Korean-born US artist Lee Chang-jin has created a “comfort station” in Taipei, part of an exhibition aimed at drawing attention to the issue of women forced to serve in Japanese military brothels during World War II.
Called “Comfort Women Wanted,” Lee’s series of works recreates the experiences that hundreds of thousands of young women across Asia were forced to undergo during the war.
“Now it’s our time to find a way to keep this very important history alive,” Lee said yesterday, adding that the number of former comfort women alive today is steadily decreasing.
Photo: CNA
What makes the Taipei exhibition unique is a room made to look like a comfort station based on historical references. On display are a kimono, which would be worn by a comfort woman, a tatami, a wash bowl and plaques with the Japanese name given to the comfort woman kept there.
Lee pointed to footage of comfort stations in China and Indonesia and posters depicting former comfort women from Taiwan, Korea and the Netherlands.
The New York-based artist has held similar exhibitions in South Korea, Hong Kong and the US.
She has traveled across Asia to learn more about the comfort women system and interview the women.
“It was truly inspiring and a great honor for me to meet them,” she said, describing them as amazing people who were “so strong, resilient and courageous survivors; at the same time, loving and caring grandmas.”
Organized by the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation, the show will run through Feb. 16 at the Bopiliao Historic Block in Taipei.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
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.
RSS