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228 commemorative events scheduled in Taipei City

The Taipei City Government will host a series of concerts and an art exhibition starting on Tuesday to commemorate the 61st anniversary of the 228 Incident.

Classic Taiwanese songs that were banned by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government during the 1930s to 1950s, including Mending the Net (補破網) and If I Open My Eyes and Minds (阮若打開心內的門窗), will be performed at concerts on Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 pm at City Stage (formerly known as the Metropolitan Hall) on Bade Road.

Thanks to record collector Lin Tai-wei (林太崴), the public will also be able to hear the first Taiwanese song banned by the government in 1934 -- Wandering in the Streets (街頭的流浪) -- using a victrola during the concert.

Sharing his collection of records during a press conference at the 228 Memorial Museum on Friday, Lin said the song was banned because it described the difficulties experienced by people in finding a employment and feeding their families as a result of a sluggish economy.

The event will also feature an art exhibition with 48 paintings collected by a 228 victim's family member, Liao De-cheng (廖德政).

The 228 Incident refers to the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) bloody crackdown on demonstrators and local elite under dictator Chiang Kai-shek's (蔣介石) administration. On the night of Feb. 27, 1947, a woman, named Lin Chiang-mai (林江邁), who had been selling smuggled cigarettes in Taipei, was beaten with a pistol by an agent from the Taiwan Monopoly Bureau.

Lin was left bloody and unconscious on the ground. An angry crowd gathered and turned on the agents, who fired their guns wildly to escape, killing a man named Chen Wen-hsi (陳文溪). When monopoly agents were discovered pistol-whipping two children for a similar offense the following day, an angry crowd beat the agents to death. The incident then sparked island-wide anti-KMT protests and riots.

KMT troops were rushed from China in early March to quell the disturbances and as a result tens of thousands of Taiwanese were killed.

The Taipei City Cultural Affairs Department on Friday invited residents to claim free concert tickets at the department, City Stage or the 228 Memorial Museum.

For more information, call the museum at 02-23897228 ext 214.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
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