Fifty years after it was renamed to conform to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) political ideology, local councilors in Sanmin Township (三民), Kaohsiung County, yesterday unanimously voted for a new Aboriginal name for the township, effective Jan. 1.
"The seven-member township council has ... unanimously agreed to change the township name to Namasiya Township (那瑪夏)," Mayor Husong Istanda told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview.
"Namasiya" is a southern Tsou Aboriginal name for the Nanzihsian River (
"Our ancestors called this place Namasiya, after the river, more than a hundred years ago," Husong said.
The three villages will also have their original names restored: Nanisaru (
Home to Aborigines of the Bunun and southern Tsou tribes, Sanmin was called Mayatsun under the Japanese rule and then Maya Township (
A similar process took place in Kaohsiung County's two other Aboriginal townships, now called Taoyuan (
The three villages in the township were renamed Mintsu ("nationalism," 民族), Minchuan ("democracy," 民權) and Minsheng ("livelihood," 民生) at the same time.
In recent years, locals have discussed the viability of changing the name, but there was disagreement on which one the township should adopt.
"Although we all knew that our ancestors called this place Namasiya, the only name we could find on written documents was `Maya Township,'" Husong said. "So we planned to use the name `Maya Township' at first -- but many residents objected."
A 34-member name restoration commission then looked for a way to resolve the dispute, Husong said.
"Finally, the commission found historical documents dating back to the Qing Dynasty with the name `Namasiya' written on them," Hu said.
"As everybody agreed on the name, we submitted it [to the township council]." he said.
The Democratic Progressive Party-controlled Kaohsiung County Government has supported the move, though the residents of Sanmin Township, like other Aboriginal townships, have been strong supporters of KMT candidates in national elections.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods