The Matsu government unveiled a plan to attract military veterans and their families, the Matsu National Scenic Administration said yesterday.
Lee Chien-hsun (李建勳), a specialist at the administration, said the Lienchiang County Government estimated that approximately 3 million officers and soldiers had served their two-year mandatory military service on the county's islands. While some spent the entire two years in Matsu, others stayed there for a shorter period before transferring to other military bases around the nation.
Lee said that the county hosted a series of events to invite veterans to return for a visit to the military bases where they were once stationed.
“If these former servicemen bring their wives and children back to visit, the number of visitors could potentially top 12 million, or about half of the nation's total population,” he said.
Lee said the military infrastructure built before the central government lifted military control over the island in 1992 was one of Matsu's major tourist attractions.
Matsu, he said, is known for having the highest density of military tunnels in the world, adding that the Council of Cultural Affairs is planning to turn Matsu into a UNESCO World Heritage site along with several other sites around the nation.
Aside from its military legacy, Matsu has gained a reputation among bird watchers as a place to spot the endangered Chinese crested tern. Recently, Matsu's Daciou Island (大丘島) also drew attention after allowing tourists to watch the movement of Formosan Sika deer, Lee said.
The administration has remodeled an abandoned military camp at Da-aoshan (大澳山) on Matsu's Beigan Island (北竿島) and turned it into a War and Peace Memorial Park.
Yesterday, the exhibition center inside the park was opened to the public. Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國), Legislator Tsao Erh-chang (曹爾忠), Lienchiang County Commissioner Yang Sui-sheng (楊綏生) and about 20 veterans were invited to attend the plaque-unveiling ceremony.
Mao said he did his military service in Matsu.
While he was there, he said, he was in charge of drilling the Tangchi Tunnel (塘歧坑道) on Beigan Island, adding that the construction was completed in a year.
Recalling his time in Matsu, Mao said that he always trembled at the thought of bringing supplies to Liangdao (亮島), one of the smaller islands.
“It was such a rough boat ride,” he said. “You would start feeling nauseous before you reached the destination. The vomit and the horrible feeling you felt made you want to shoot yourself.”
Mao said he was also interested in Matsu's architectural style, which comes from the northern part of China's Fujian Province.
Mao said weather has restricted the development of tourism in Matsu because airports there are shut down whenever visibility is low. Many tourists have been afraid to come for fear their trips could be delayed by weather.
“If we emphasize Matsu as a mysterious and unique island and try to control the number of tourists in a sustainable manner, it will eventually help build up the island's reputation,” Mao said.
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