New ideas and practices are needed to imporve the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保存法), academics and professionals said at a national forum yesterday, held by the Ministry of Culture to seek public opinions on the nation’s cultural policy.
There are currently 744 designated monuments, 1,031 historical buildings and 42 heritage sites in Taiwan. Since its implementation in 1982, the law has been amended six times.
Taiwan’s way of dealing with cultural preservation is materialistic and focuses only on “objects,” National Cheng Kung University’s professor Fu Chao-ching (傅朝卿) said.
Photo: Liao Yao-tung, Taipei Times
“We spend huge amounts of money restoring buildings, but pay no attention to people,” he said. “It is an elites’ heritage building, since you can’t hear voices from inside.”
National Taiwan University’s Graduate School of Building and Planning professor Hsia Chu-joe (夏鑄九) said this object-obsessed thinking prevents Taiwanese from seeing culture as alive.
“The idea of objects is the origin of Western modernity. This hegemonic discourse views culture preservation in a materialistic manner, as grand monuments,” he added. “Material and non-material cultural heritage is an integral whole. Only the so-called ‘experts’ can’t see it clearly.”
Hsia also said that future amendments to the law should encourage participation from local communities and non-governmental organizations and take into consideration the preservation of collective memories, grassroots identities, traditional living and craftsmanship. Otherwise, it will be difficult to properly preserve sites like Ri Xing Typography (日星鑄字行), one of the last factories in Taiwan to produce traditional Chinese-character lead type, and the Yehyin (野銀) village of the Tao Tribe on Orchid island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼), he said.
Meanwhile, Wang Hui-chun (王惠君), a professor at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, said the notion of culture as a living thing is important when it comes to preserving Aboriginal cultures.
“We have to think what we want to preserve,” Wang said. “Culture that is constantly changing or items in people’s houses?”
Others urged the government to establish a set of operational guidelines for the implementation of the act so that there are standards for operation.
“When it comes to what to do and how to do things, there is a vast difference among local governments and committee members,” Fu said. “There are many things left unexplained, so people have to make their own decisions that differ from each other and sometimes conflict with international conventions.”
Having been isolated from the international system since its withdrawal from the UN in 1971, Taiwan has a lot of catching up to do to meet international standards, Fu added.
To archeologist and Academia Sinica research fellow Liu Yi-chang (劉益昌), the act reflects a Sino-centric way of thinking.
“Ninety-five percent of the designated historical sites are Han Chinese. Yet Han Chinese heritage only makes up for 1 percent of the human history on the island,” Liu said. “The history of human activities in Taiwan dates back to 50,000 years ago. If we think about it, then we will find the 42 designated heritage sites are far too few.”
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,