The Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday that it is scheduled to open 18 lighthouses to the public to turn them into tourist attractions.
At the beginning of this year, the management of the lighthouses was transferred from the Ministry of Finance’s Customs Administration to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Maritime and Port Bureau.
Bureau Director-General Chi Wen-jong (祁文中), whose father worked as a keeper at the Chihou Lighthouse (旗后燈塔) in Greater Kaohsiung, said that the nation has 35 lighthouses, 34 of which are still in use and 11 are open to visitors.
“Tourists are banned from entering most lighthouses to prevent them from damaging lighthouse equipment. The facilities inside the lighthouse may not be safe for visitors, either,” Chi said. “However, they are allowed to enter the lighthouse grounds and take pictures. Some of the lighthouses do not have gates, so visitors can roam in the parks surrounding them.”
The bureau also announced during a ceremony yesterday that the Baisha Cape (白沙岬) Lighthouse in Taoyuan County and the Green Island Lighthouse are now open to visitors, while five more lighthouses would be opened over the next three years.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) found through her research into the nation’s lighthouses a list of lighthouse keepers published by the Customs Administration in 1945, on which the name of Chi Wen-jong’s father, Chi Da (祁達), was listed.
She framed the list and presented it to him at the ceremony.
Chi Wen-jong said that he was “very surprised” to see the document and he knew very little about his father’s days as a lighthouse keeper.
“All I know is that my father was among the first group of local lighthouse keepers trained by the Customs Office in Shanghai and that he was later assigned to guard the lighthouse in Kaoshiung [now Greater Kaohsiung] for two years,” he said.
The nation’s lighthouses were all run by Britons at one point. His father would use gestures to communicate with his British colleagues, Chi Wen-jong said.
He said that his father later changed jobs, joining a shipping firm because life as a lighthouse keeper did not combine well with raising a family. Chi Da died at the age of 78.
To enrich lighthouse tours, Chi Wen-jong said that he plans to find other lighthouse keepers and ask them to tell their stories.
“My father kept an oil lamp that he used at work. I am sure his colleagues also kept similar items. Rather than letting family members throw these items away, we can collect them for an exhibit. We can also launch an oral history project to interview retired lighthouse keepers,” Chi said.
Baisha Cape was built more than 100 years ago with red bricks held together by a mixture of sticky rice, dark brown sugar and lime.
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck Chiayi County at 4:37pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 36.3km southeast of Chiayi County Hall at a depth of 10.4km, CWA data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Chiayi County, Tainan and Kaohsiung on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Pingtung, Taitung, Hualien, Changhua, Nantou and Penghu counties, the data
The Supreme Court today rejected an appeal filed by former Air Force officer Shih Chun-cheng (史濬程), convicted of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) espionage, finalizing his sentence at two years and two months for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法). His other ruling, a ten-month sentence for an additional contravention, was meanwhile overturned and sent to the Taichung branch of the High Court for retrial, the Supreme Court said today. Prosecutors have been notified as Shih is considered a flight risk. Shih was recruited by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence officials after his retirement in 2008 and appointed as a supervisor