The proprietor of Pingtung City’s colonial-era former Yamato Hotel (大和旅社) said he would be refurbishing the building without applying for public subsidies.
Built in 1935, the Yamamoto was a Japanese luxury hotel situated near Pingtung Railway Station that served the colonial military and business elite. The post-WWII slump hit the hotel hard and it closed its doors in 1999 after decades of decline, selling the property to a cake shop.
In 2014, the Pingtung County Government listed the former hotel as a cultural heritage site.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
Hsu Yuan-shun (許源順), chairman of Christmas lights manufacturer Yuanshuan Industries Co and a self-described lover of old buildings, said he purchased the deeds for NT$90 million (US$2.9 million) from the building’s 30 owners.
Hsu said that while he could apply for a subsidy to cover 95 percent of the cost of restauration under the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保存法), prefers not to have to deal with government red tape and feels that following legal requirements for restoring a heritage site would impose unnecessary delays.
He said he would rather repair the structure as soon as possible on his own dime.
Photo courtesy of Yamato Hotel
The restoration project began on Aug. 8 and would involve input from Divooe Zein Architects executive architectural designer Divooe Zein (曾志偉) and historical structure restoration expert Lin Shih-chao (林世超), he said.
Repairing the old structure has proved harder than anticipated, Hsu said, adding that installing modern elevators, bathing facilities and lighting has been a challenge.
The ceramic tiles used in the original structure, which he is trying to source, are mostly out of production and their manufacture has become something of a lost art, Hsu said.
After refurbishment, the building is to feature a coffee house on the first floor, a hostel on the second floor and an activity space on the first floor, he said.
“Restoring the hotel is not about earning money, but about leaving something for future generations,” Hsu said, adding that he hopes the building will become self-sustaining.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods