Tsinghua University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences on Monday held a seminar on organic farming and gave away pickled plums from the school’s Mei Yi-chi (梅貽琦) memorial plum garden.
Mei, who lived from 1889 to 1962, served as minister of education and as president of the university in China and later in Taiwan.
Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) attended the seminar, where the school gave out some of the 100 jars of pickled plums that it had produced.
Photo: Hung Mei-hsiu, Taipei Times
The school said it hopes that the plums, along with other locally grown organic products — such as “leopard cat” rice from Miaoli and Murcott (茂谷) orange juice from Taichung — would bring new opportunities for the nation’s farmers.
The plums made quite an impression at the Bamboo Dragonfly Green Market, a market near the university where farmers showcase organic products, the school said.
It was the first time that the university had held such a seminar, giving it special meaning, sociology professor Wang Chun-hsiu (王俊秀) said.
The plums also had special meaning, as Mei was a big proponent of family farmers participating in a green farming economy, he said.
In the past, people were free to pick the plums in the memorial garden when they ripened in March, but this year, the school harvested them and had an organic farmer pickle them, Wang said.
Chen discussed government policies for agriculture and the promotion of organic farming.
Chen said that he was impressed with the green market, paying particular attention to the Miaoli rice and soy bean products that were grown in conditions friendly to leopard cats.
The farms that grew the products give leopard cats free rein over the fields, allowing them to eat what they want and harvesting what remains.
This approach to farming is an excellent example of how humans and protected species can best coexist, Chen said.
One aim of the seminar was to persuade young people to return to rural areas, discuss how farming and entrepreneurship are promoted in various counties and municipalities, and promote the farmers’ markets held in Hsinchu, such as the Bamboo Dragonfly Green Market and the markets in the Sanda (三大) area and Siangshan District (香山), Wang 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