A group of Buddhist volunteers led by Wang Yi-sheng (王義生) visited Yunlin County’s Gukeng Township (古坑) on Monday morning to help clean the bones of unclaimed or unidentified bodies at the public cemetery, blessing them in a rite they say allows their spirits could move on.
The Chipingchiu (崎坪坵) public cemetery was busy on Monday morning as people placed bones from urns onto canvas-covered ground, while others cleaned them with brushes.
Gukeng Township Office official Tseng Chun-hun (曾春渾) said the construction of the public cemetery and the Formosa Freeway overpass two decades earlier unearthed about 100 unidentified and unclaimed remains.
Photo: Huang Shu-li, Taipei Times
“We have been storing the bones in a shed next to the cemetery since unearthing them,” Tseng said, adding that the Wang family learned about the remains after attending a ceremony at the cemetery in 2014.
Wang asked members of a Bhuddist group based in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (岡山) to help him clean the remains and put the spirits to rest, Tseng said.
The group of about 200 members is based in Gangshan District’s Jhongsiao Borough (忠孝里), Wang said.
The group has made visits across the nation over the past decade to help clean unidentified or unclaimed remains, Wang said.
The group’s members are between five and 80 years old, Wang said.
The group volunteered to help after the tower holding the remains of Minsyong Township (民雄) residents collapsed in the 921 Earthquake, Wang said
It took the group more than three months to reassemble the bones of 9,000 people who had been entombed within the tower, Wang said.
The magnitude 7.3 earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999 killed 2,456 people and injured 10,718 and destroyed 53,661 homes with 53,024 damaged. Total damages were estimated at NT$300 billion (US$8.92 billion).
A hair stylihest surnamed Chen (陳), 25, went with her family to help clean the bones.
She said it was her second time on such a trip and that her first trip had been out of curiosity.
When asked if she was afraid of coming into contact with the remains of the deceased, Chen said the act was for the good of others and she was not afraid.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
AUSTRALIA, CANADA, JAPAN: The framework is a vital platform for sharing Taiwan’s expertise and forging new partnerships to address challenges, the groups said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), and the representative offices of Australia, Canada and Japan in Taiwan yesterday issued a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to the Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF) and their hope that the partnership would be expanded. Ahead of the GCTF’s 10th anniversary on June 1, the joint statement was issued by Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), AIT Director Raymond Greene, Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association Chief Representative Kazuyuki Katayama, Australian Office in Taipei Representative Robert Fergusson and Canadian Trade Office in Taipei Executive Director Jim Nickel. Since 2015, more than 87
RSS