Neglected houses built during the Japanese colonial era in what is today the Jhongjheng section of New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) and were recognized as historic buildings in 2011 are being restored.
Information provided by the Ministry of Culture’s Bureau of Cultural Heritage shows that the houses were used by local government officials when Tamsui Port was an important trade hub. Located near the mouth of the Tamsui River (淡水河) and looking at Guanyin Mountain (觀音山), the residences were in an ideal spot for officials of the time and their families, the bureau said.
Two of the houses still have people living in them, while the rest are abandoned, the bureau said, adding that the facade of an abandoned house on Zhongzheng Road is damaged, showing brick walls and discolored stucco, and is covered in vines.
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Taipei Times
New Taipei City Cultural Affairs Bureau Chief Secretary Weng Yu-chin (翁玉琴) said that although only that unit is specifically mentioned in the bureau’s documents on historic residences, all of the old Japanese houses in the area are categorized as historic buildings.
Weng said that all of the units will be considered for restoration, including the two that have residents, as they are under the management of the city government’s secretariat.
New Taipei City Urban Redevelopment Office Recommendations Section Chief Chang Tuan-i (張端益) said that the administrative body responsible for the historic buildings will relocate and shift responsibilities, which will allow a new office to take over.
Chang said that the money for restoring the residences can come from a fund for the development of creative and artistic spaces, which he said encompasses the restoration of the Japanese-era houses.
However, Chang said “as these are historic properties, there will be limitations on how the space can be used from the perspective of cultural heritage preservation.”
Chang said that research must be conducted to determine how the space can be used within that framework.
“Project specifics, in terms of a timeframe and details, have yet to be proposed,” Chang said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching