“If I can’t take them with me, I might as well leave them for others,” rhodonite collector Lin Sung-chi (林松錡) says.
For Lin, the veins on the rhodonite crystals convey a beauty that is comparable to a Chinese landscape painting and are one of the reasons why he fell in love with collecting the mineral, especially rhodonite crystals excavated in Taiwan.
Taiwanese rhodonite is comparatively younger in geological age, offers richer color schemes, is more dynamic and has a varied texture and vein patterns compared with other variants, Lin said.
Photo: Li Li-fa, Taipei Times
It is Earth’s gift to Taiwan, he said.
Lin said that each of the 200-odd crystals he has collected tells a story of its own, which changes depending on his mindset or emotions when he is looking over his collection, adding that sometimes if you shift an angle, it is like seeing the stone from a new perspective.
As a rhodonite collector, Lin is not unknown among other large-scale collectors, such as the Fo Guang Yuan Art Gallery, and the books and digital files he has published on stone collecting have a wide audience — in business as well as political circles.
However, at the height of his career, Lin was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Despite undergoing surgical procedures, Lin’s condition has deteriorated over the years.
“I feel that my body contracts involuntarily and it is excruciating,” Lin said.
While it may not be evident that he is ill when he is talking to friends, the times that he can actually speak with them are increasingly fewer.
The interval between each attack is growing shorter and shorter and the attacks are also getting more severe, Lin said, adding that he could feel his life slipping away.
However, Lin remains optimistic, hoping to get his affairs in order for the eventual arrival of death. He especially wants to see his stone collection put to good use.
“It has always been my wish to found a museum for the exhibition of Taiwanese rhodonite crystals,” Lin said.
However, the size of his collection is not big enough, so his wish has never come to fruition, he said.
To let more people understand the beauty of Taiwanese rhodonite crystals, Lin said he is willing to donate his entire collection to the public.
He has also published a book titled To Let Love Soar (讓愛飛揚), which records all the characteristics of each stone in his collection.
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff writer
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS