Kaohsiung’s Yongan District Office (永安) and a local non-governmental organization (NGO) have invited students and staff from the Tungfang Design Institute to help decorate old houses in the city’s Yantian Borough (鹽田) to promote the former salt- producing community as a cultural tourism destination.
Houses on Sinsing Street (新興街) have been painted with murals depicting scenes from the township’s bygone days of salt manufacturing, such as workers laboring on the salt pans and police chasing salt thieves.
Netizens have praised the work, calling Yantian “Taiwan’s most dreamy salt village.”
Photo: Su Fu-nan, Taipei Times
Yongan District Administrator Ling Wen-chi (林文祺) said that the borough’s old-fashioned red-brick houses and their saddle-shaped roofs are particularly appealing to tourists.
According to Yantian Borough Warden Huang Fu-lai (黃福來), the township’s first residents came from Tainan’s Beimen District (北門) en masse to work on the salt pans.
At the economic height of Yantian, which means “salt pan,” 3,000 residents lived and worked in the township, which had houses for salt workers, a town commissary, library, kindergarten, barber shops and an infirmary, Huang said.
Photo: Su Fu-nan, Taipei Times
About 30 years ago, Taiwan Power Co bought the salt pans from Taiwan Salt Co to build the Hsinta Power Plant, closing the once lively salt town in the process, Huang said, adding that with their livelihoods gone, the townspeople moved out, leaving just over 100 people in the community.
A cultural tourism event titled “Colorful Yongan: Coloring Salt Village” was jointly held by the Yantian District Office and Yantian Township Development Association — a local NGO — on Sunday, which drew a large crowd.
Visitors queued to visit the township’s last running gamadiam (柑仔店) — the Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) word for an old-fashioned corner store.
Yantian resident Wu Jung-cheng (吳榮正), 60, said the gamadiam has been open since his childhood and “represents a cherished shared memory to all of Yantian’s residents.”
As a part of its cultural tourism program, the district office has also prepared the Salt Village Artifacts Exhibition and visitors who want to see for themselves what work on the salt pans was really like can try their hand pushing around salt carts laden with a worker’s average load.
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Chinese spouse and influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China videos that threaten national security, the National Immigration Agency confirmed today. Guan Guan has said many controversial statements in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” and expressing hope for expedited reunification. The agency last year received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification. After verifying the reports, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and explain her actions. Guan
GIVE AND TAKE: Blood demand continues to rise each year, while fewer young donors are available due to the nation’s falling birthrate, a doctor said Blood donors can redeem points earned from donations to obtain limited edition Formosan black bear travel mugs, the Kaohsiung Blood Center said yesterday, as it announced a goal of stocking 20,000 units of blood prior to the Lunar New Year. The last month of the lunar year is National Blood Donation Month, when local centers seek to stockpile blood for use during the Lunar New Year holiday. The blood demand in southern Taiwan — including Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Chiayi, Pingtung, Penghu and Taitung counties — is about 2,000 units per day, the center said. The donation campaign aims to boost
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) said a magnitude 4.9 earthquake that struck off the coast of eastern Taiwan yesterday was an independent event and part of a stress-adjustment process. The earthquake occurred at 4:47pm, with its epicenter at sea about 45.4km south of Yilan County Hall at a depth of 5.9km, the CWA said. The quake's intensity, which gauges the actual effects of a temblor, was highest in several townships in Yilan and neighboring Hualien County, where it measured 4 on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the CWA said. Lin Po-yu (林柏佑), a division chief at the CWA's Seismological Center, told a news conference
RSS