The Hwa Kang Museum is up Yangmingshan, Taipei, in a corner of the Chinese Culture University campus. Established in 1971 by the university's founder Zhang Qi-yun (
This four-floor building has approximately 549m2 of
exhibition space.
PHOTO: Courtesy of the Hwa Kang Museum
The first floor gallery is open for exhibitions to both campus artists and members of the public. The third floor is set to display pieces from the museum's
permanent collections of folk arts and Chinese ceramics. The fourth floor exhibition area is designated for large-scale, semester-long thematic presentations of fine arts. The museum's permanent
collection of modern and
contemporary Chinese paintings and calligraphy contains more than 4,000 masterpieces by Chinese artists. Big-name artists include Wang Yang-ming (
In its Chinese ceramics
collection, porcelain and pottery objects are covered through the ages, from the Neolithic Yang-shao culture to the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The folk art and woodblock print collections range from aged furniture, to embroidery, woodblock prints, temple and
monastery art and Aboriginal
cultural artifacts. All these remarkable collections require at least a half-day trip for serious art lovers.
Currently on the fourth floor, curator Margaret Chen (
The late Zhang Shu-qi never set foot in Taiwan in his lifetime and is thus unknown to the general public. Yet, his outstanding skill at drawing pigeons has been lauded by the late Xu Bei-hong (
Born in 1900, Zhang painted the 3m x 3m Hundred Doves in 1941, when China was being attacked by the Japanese. Applying olive trees and azalea flowers as a background, the painting vividly depicts 100 or more doves, each with different expressions. The painting suggests the artist's desire for peace at a time when the clouds of war were gathering.
The painting was subsequently presented to former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt as a gift in commemoration of his third
presidential inauguration. It was displayed in the White House and later became part of the permanent collection of the former president's library.
Zhang was a talented landscape and birds-and-flower painter. One daring approach that Zhang adopted was to use colored Chinese painting papers, instead of normal white ones, for many of his works done in the US.
"He developed a preference for using powdered lead white and red pigment on colored paper. His colors thus became extremely eye-catching," Margaret Chen said. Fang Yi-min
(方亦民), widow of Zhang Shu-qi, donated 40 of her late husband's works to the university in 1969, after Zhang passed away in 1957.
Zhang Shu-qi expresses his desire for peace through painting doves.
What was the population of Taiwan when the first Negritos arrived? In 500BC? The 1st century? The 18th? These questions are important, because they can contextualize the number of babies born last month, 6,523, to all the people on Taiwan, indigenous and colonial alike. That figure represents a year on year drop of 3,884 babies, prefiguring total births under 90,000 for the year. It also represents the 26th straight month of deaths exceeding births. Why isn’t this a bigger crisis? Because we don’t experience it. Instead, what we experience is a growing and more diverse population. POPULATION What is Taiwan’s actual population?
For the past five years, Sammy Jou (周祥敏) has climbed Kinmen’s highest peak, Taiwu Mountain (太武山) at 6am before heading to work. In the winter, it’s dark when he sets out but even at this hour, other climbers are already coming down the mountain. All of this is a big change from Jou’s childhood during the Martial Law period, when the military requisitioned the mountain for strategic purposes and most of it was off-limits. Back then, only two mountain trails were open, and they were open only during special occasions, such as for prayers to one’s ancestors during Lunar New Year.
A key feature of Taiwan’s environmental impact assessments (EIA) is that they seldom stop projects, especially once the project has passed its second stage EIA review (the original Suhua Highway proposal, killed after passing the second stage review, seems to be the lone exception). Mingjian Township (名間鄉) in Nantou County has been the site of rising public anger over the proposed construction of a waste incinerator in an important agricultural area. The township is a key producer of tea (over 40 percent of the island’s production), ginger and turmeric. The incinerator project is currently in its second stage EIA. The incinerator
It sounded innocuous enough. On the morning of March 12, a group of Taichung political powerbrokers held a press conference in support of Deputy Legislative Speaker Johnny Chiang’s (江啟臣) bid to win the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) primary in the Taichung mayoral race. Big deal, right? It was a big deal, one with national impact and likely sent shivers down the spine of KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文). Who attended, who did not, the timing and the messaging were all very carefully calibrated for maximum impact — a masterclass in political messaging. In October last year, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
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