Die a Hero

There's a line in the most recent batman movie where batman remarks that someone can "either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." The line always reminded me of Sun Yat-sen. Sun was the founder of the Republic of China in the time between when the last empire fell apart and when the communists took over. While he was the founder of the Kuomintang, who eventually fought the communists for control of China until retreating to Taiwan, he is remembered very positively in both China and Taiwan. Long time readers of this blog will remember that in my first year in China I went to Nanjing and to Sun Yat-sen's beautiful tomb on the side of a local mountain. Well there was also a big Sun Yat-sen monument in Taipei. While the monument was fairly standard stuff, a big statue in a classical looking building and a couple of honor guards, I've always found Sun really fascinating as he bridges the Taiwan China divide. That being said I think key to his popular is that he had the good sense to die in 1925 before things got bad in China with the civil war and the Japanese. If you look at the beginning of Mao's or Chiang Kai-shek's career you see a lot of high expectations and grand promises that eventually came to nothing but death and disappointment. Sun's legacy remains more positive since he never really had the chance to really screw things up. So while both Mao and Chiang Kai-shek are noted for the atrocities they committed, at least outside their respective countries, Sun is just remembered as fighting against the old imperial system. That how he ended up with memorials in both China and Taiwan.