Clearing out a garbage dump in Neihu District (內湖) has yielded unexpected treasures that will be put up for exhibition starting next week, a Taipei City Government official said.
The Neihu site was used as a garbage dump from 1970 to 1985. The city started cleaning up the area in 2006 in preparation for turning it into a park, said Wu Sheng-chung (吳盛忠), director of Taipei City’s Department of Environmental Protection.
Workers who have been cleaning out the garbage found a wealth of items, evoking memories of a bygone era. They range from glass containers that Yakult Co used to package its probiotic beverages (as opposed to the plastic containers that it currently uses) and bottles of Sun Ser (雙喜) soft drinks to Presidential Office souvenir coins minted and distributed in 1984, Wu said.
Photo: Chang Chuan-chia, Taipei Times
“The lack of knowledge about recycling has turned what had been other people’s trash into modern-day relics,” Wu said, with a laugh.
Yakult’s glass bottles, production of which was halted after 1970,had been a part of many people’s childhood, Wu said.
Purchasing the bottled drinks was a sign of affluence at the time, he said.
Workers also found different liquor bottles released to commemorate the birthday of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) from the 1960s to the 1970s, Wu said, adding that they presented further proof of how people both venerated and feared the former president.
Many stone pestles and scales — a common sight in the old days whose use has gradually faded over the years — were also found during the cleanup, Wu said.
The relics and artifacts found in the dump are being cleaned up and will be put up for exhibition starting on Wednesday as part of the 2013 Taiwan International Green City Development project at the Taipei World Trade Center, Wu said.
The exhibition will be open to the general public starting on Saturday.
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