others heard the ship's name for the first time through a film. These angles overlap but cannot replace each other.

Therefore, the Tay Ping is not simply "forgotten." More accurately, it was long scattered across the lives of different people. Someone saved a photo, someone saved a mother's last words, someone saved a court document, until the monument reopened, these fragments had a place to meet.

📝 Curator's Note: Public memory is not about putting all answers on one wall, but allowing scattered testimonies to finally have a place to face each other.

What Taiwan Received Was Not a Ship

The Tay Ping did not deliver passengers to Keelung, but it delivered a question to Taiwan: How does a society remember those who became part of it before they arrived?

Their stories belong not only to the categories of "Mainlander" or "Chinese immigrants to Taiwan." Keelung's official narrative places the memorial park within the context of Taiwan's immigration history and liberal democracy. This statement does not eliminate the complexity of war, migration, and identity politics, but it points to a specific fact: Taiwan's post-war demographic history is also constituted by those who did not get off the ship. ^{2 9}

If one only writes the Tay Ping as the "Eastern Titanic," readers will remember the collision, the seawater, and death. Walking to the Keelung Memorial Park reveals another ending: families no longer need to apply for entry, a Wall of Names begins at the monument, and public memory finally has an entrance. ^{2 9}

In 1949, the Tay Ping sank near Baijie Mountain. In 2018, the memorial park opened to the public in Keelung. ^{1 2} The former is a journey that did not arrive; the latter allows Taiwan to acknowledge that those who did not go ashore are already part of the history of this island.

Further Reading

Keelung City 1949 Tay Ping Memorial Park

National Cultural Heritage and Museum Affairs Bureau: Finding Ancestors' Names on the Wall of Names

References