Cultural researchers yesterday presented new oral history about Taiwanese independence activist Chen Chih-hsiung (陳智雄), who was executed during the White Terror era, while calling for more research on his life.
Chen was born on Feb. 18, 1916, in Pingtung County during the Japanese colonial era, but was executed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on May 28, 1963, for his promotion of Taiwanese independence.
Chen spoke Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, English, Indonesian and Malayan and was appointed by the Japanese government to work as a translation officer in Indonesia during World War II, according to a collection of papers published in 2016 by Taiwanese National Congress chairperson Ted Lau (劉重義).
After the war, Chen stayed in Indonesia, where he had a jewelry business, and married an Indonesian woman, Chen Ying-niang (陳英娘), in 1946, the collection said.
At a forum in Taipei yesterday, National Chiao Tung University Department of Humanities and Social Sciences associate professor Tsai Yen-ling (蔡晏霖) shared an interview she conducted with Chen Ying-niang in Indonesia in 2008.
Chen Ying-niang told her that she had had no idea about her ex-husband’s involvement in any political campaigns, and that he had often returned home in the early morning after having played mahjong with friends all night, Tsai said.
When she was pregnant with their first child, he was often away, Tsai said, adding that he had told her to remarry, knowing that their marriage would not continue.
The two met in Jakarta in 1950 after she remarried and Chen Chih-hsiung appeared to not want relations with other people, Tsai said.
Regarding Chen Chih-hsiung aiding Indonesian independence, the complex relations between Indonesia and its maritime occupier, Japan, and the larger international context of the 1940s must be considered, Tsai said.
Chen Chih-hsiung was kidnapped from Japan by KMT agents in the 1950s, US political activist Linda Gail Arrigo said, adding that some might want to sue the Japanese government for illegally extraditing the man.
Wu Ping-chung (吳秉中), graduate student in Taipei National University of the Arts’ Department of Filmmaking, said he plans to produce a 25 minute film that will dramatize the martyr’s life.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
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
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to