For 65-year-old historian and Taipei resident Chuang Yung-ming (莊永明), the rapid development and transformation of Taipei City throughout the years is best observed in bus tickets.
In the 1940s, when there was only one city government-run bus company, "bus ladies" on the bus would punch passengers' tickets, and the tickets had ads or route maps on the back, said Chuang, a committee member at the Taipei City Archive.
Long before Taipei Smart Card Corp began selling IC tokens at MRT stations this year, Taipei city's first air-conditioned bus "Tzu Chiang Bus" (
PHOTO: LIN HSIU-TZU, TAIPEI TIMES
"It is the small things in daily life that truly document the development of the city," Chuang said, as he displayed his collection of municipal bus tickets dating back to the Japanese colonial period at an exhibition, which opened on Friday, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the city's elevation to the status of special municipality.
In light of Taipei's rapid development, the central government elevated the city to the status of special municipality on July 1, 1967.
Directly administered by the central government, Taipei's jurisdiction was expanded to 272km2 with the number of residents increasing to 1.45 million. In 1990, under mayor Wu Poh-hsiung (
Taipei covers an area of 271km2 and has a population of more than 2.6 million.
In the 40 years following its elevation, Taipei was governed by 12 mayors: Kao Yu-shu (
The mayorship was an appointed position from the moment it became a centrally administered municipality until 1994, when a public election was held. Chen became the first mayor since the city was granted Special Municipality Status to be directly elected by Taipei residents.
Having worked under five former mayor administrations, former Taipei City government secretariat Ma Cheng-feng (馬鎮方) said the city government renewed municipal development plans every six years and that he was glad to see the rapid developments in recent years.
Taipei resident Chuang Mei-feng (
"The MRT made my life so much easier and convenient," she said, but added that the expansion of the city also took away many old memories with the disappearance of Jiancheng Circle (
The circle, located at the intersection of Chongqing N Road and Nanjing W Road, was closed last July after a NT$200 million (US$6.17 million) reconstruction project initiated by the city government failed to attract sufficient crowds to regain market competitiveness.
Forty years ago, Mengjia (艋舺) and Dadaocheng (大稻埕) were the busiest sectors of the city, until the east district and Xinyi District gradually replaced them and became the business centers they are today.
Kao privatized bus companies during his term in 1968 to allow for further development.
The construction of the Feitsui Reservoir -- the source of Taipei's drinking water -- was completed under Lee's administration, while Huang established the city's biggest park, Taipei Daan Park, and the first MRT line, the Muzha line, in 1994.
Under the Chen administration, from 1994 to 1998, the Muzha line and the Tamsui Line began operation, and Taipei New Park was renamed Taipei 228 Memorial Park, while Jieshou Road became Ketagalan Boulevard.
During his term from 1998 until lat year, Ma Ying-jeou initiated the trash collection fee policy and established the Neihu Science Park and Nangang Software Park.
In a documentary produced by Taipei City Archives to commemorate the anniversary, Chen said his earliest memories of the city were characterized by his awe at the the city's energy and the smell of diesel oil from the buses.
"Taipei is constantly transforming, and I wanted Taipei to be a friendly city with plenty of opportunities and diversity," Chen said in the documentary.
Chuang Yung-ming said the greatest losses suffered by the city over the years were the human element and historical relics.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching