Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) yesterday paid tribute to a prominent victim of the 228 Massacre, Dr Pan Mu-chih (潘木枝), at a commemorative exhibition held to mark the 65th anniversary of his execution and to honor his dedication to the development of democracy in Taiwan.
Joined by family members of victims of the 228 Massacre, Siew attended the memorial exhibition titled: “The burning incense stick: 65 years of memories of the late doctor Pan Mu-chih,” held by the Memorial Foundation of 228.
Not long after the 228 Incident had begun, Pan conducted negotiations with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) troops at Chiayi Airport on behalf of that city’s 228 Settlement Committee. However, he was detained by government troops during the negotiations and was executed in front of Chiayi Railway Station on Mar.25, 1947.
Photo: Wang Shan-yen, Taipei Times
The 228 Massacre refers to a bloody crackdown by KMT troops on an anti-government uprising that began on Feb. 27, 1947.
“Doctor Pan was not only my life-saver, but my mentor,” Siew said in a memorial film for Pan titled Died for the people, died with honor (為市民而亡，身雖死猶榮), which premiered at the exhibition yesterday.
Siew said Pan’s public execution left a lasting and a distressing memory because he had often received care from the doctor as a child.
“My mother had once said to me that without doctor Pan, I might not have lived to adulthood. He was a kind man not only to me, but also to each and every one of his patients,” Siew said.
Aside from his devotion to his patients, Pan also had been a key influence in Taiwan’s democratic development: He gave his life for Taiwan and for the people of Chiayi, Siew said.
“To commemorate the selfless sacrifice of doctor Pan, we must move forward with Taiwan’s democratic development and set the nation on a better direction,” Siew said.
The commemorative exhibition opened yesterday in the National 228 Memorial Museum and is scheduled to run through April 29.
Translated by Stacy Hsu, Staff Writer
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS