Who are the people who established the foundations of Taiwan's modernization at the beginning of the 20th century? Who are the heroes of Taiwan's fight against the Japanese colonial regime? Who are the foreigners who showed more love for this land than many Taiwanese? It is their story that will be told in a TV series titled A Century of Outstanding People in Taiwan (台灣百年人物誌) to air on the Public Television Service (PTS) starting Tuesday.
It took PTS more than two years to produce such a large-scale historical documentary series. It is the first time PTS has chosen to air a documentary series during its prime time 8pm to 9pm, Monday to Friday time slot.
Thirty influential people from the last century are to be featured in the series, with each episode featuring one person's life. The first two episodes feature political movement pioneers Lin Hsien-tang (林獻堂) and Chiang Wei-shui (蔣渭水). In the 1920s, under Japanese rule, the two set up the Taiwan National Council and the Taiwan People's Party respectively, the first political parties to be established in Taiwan. They were the first people who sought to lift the status of Taiwanese during the Japanese occupation period through the creation of democratic political movements.
PHOTO COURTESY OF PTS
Lin also set up the Taiwan Culture Association which brought together Taiwan's cultural and intellectual elite in a forum for the promotion of Taiwanese culture.
Also featured in the series is George Leslie Mackay the first missionary to work in northern Taiwan. His name is still common currency among Taiwanese, associated as it is with the Mackay Memorial Hospitals. Less well known are his contributions to modern education in Taiwan.
For the first time in this type of historical documentary, three Japanese have been included on the honor roll. They include Shimpei Goto, who was the first Japanese governor of Taiwan. It was he who commissioned the first large-scale survey of Taiwan's folk culture. He also established the foundations of Taiwan's modern railway and industry.
Then there is Yoichi Hatta, a Japanese engineer who spent 20 years building the Chiayi-Tainan canal, at the time the largest irrigation project in Asia.
This project transformed the area covered by thecounties of Chiayi and Tainan from barren wilderness to the largest rice provider in Southeast Asia.
Finally there is Kanori Ino, who was the first anthropologist to investigate Taiwan's Aborigines and who wrote the world's first ethnography of Taiwan's Aboriginal people.
A Century of Outstanding People in Taiwan will air on PTS at 8pm on Tuesday.
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
On Facebook a friend posted a dashcam video of a vehicle driving through the ash-colored wasteland of what was once Taroko Gorge. A crane appears in the video, and suddenly it becomes clear: the video is in color, not black and white. The magnitude 7.2 earthquake’s destruction on April 3 around and above Taroko and its reverberations across an area heavily dependent on tourism have largely vanished from the international press discussions as the news cycle moves on, but local residents still live with its consequences every day. For example, with the damage to the road corridors between Yilan and
May 13 to May 19 While Taiwanese were eligible to take the Qing Dynasty imperial exams starting from 1686, it took more than a century for a locally-registered scholar to pass the highest levels and become a jinshi (進士). In 1823, Hsinchu City resident Cheng Yung-hsi (鄭用錫) traveled to Beijing and accomplished the feat, returning home in great glory. There were technically three Taiwan residents who did it before Cheng, but two were born in China and remained registered in their birthplaces, while historians generally discount the third as he changed his residency back to Fujian Province right after the exams.
Few scenes are more representative of rural Taiwan than a mountain slope covered in row upon row of carefully manicured tea plants. Like staring at the raked sand in a Zen garden, seeing these natural features in an unnaturally perfect arrangement of parallel lines has a certain calming effect. Snapping photos of the tea plantations blanketing Taiwan’s mountain is a favorite activity among tourists but, unfortunately, the experience is often rather superficial. As these tea fields are part of working farms, it’s not usually possible to walk amongst them or sample the teas they are producing, much less understand how the