When Portuguese navigators happened across Taiwan in the 16th century, they were delighted by Taiwan's topography, dubbing it "Ilha Formosa" -- the beautiful island.
But things have changed a lot since then.
"From all that I have seen, Taiwan is not a beautiful island anymore. The environment is being overrun by development, with cement surrounding river banks and coastlines. I feel a lot of pain over the way the country is being seriously damaged," Chi Po-lin (齊柏林) said.
Chi Po-lin is a seasoned photographer who has been shooting Taiwan from helicopters high up in the sky for 12 years.
He is employed by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and does assignments for National Geographic magazine.
Putting Taiwan on film was something that started out as a hobby for Chi, but his hobby soon transformed into something that aroused deep emotions.
"At first I wanted to shoot beautiful scenery, but later I found there were more ugly things than beautiful things to shoot, so I ended up mostly shooting ugly things," Chi said.
A new project Chi is planning will make a record of the real face of Taiwan. The project has won support from Diageo Taiwan's Keep Walking Fund, receiving NT$1 million yesterday.
"I want to use the money to shoot the Tamsui River (
Spirits giant Diageo is the company behind the names Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff and Baileys. It accepted local applications from from September last year for funds to "realize their dreams." Yesterday, five winners received at least NT$1 million each. Another five received funding to enrol in courses at Cambridge University.
Wei Yi-tzu (
Wei said that when she first entered the community, she was surprised by the gap in living standards that existed between the city area and the indigenous village, and wondered why people living in the same country were not enjoying the same resources.
So she decided to do something to fill that gap.
"I am finding that tourism can only help the local economy temporarily. Only with education can the children get a better future," she said.
Wei found that the children in the settlement were not very interested in studying, so she came up with the idea to build an open-space library to spark interest in reading.
"My plan is to have the parents use local materials to build the library. That way I can get the parents involved in their children's education, and they will appreciate the library more," she said.
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