Cultural workers and students yesterday condemned National Taiwan University (NTU) for demolishing the former residence of late historian Tsao Yung-ho (曹永和) on Wednesday without prior notice to residents.
The university rushed the razing of the first batch of dormitories built in 1928, cultural assets preservation worker Chen Chin-chung (陳勤忠) told a news conference in Taipei, adding that the demolition occurred ahead of National Cultural Heritage Day at the weekend and after Minister of Culture Li Yuan (李遠) recently said that “preserving ancient monuments is more important than building mansions.”
NTU Graduate Student Association academic affairs director Chuang Yung-chu (莊詠竹) said the demolition involved the Nos. 2, 4 and 6 properties on Lane 52 of Wenzhou Street.
Photo: CNA
House No. 6 was Tsao’s former residence, Chuang said.
A widow of a deceased former professor of the university, surnamed Ho (何), resides in house No. 8, a townhouse adjoining Tsao’s former residence and the only surviving residence among the dormitories, she said.
The teardown of Tsao’s former residence might have caused structural damages to her house, she added.
Chuang quoted local residents as saying that they had not received any notice about the demolition until personnel from the university’s General Affairs Office and demolition workers arrived at Ho’s house at about 7am on Wednesday.
The workers told the residents they would raze the neighboring buildings shortly before cutting power to Ho’s house the same day, she quoted the residents as saying.
The university said that residents had been informed of the demolition.
The four houses were culturally significant because their construction marked the beginning of Wenzhou Street, which features numerous old houses and trees, Chen said.
He questioned the city government’s review process of the demolotion project.
None of the 20 members of the Taipei Cultural Assets Review Committee entered Ho’s residence to evaluate the houses’ cultural assets, and in their review meetings, no one addressed that Tsao had lived at house No. 6 for 42 years, he said.
Although the academic and his residence is spiritually interconnected, the committee decided in May that Tsao’s former home “had no value as a cultural asset,” as it had been renovated many times, former NTU Graduate Student Association vice president Kao Cheng-yung (高鉦詠) said.
An administrative appeal of the demolition of Tsao’s former residence has been filed, Chuang said, adding that NTU must propose solutions to preserve cultural assets.
NTU said in a statement yesterday that the demolition notice had been pasted on the doors of the houses before Wednesday.
During an on-site inspection, university personnel had also informed the resident living in house No. 8 about the razing of the three houses and the plan to reinforce the walls between houses Nos. 6 and 8 in mid-July ahead of the demolition, it said.
The resident thanked the university for carefully carrying out the demolition work without affecting her residential rights, the university said, adding that the resident had been fully informed of the project.
Communications about the demolition were made in compliance with Article 15 of the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保存法) with residents and cultural assets preservation groups, who had voiced their opinions on the issue multiple times until the committee decided the houses “had no value as cultural assets,” it said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS