A memorial park in honor of a Japanese civil engineer who made major contributions to Taiwan’s agricultural development was formally opened on Sunday.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and former Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori were among the dignitaries on hand to witness the opening of the Yoichi Hatta Memorial Park near the Wushantou Reservoir (烏山頭水庫), part of the sprawling Siraya National Scenic Area in Greater Tainan.
Speaking at the ceremony, Ma said Hatta (1886-1942) designed and built the Jianan Irrigation Waterways and the Wushantou Reservoir from 1920 through 1930, helping turn the formerly barren Jianan Plain into Taiwan’s granary.
Photo: CNA
During Japanese colonial rule, Taiwan served as an agricultural base to supply food to Japan’s population while its raw materials supported Japan’s industrial development, he said.
BENEFICIARIES
However, Hatta felt that the water management projects would not only benefit Japan, but also Taiwan, Ma said.
Hatta is revered and commemorated by farmers in southern Taiwan, where his irrigation system, covering 10,000km of waterways, has played a major role in watering 150,000 hectares of farmland in Tainan and Chiayi since 1930, when the Wushantou Reservoir was completed, Ma said.
The park was planned four years ago, Ma said, when he visited the former residence of the engineer and his wife at the reservoir.
Ma felt the nation had not shown enough respect to the late civil engineer, prompting him to order the building of the memorial park.
Mori, who led a 300-member Japanese delegation at the ceremony, said Hatta was not very well known in Japan, except in Ishikawa Prefecture, where he was born in February 1886.
Nonetheless, the former prime minister said he felt very proud to be a countryman of Hatta, who is so highly revered in Taiwan.
“I hope this memorial park will serve as a bridge to enhance bilateral exchanges between Japan and Taiwan,” he said.
RESTORATION
Tourism Bureau Director-General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) said every effort was made to capture the essence of the old Japanese buildings restored on the site.
She said the team that renovated Hatta’s dorm and three other nearby buildings visited Japan several times to learn traditional construction techniques so that the restoration would be as authentic as possible.
The team completed the memorial park in less than 600 working days on a budget of NT$120 million (US$4.14 million), Lai said.
A Keelung high school on Saturday night apologized for using a picture containing a Chinese flag on the cover of the senior yearbook, adding that it has recalled the books and pledged to provide students new ones before graduation on Thursday. Of 309 Affiliated Keelung Maritime Senior High School of National Taiwan Ocean University graduates, 248 had purchased the yearbook. Some students said that the printer committed an outrageous error in including the picture, while others said that nobody would notice such a small flag on the cover. Other students said that they cared more about the photographs of classmates and what was
GOING INTERNATIONAL: Rakuten Girls squad leader Ula Shen said she was surprised that baseball fans outside of Taiwan not only knew of them, but also knew their names Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Oakland Athletics on Saturday hosted its first Taiwanese Heritage Day event at the Oakland Coliseum with a performance by Taiwanese cheerleading squad the Rakuten Girls and a video message from Vice President William Lai (賴清德). The Rakuten Girls, who are the cheerleaders for the CPBL’s Rakuten Monkeys, performed in front of a crowd of more than 2,000 people, followed by a prerecorded address by Lai about Taiwan’s baseball culture and democratic spirit. Taiwanese pitcher Sha Tzu-chen (沙子宸), who was signed by the Athletics earlier this year, was also present. Mizuki Lin (林襄), considered a “baseball cheerleading goddess” by Taiwanese
WAY OF THE RUKAI: ‘Values deemed worthy often exist amid discomfort, so when people go against the flow, nature becomes entwined with our lives,’ a student said “Run, don’t walk” after your dreams, Nvidia cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) told National Taiwan University (NTU) graduates yesterday, as several major universities held in-person graduation ceremonies for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. “What will you create? Whatever it is, run after it. Run, don’t walk. Remember, either you’re running for food, or you are running from becoming food. Oftentimes, you can’t tell which. Either way, run,” he said. Huang was one of several tech executives addressing graduating students at Taiwanese universities. National Chengchi University held two ceremonies, with alumnus Patrick Pan (潘先國), who is head of Taiwan
A 14-legged giant isopod is the highlight of a new dish at a ramen restaurant in Taipei and it has people lining up — both for pictures and for a bite from this bowl of noodles. Since “The Ramen Boy” launched the limited-edition noodle bowl on Monday last week, declaring in a social media post that it had “finally got this dream ingredient,” more than 100 people have joined a waiting list to dine at the restaurant. “It is so attractive because of its appearance — it looks very cute,” said the 37-year-old owner of the restaurant, who wanted to be
RSS