Limited-edition mugs bearing the images of old Kinmen County banknotes have become popular with the county’s residents, who have been lining up to buy them, the kiln producing the mugs said.
Kinmen Official Kiln, which is the nation’s only government-run kiln, last month began producing the mugs bearing the image of an old NT$10 Kinmen banknote.
After they became hugely popular with locals, the kiln began producing mugs bearing images of NT$50 and NT$500 Kinmen banknotes in the hope that they would become popular gift items over the Lunar New Year holiday.
Photo: Wu Cheng-ting, Taipei Times
The Kinmen-only banknotes were used in the county from 1952 to 1989 to integrate the county’s economy with the rest of Taiwan, while mitigating the potential economic risk to Taiwan if Kinmen were to fall into communist hands.
The banknotes were issued by Bank of Taiwan and were identical to standard New Taiwan dollar bills, but bore the statement: “Only for use in the Kinmen area.”
“When Kinmen County Councilor Tsai Shui-yu (蔡水游) brought a mug printed with a US$1 bill on it to the factory I was reminded of wartime Kinmen and had the idea for the mugs,” kiln manager Yang Su-tai (楊肅泰) said.
Yang said that for him, Kinmen’s special currency is more unique than US dollar bills.
“It is symbolic of the front line and the efforts ... to protect the nation’s economy,” he said.
When the bank stopped issuing the bills in 1989, the banknotes slowly began to disappear, he said, adding that the mugs are a way to remember that part of history.
Making the mugs is a three-step process, he said, adding that each step involves firing the clay at very high temperatures.
Founded in 1962, the kiln has been commissioned to make replicas of valuable ceramic pieces for the National Palace Museum.
Yang, who retired on Saturday, said he was happy to see the last product he helped design at the kiln sell so well.
“It has been a long time since porcelain has caused such a stir,” he said.
The mugs can be purchased individually or in sets of three, he said.
“The NT$500 bill mug with Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and the NT$10 bill mug with Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) are both red. They make for an auspicious gift for the Lunar New Year,” he said.
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.
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
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.