If the National Taiwan Museum can't take good care of its Aboriginal relics, then the prized objects should be put into better hands -- those of the Aborigines' themselves -- two lawmakers said yesterday.
"Noting the museum's dismal record of care for the relics, we, the Aborigines, wish to care for these treasures ourselves," said DPP legislator Chen Tao-ming (陳道明), a descendant of the Taroko tribe.
"Since there is yet to be a public museum dedicated exclusively to Aborigines," he added, "we strongly recommend that one be built to display the arts and cultures of the land's earliest settlers."
Chen made the comments yesterday after a tour of the museum's storage rooms with independent lawmaker Kao-Chin Su-mei (高金素梅), a descendant of the Atayal tribe.
Both lawmakers voiced their dissatisfaction over the way the museum managed its collection in the storage rooms.
"While some storage rooms are in good condition," Chen said, "the condition of some others is simply quite ridiculous."
Kao echoed Chen's remarks, noting that the museum's Hsintien storage room lacks decent care and "that dust and spider webs can be seen everywhere."
"If tribal elders came and saw the way our ancestral relics are being kept here, they would definitely feel heartache," Kao said.
Kao added that it was regrettable to see these relics, left behind by their ancestors decades ago, kept in such miserable condition and under such dismal inventory-monitoring practices.
Kao was referring to the fact, disclosed by DPP legislator Chen Chin-jun (
"If the museum can't take adequate care of its Aboriginal collection, then they should let us Aborigines care for them ourselves in our own museum," said Kao.
In response to the dissatisfaction both Chen and Kao expressed over the way the museum has managed its collection, James An (安奎), director of the National Taiwan Museum, said that the museum currently has a task force taking inventory of the relics.
"Aside from improving the condition of the storage rooms, we hope to have preliminary inventory results within the next three months," said An, adding that any irregularities found during the inventory process would be reported to experts for further investigation.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying
RSS