A man who once was an avid stamp collector has turned his energies toward a different kind of collectible — surnames. Over the past decade, he has collected more than 200 rare Chinese surnames from friends, relatives, coworkers and even strangers he found in a telephone directory.
Kuo Chih-hsiang (郭智祥) collects surnames by sending an envelope to a person with an unusual surname and have him or her write back with a photocopy of any document that can prove that person’s identification.
Kuo said his surname collection began more than 10 years ago when he asked a Chinese man, Yao Ke (要可), with whom he intended to exchange stamps at the time, to prove his unusual family name. A month later, Kuo received a copy of Yao’s ID card via mail, which inspired him to start collecting rare Chinese surnames.
PHOTO: YANG JIOU-YIN, TAIPEI TIMES
At first, Kuo collected unusual surnames from friends who were also stamp collectors by exchanging postal products. Later, he started looking up strange surnames in a telephone directory. However, by doing so, he said he scared many people as he insisted on obtaining photocopies of their ID cards. At long last, he began accepting other types of identification, such as driver’s licenses, student IDs, diplomas, club membership cards, hospital receipts and even bank statements.
To complete the process, Kuo said he would first ask a person with a rare family name for his or her address and then send them a self-stamped envelope. After that, he would either visit in person to pick up the envelope or have the person mail it back.
Some of the rare surnames Kuo has collected include Hu (虎, tiger), Yi (蟻, ant), Shui (水, water), Yun (雲, cloud), Suo (鎖, lock), Dan (但, but) and Mai (買, buy).
Some of the surnames were so rare that the character could not be found on a computer, he said.
Pang Shou-neng (逄守能), a local postmaster in Taichung City, remembered that Kuo had to travel from Taipei to Taichung to meet him to pick up the necessary information for his collection.
“Seeing him so committed, I decided to make friends with him,” Pang said. “But since scams have become so prevalent, if he had asked me for a copy of my ID back then, I wouldn’t have given it to him.”
An elderly woman surnamed Tse (策) told Kuo that very few people had the surname Tse, adding that she was worried it would soon become extinct.
Kuo said this made him realize that his efforts were valuable.
‘LONE WOLF’: The suspect was difficult to locate, as he did not use a cellphone, did not contact family and often lived in abandoned sites or parks, police said Taipei police on Thursday morning arrested a man accused of numerous burglaries and at least 14 incidents of sexual assault spanning more than 20 years, in what might be the nation’s most notorious crime spree in recent years. Sixty-year-old Tu Ming-lang (涂明朗) — who was yesterday placed in judicial detention, after a judge determined he was a flight risk without a fixed address — faces multiple charges of sexual assault and burglary, police said. A task force comprised of various law enforcement agencies arrested Tu as part of an investigation into an April 28 burglary in Daan District (大安), in which a
The majority of parents surveyed in northern Taiwan favor the suspension of all on-site classes at schools from the junior-high level and below amid a surge in domestic COVID-19 infections, parent groups said yesterday. About 84.4 percent of respondents in a survey of 2,912 parents in northern Taiwan, where the outbreak is the most serious, said they supported suspending classes, the Action Alliance on Basic Education, the Taiwan Parents Protect Women and Children Association, and the Taiwan Love Children Association said. The groups distributed questionnaires to parents in New Taipei City, Taipei, Keelung, Taoyuan and Hsinchu city and county from Saturday morning
ASEAN BATTLEGROUND: Japan and Australia could be drawn into Pacific tensions as China sets its sights on the Diaoyutai Islands and further beyond the first island chain Tensions between China and the US in the Indo-Pacific region are expected to intensify, the National Security Bureau and Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, recommending that Taiwan continue to emphasize its shared values and interests to encourage resistance to Chinese aggression. US commitments in the Indo-Pacific region are expected to continue unabated despite the war in Ukraine, as Beijing takes advantage of the conflict to expand its influence in the region, the agencies said in reports delivered to the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Sunday, ahead of a hearing yesterday on regional developments and trends. Although Russia’s invasion of
ONLINE REPORT: Confirmed cases filling out the online contact tracing report can check a box to indicate that a close contact had received a booster dose, an official said The guidelines for diagnosing COVID-19 have been revised to include people aged 65 or older who test positive with a rapid test that is confirmed by a healthcare worker, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 65,794 new local infections. The CECC had first announced the change on Monday, before publishing the new guidelines. Starting today, people aged 65 or older, regardless of whether they are undergoing home quarantine, home isolation or self-disease prevention, can be classified as a confirmed COVID-19 case by a healthcare professional, based on a positive result from an antigen rapid test, said