Father George Martinson, who was slated to receive his national identification card today for more than 40 years of extraordinary service to the nation, has died at the age of 75, the Chinese Regional Bishops' Conference announced yesterday.
Martinson was also known as Uncle Jerry from his English teaching programs and his Chinese name Ting Sung-yun (丁松筠).
Father Cheng Juo-shih (程若石) said on Facebook that the Chinese Regional Bishops' Conference was assisting coroners in ascertaining when Martinson passed away and the cause of death.
Photo: CNA
Martinson arrived in Taiwan in 1957 and is perhaps best known for his work with Kuangchi Program Service (光啟社) and Giraffe English, where he encouraged children to learn English.
As the vice president of the Kuangchi Program Service, Martinson had steered the service’s television programming toward social issues relating to Aborigines, immigrant spouses, migrant workers, physically and mentally disabled people, victims of natural disasters and marginalized people, the National Immigration Agency said.
Under Martinson’s guidance, Kuangchi has spread very positive and educational information to these groups, the agency added.
Martinson also oversaw the shooting of the documentary Beyond the Killing Fields: Refugees on the Thai-Cambodian Border (殺戮戰場的邊緣), which received the Best Documentary Award at the 1986 Golden Horse Awards and the Best Short Film Award at the 1987 Asia Pacific Film Festival.
The National Immigration Agency had scheduled an event today for the conferral of a national identity card to Martinson at the Kuangchi Program Service Building. The event is to proceed as scheduled, but is to be changed to a commemoration ceremony.
The Chinese Regional Bishops' Conference said it would play a video recapping Martinson’s experiences, while inviting his friends to share their memories.
The agency applied for Martinson to be naturalized after the amended Nationality Act (國籍法) took effect last year, which allows foreign nationals with outstanding contributions to Taiwan to be naturalized as a Republic of China citizens while retaining their original citizenship.
The agency said that Martinson chose to forgo his original surname and use his adopted surname Ting, which the agency said showed his identification with Taiwan.
Martinson’s brother, Barry, was among the first five individuals naturalized after the amendments.
Barry Martinson lives in Hsinchu’s Wufong Township (五峰), having moved there 42 years ago.
He has been involved with Aboriginal communities for many years and established the first nursery in the county’s mountainous region.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS