A Japanese colonial-era home where calligrapher Tai Ching-nung (臺靜農) lived after he moved to Taipei in 1946 is to be preserved, after initial plans to destroy it drew strong protest, the Taipei City Government’s Department of Cultural Affairs said on Friday.
The building is to be converted into a memorial for Tai after a motion to preserve it was on Friday unanimously passed by the department’s 17-member cultural heritage committee.
The building, which is on property owned by National Taiwan University (NTU), where Tai was a faculty member, would not be quietly destroyed by the school, NTU president Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) told a news conference at the school to allay public concerns.
Photo: Yang Hsin-hui, Taipei Times
Tai was head of NTU’s Chinese-language department for 20 years, during which he made great contributions to the university, Kuan said.
In 1984, Tai won the National Literature and Art Achievement Award along with author Liang Shih-chiu (梁實秋), and in 1985 Tai won the Executive Yuan Cultural Award.
Tai originally lived in another Japanese-style building on the campus, but was later required to move for administrative purposes.
However, the original building Tai lived in has already been demolished, the university said.
Although Tai only lived at the remaining building for six months, it is the only building left with a history tied to Tai and therefore it would be preserved, Kuan said, adding that it would be converted into a space where people could learn about Tai’s literature and history, as well as his influence on the university and literature.
Tai’s former residence is not only a building, but an asset belonging to all Taiwanese, an NTU Student Association representative told the cultural heritage committee meeting.
The association hopes to participate in any decision regarding how the building is used, the representative said.
Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶), who is an NTU alumna, said that the building should be recognized not just as a cultural heritage site, but also as a place of historical interest.
The additional recognition would empower the university to dedicate resources for it to be appropriately preserved, she said.
However, pressed on the issue, only three of the 17-member committee voted in favor of additional recognition for the site.
Department of Cultural Affairs Deputy Director Tien Wei (田瑋) said that recognition of the site as a memorial is still significant, as it was tied to an individual of historical interest.
Tien said that he would ask the university to draft a plan for the building’s restoration and use.
The university would be fined under the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保存法) if it does not come up with a plan for the site, or if it attempts to demolish it, he said.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS