Family members of war dead and deceased national heroes interred at the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine, as well as military and government officials, packed the shrine’s square in Taipei City’s Zhongshan District (中山) yesterday morning for a solemn memorial open to the public.
Among 150 family members of soldiers killed fighting for the Republic of China (ROC) and other highly recognized national figures were the granddaughters of Qing Dynasty revolutionaries Lu Hao-tung (陸皓東) and Chiu Chin (秋瑾), as well as the great grandson of Sediq chieftain Mona Rudao, who was a leader in the fight against the Japanese colonial government.
Lu’s granddaughter Lu Shu-jen (陸淑貞), who spoke Cantonese at the ceremony, said she was proud of her grandfather’s contributions and glad to see the ideals of ROC founding father Sun Yat-sen (孫中山) implemented in Taiwan.
Photo: Wang Wen-lin, Taipei Times
Speaking in the Sediq language, Mona Rudao’s great grandson Mona Bawan said Mona Rudao’s resistance against the Japanese colonial government highlighted the Aboriginal contribution to the democratic development of Taiwan, adding that the government should defend the rights of the nation’s Aboriginal tribes.
“Freedom, equality and philanthropy are the fundamental values our ancestors pursued, and our next generations will fight for the same values. I hope the government will do more to protect the rights of Aborigines,” he said.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) led government officials in paying their respects to the martyrs and their family members in a brief ceremony inside the shrine before joining other spectators in the plaza to attend a series of ceremonial activities.
Addressing the ceremony, Ma expressed gratitude toward the martyrs for sacrificing their lives for the nation and their subsequent generations.
“Thanks to the contributions of these national heroes, the nation has been blessed with peaceful and prosperous development since it was founded 100 years ago. We will pass their spirit on to future generations, and hopefully the ROC will have a second 100 years and become a respectable country,” he said.
The outdoor ceremony began with a 21-gun salute, followed by a performance by military honor guards and a jet fighter air show.
In coordination with the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the ROC, the government also invited citizens to pay their respects at the shrine, which was open until 9pm for the special occasion. Visitors carried white roses or calla lilies to the plaza to show their respect.
As a gesture to honor the martyrs, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will invite Lu Shu-jen and Chiu’s granddaughter Wang Yanhua (王焱華) to attend the a meeting of its Central Standing Committee, the highest decision-making body, at KMT headquarters today.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS