A traveling exhibition, featuring the US’ influence in Taiwan during a turbulent historical era, opened in Taipei yesterday on the last leg of its tour.
Titled “American Footsteps in Taiwan, 1950-1980,” the exhibition includes historical photos, artifacts, documentaries and oral interviews that reflect a close relationship between the US and Taiwan during a period of political instability around the world.
The exhibition, organized by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), shows the influence the US has had in the development of Taiwan’s economy, education, military forces and public health.
“It reminds us of the US’ aid to Taiwan in the past, as our memory of those periods is fading away,” said Ivan Wang, 33, a Taiwanese visitor to the exhibition.
A special feature of the Taipei exhibition is that it is being held at the National 228 Memorial Museum, the former site of the United States Information Service (USIS). The USIS, later known as AIT’s American Cultural Center, was located at the site from 1959 to 2002.
During the Cold War when Taiwan was under martial law, the USIS served as a prominent place for cultural development. It stored a huge collection of English books, movies and exhibitions. This offered Taiwanese students access to knowledge from the West and a chance to improve their English skills.
The touring exhibition, which started in December last year and is scheduled to run through Dec. 31, is being held at the National Central Library in Taipei and at other venues in New Taipei City (新北市), Hsinchu, Taichung and Taitung.
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
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
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