No trip to Chiayi County is complete without an afternoon tour of the campus of National Chung Cheng University, considered to be one of the most beautiful schools nationwide and one of the most sought-after locations for an engagement photo shoot.
Located in the county’s Minsyong Township (民雄), the university was converted from a sugarcane farm in 1987 after the Ministry of Education gave the green light for its establishment.
The school was designed by Taiwanese architect Lee Tsu-yuan (李祖原), also the designer of the Taipei 101 skyscraper, and was modeled on the University of Cambridge in England.
Photo: CNA
It was chosen as the most beautiful college in the nation in an online poll conducted by search engine Yahoo in 2012.
National Chung Cheng University became a tourist hot spot after it was featured in the popular Taiwanese soap opera Meteor Garden (流星花園), which was based on the Japanese comic book of the same name and was first aired by Taiwan’s Chinese Television System in 2001.
Meteor Garden centers on the romance between a poor girl and a member of a group of four snobbish rich men at an elite high school.
The university made it onto the big screen recently after Taiwanese director Umin Boya (馬志翔) filmed his latest movie, Kano, at the school’s baseball field.
Kano features the story of a high-school baseball team composed of Taiwanese, Japanese and Aboriginal boys in Chiayi in 1929.
After Boya wrapped up filming for the movie, the school subsequently constructed an exhibition hall, named the Sport Story Museum (運動故事館), to preserve some of the movie sets and open them up to the public.
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
Instead of threatening tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, the US should try to reinforce cooperation with Taiwan on semiconductor development to take on challenges from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a Taiwanese think tank said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose across-the-board import duties of 32 percent on Taiwan-made goods and levy a separate tariff on semiconductors, which Taiwan is hoping to avoid. The Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), a National Science and Technology Council think tank, said that US efforts should focus on containing China’s semiconductor rise rather than impairing Taiwan. “Without
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man