A Camp Unknown (彼岸他方), a documentary that explores Taiwan’s humanitarian efforts after the Vietnam War, opened on Sunday, telling the story of more than 2,000 refugees who found safe haven in Penghu County.
The film chronicles Taiwan’s participation from 1977 to 1988 in sheltering refugees from the war, taking care of more than 2,000 refugees brought on 51 vessels to Penghu.
In a discussion of the documentary and the history it narrates between executive producer Liu Chi-hsiung (劉吉雄) and director Awei Liu (劉建偉) at Sunday’s premiere, the director said the film sheds light on a part of history that is little known and rarely talked about.
Photo courtesy of Public Television Service via CNA
The refugees fled Southeast Asia at the end of the war in 1975 and were sheltered in Penghu as they awaited approval to emigrate to other nations, Awei Liu said.
While there, they were given occupational training and employment opportunities along with basic food and shelter, he said, adding that records show that 106 babies were born in the refugee camps during those years.
Liu Chi-hsiung said he spent almost 20 years researching the history depicted in the documentary and was helped by recording interviews with people involved in the effort to care for the refugees.
Photo courtesy of Public Television Service via CNA
It also took almost 10 years for the documentary to be completed, the executive producer said.
The 55-minute documentary is to air on Public Television Service tomorrow at 10pm.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS