A private museum owned and operated by retired policeman Wang Chih-ming (王志明) in Pingtung County’s Chaojhou Township (潮州) is a repository of everyday artifacts representing different Taiwanese cultures, including Hoklo, Hakka and Aboriginal groups.
Wang, 60, said the museum, called the Space for Retro Culture, Aesthetics and Recreation (人文懷舊美學生活空間), is a showcase of things that he has collected using his own money, to the tune of about NT$5 million (US$156,534), over a 40-year period. Admission is free.
Wang’s personal collection — which ranges from illustrated journals, groceries and cigarettes to Aboriginal woodcarvings, molds for making Hakka rice noodles, old bicycles and ice cream machines — fill almost every nook and cranny of the museum, with the remaining space filled wall-to-wall with reference books on antiques.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
“I have been interested in collecting since I was a boy, but I could not afford the expensive stuff, so I started with canned drinks, matchboxes and movie posters,” he said.
“When I started working as a policeman and earning money, I began buying real antiques that were within my means,” he added.
While his displays attract many tourists and even wedding photography shoots, he insists on making it a free space for visitors, because “a collection has to be relevant to the life of the community,” he said.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Time
Wang said he believes his household treasures are of value to the township, which lies at the border of almost every ethnic group represented in his museum, because they help provide a sense of continuity to the town’s inhabitants.
“If I store all of this under my bed, what would be the point?” he said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
RSS