Next Sunday, Taiwan’s oldest museum hopes to lure a more diverse crowd through its front door.
The National Taiwan Museum (NTM, 國立台灣博物館) is holding an “open museum day,” offering free admission for migrant workers and foreign spouses to all exhibits on Sunday, Sept. 14.
There’s the Exhibition of Islamic Life and Culture (伊斯蘭：文化與生活特展), which will be on view for its final day.
Photo Courtesy of National Taiwan Museum
By popular demand, Exhibition of Islamic Life and Culture has been extended from its original closing date of June 22 to next Sunday.
This special exhibition presents religious artifacts, manuscripts, musical instruments and other objects that survey Islamic civilization and daily life.
NTM, located at the 228 Peace Memorial Park in downtown Taipei, opened its doors in 1908. It is the only museum established during the Japanese colonial era that is still in operation at its original site.
On Sundays and holidays, the 228 Peace Memorial Park is full of migrant workers, new immigrants and foreign spouses meeting friends on their day off.
Workers seldom enter the museum for a visit, according to museum staff.
“I asked our staff to speak to them and to find out why. Most of them preferred to stay at a distance because they didn’t think the museum was for foreigners and blue-collar workers,” said NTM deputy director Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶).
Lin said NTM wants to connect with migrant workers and new immigrants, particularly to invite them into the Exhibition of Islamic Life and Culture.
“Quite a number of migrant workers and foreign spouses are from Indonesia and are Muslims. So this exhibit can promote multicultural dialogue and mutual exchange,” he said.
Lin said that the exhibit may also be able to help the children of international marriages explore the cultural traditions of their parent’s home country.
Next Sunday, visitors can also view NTM’s other exhibits: Mysterious Pescadores, about the biodiversity and marine geomorphology of southern Penghu County’s four islands; Taiwan Black Jade, about unique Taiwanese gems from the metamorphic rocks of the east coast; and an exhibition on the Hokutolite (北投石), a radium-containing rare mineral from Beitou’s hot springs which was discovered in 1905 by the renowned Japanese mineralogist Okamoto Yohachiro.
Since their leader Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and others were jailed as part of several ongoing bribery investigations, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) has risen in the polls. Additionally, despite all the many and varied allegations against Ko and most of the top people in the party, it has held together with only a tiny number of minor figures exiting. The TPP has taken some damage, but vastly less than the New Power Party (NPP) did after it was caught up in a bribery scandal in 2020. The TPP has for years registered favorability in the thirties, and a Formosa poll
While global attention is finally being focused on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) gray zone aggression against Philippine territory in the South China Sea, at the other end of the PRC’s infamous 9 dash line map, PRC vessels are conducting an identical campaign against Indonesia, most importantly in the Natuna Islands. The Natunas fall into a gray area: do the dashes at the end of the PRC “cow’s tongue” map include the islands? It’s not clear. Less well known is that they also fall into another gray area. Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) claim and continental shelf claim are not
Nov. 4 to Nov. 10 Apollo magazine (文星) vowed that it wouldn’t play by the rules in its first issue — a bold statement to make in 1957, when anyone could be jailed for saying the wrong thing. However, the introduction to the inaugural Nov. 5 issue also defined the magazine as a “lifestyle, literature and art” publication, and the contents were relatively tame for the first four years, writes Tao Heng-sheng (陶恒生) in “The Apollo magazine that wouldn’t play by the rules” (不按牌理出牌的文星雜誌). In 1961, the magazine changed its mission to “thought, lifestyle and art” and adopted a more critical tone with
Chiayi County is blessed with several worthwhile upland trails, not all of which I’ve hiked. A few weeks ago, I finally got around to tackling Tanghu Historic Trail (塘湖古道), a short but unusually steep route in Jhuci Township (竹崎). According to the Web site of the Alishan National Scenic Area (阿里山國家風景區), the path climbs from 308m above sea level to an elevation of 770m in just 1.58km, an average gradient of 29 percent. And unless you arrange for someone to bring you to the starting point and collect you at the other end, there’s no way to avoid a significant amount
RSS