The Ministry of Education on Friday gave awards to eight people and two groups for their contributions to promoting local languages.
Lee Hsiu-chien (李修鑑) — the 72-year-old son of Taiwanese lyricist Lee Lin-chiu (李臨秋) — was recognized for promoting Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese).
While receiving his award Lee Hsiu-chien said that to him, speaking Hoklo felt “like singing — it sounds nice and it moves people emotionally.”
Photo: Lin Hsiao-yun, Taipei Times
YouTuber Tsai A-ga (蔡阿嘎), 36, was also recognized for promoting Hoklo, becoming the first person to receive the award for language contributions made through social media.
“I have spoken Hoklo as a habit since I was little. I hope many more people, young and old, can enjoy this language and share my passion for it,” he said.
Deputy Minister of Education Lin Teng-chiao (林騰蛟) said that Friday was significant, as it was International Mother Language Day, and the one-year anniversary of the National Languages Development Act (國家語言發展法).
The ministry has conferred language-contribution awards since 2008, and to date has given awards to 148 people and 35 groups, Lin said.
The ministry commended Tsai — whose real name is Tsai Wei-chia (蔡緯嘉) — for successfully fostering interest in Hoklo among young people.
Tsai, who makes videos on the everyday happenings of his life, has a unique talent through which he has aroused an interest among people in their mother language, it said.
“When I started making videos, I noticed that more and more young Taiwanese were strangers to Hoklo. Starting in 2011, I have made daily videos to teach Hoklo expressions,” Tsai said.
Tsai’s videos have been viewed more than 19 million times.
Lee Lin-chiu — who is best known for his lyrics to the song Longing for the Spring Breeze (望春風) — was heavily influenced by his own father’s passion for Hoklo and Taiwanese culture in general, Lee Hsiu-chien said.
Lee Lin-chiu helped bring back Taiwanese folk songs that had been popular during the 1930s, the ministry said.
The ministry this year also recognized children’s storybook writer Chang Chieh-ming (張捷明).
Chang, who has been called the “Hans Christian Andersen of Hakka children’s stories,” has had a significant effect on children’s education in Taiwan, the ministry said.
Hakka magazine manager and chief editor Chang Yi-pin (張義品) was also recognized, the ministry said, adding that Chang Yi-pin’s Hakka camps have helped a revival of the language in the past few decades.
Chien Shih-lang’s (簡史朗) research on the Thao language and culture was recognized as being crucial in the face of a dwindling Thao population, the ministry said.
It also recognized Sediq community school principal Chan Su-e (詹素娥) for her work in preserving and promoting the Sediq language, and for her work on a “Taiwanese Aboriginal Languages Wiki.”
Group awards were conferred on the Rotary Club of Taipei Metro East and Taipei Municipal Dali Elementary School, the ministry 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
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
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