The Netherlands’ envoy to Taiwan, Menno Goedhart, yesterday said that he and his wife have decided to make Taiwan their home after he retires.
At the launch of his book The Real Taiwan and the Dutch at Fort Provintia in Tainan, Goedhart said he and his wife would resettle in Tainan County’s Sinhua Township (新化) when his tenure as the Netherlands’ top envoy to Taiwan ends later this year.
TRACING THE PAST
Over the past eight years, Goedhart has visited almost every corner of Taiwan to trace the footprints of his ancestors who ruled Taiwan between 1524 and 1662.
During that period, some citizens of Holland married local Aborigines, mostly from the Rukai tribe.
Goedhart, who has built a close friendship with the Rukai people, has been given the title of “elder” by the tribe in Sandimen Township (三地門), Pingtung County.
He is one of two foreigners on whom the Rukai have bestowed the title, the first being a Dutchman who was given the honor in the early 20th century.
SCENIC AREAS
Goedhart’s book, published in Chinese and English, features many scenic areas of Taiwan, including sights in Hualien and Taitung counties, the cities and counties of Tainan and Chiayi and the offshore Penghu County.
The book also focuses on the Aboriginal tribes around the country.
PROCEEDS
Goedhart said all proceeds from the book would be donated to the victims of Typhoon Morakot, which devastated parts of eastern and southern Taiwan in August last year.
At the book launch yesterday, Tainan Mayor Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財) dubbed Goedhart “the Marco Polo of Taiwan,” citing the envoy’s ambitious plan to sell Taiwan to the rest of the world.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS