History Channel Asia will premiere its new series, Hidden Cities, later this month with four episodes on cities in four Asian nations, including Taiwan.
Starting on Sunday, Hidden Cities will explore some of Asia’s many secrets, from forgotten palaces and old buildings with undiscovered histories, to underground fortresses that shelter incredible relics and untold stories, the TV channel announced through a Taipei public relations company yesterday.
In the first four episodes, the network’s first series produced in Asia, host Anthony Morse travels to Beijing, Malaysia’s northwest states of Penang, Ipoh and Kedah, Java in Indonesia and various places around Taiwan.
For the Taiwan episode, Morse went to the mausoleum of -presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), at Tzuhu (慈湖), Taoyuan County. He also met with Weng Yuan (翁元), who served as a member of the staff at the late presidents’ residences.
Weng told Morse that Chiang Kai-shek liked to stroll and sit beside the lake around 5pm each evening to contemplate and enjoy a quiet moment. Once forbidden to outsiders, the lake has been opened to the public in recent years.
Morse and his camera crew next explored Taiwan’s outlying island of Kinmen, also known as Quemoy, the anti-communist bastion where, more than five decades ago, Taiwan troops fought their last battle against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
The crew explored Kinmen’s maze of underground tunnels, -savored the island’s famous sorghum liquor and learned how to make kitchen knives out of PLA bombs dropped on Kinmen, which is located only 2km from China.
Morse also visited a beach village in Hualien that was once off-limits to Taiwanese because it was home to Japanese prisoners and their dependents in the aftermath of World War II.
The Taiwan episode is scheduled to be screened on Nov. 14, according to the public relations company. The 30-year-old Morse, born to an US father and Burmese mother, will come to Taiwan a week from tomorrow to promote the series, it said.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
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