The Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday that it is scheduled to open 18 lighthouses to the public to turn them into tourist attractions.
At the beginning of this year, the management of the lighthouses was transferred from the Ministry of Finance’s Customs Administration to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Maritime and Port Bureau.
Bureau Director-General Chi Wen-jong (祁文中), whose father worked as a keeper at the Chihou Lighthouse (旗后燈塔) in Greater Kaohsiung, said that the nation has 35 lighthouses, 34 of which are still in use and 11 are open to visitors.
“Tourists are banned from entering most lighthouses to prevent them from damaging lighthouse equipment. The facilities inside the lighthouse may not be safe for visitors, either,” Chi said. “However, they are allowed to enter the lighthouse grounds and take pictures. Some of the lighthouses do not have gates, so visitors can roam in the parks surrounding them.”
The bureau also announced during a ceremony yesterday that the Baisha Cape (白沙岬) Lighthouse in Taoyuan County and the Green Island Lighthouse are now open to visitors, while five more lighthouses would be opened over the next three years.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) found through her research into the nation’s lighthouses a list of lighthouse keepers published by the Customs Administration in 1945, on which the name of Chi Wen-jong’s father, Chi Da (祁達), was listed.
She framed the list and presented it to him at the ceremony.
Chi Wen-jong said that he was “very surprised” to see the document and he knew very little about his father’s days as a lighthouse keeper.
“All I know is that my father was among the first group of local lighthouse keepers trained by the Customs Office in Shanghai and that he was later assigned to guard the lighthouse in Kaoshiung [now Greater Kaohsiung] for two years,” he said.
The nation’s lighthouses were all run by Britons at one point. His father would use gestures to communicate with his British colleagues, Chi Wen-jong said.
He said that his father later changed jobs, joining a shipping firm because life as a lighthouse keeper did not combine well with raising a family. Chi Da died at the age of 78.
To enrich lighthouse tours, Chi Wen-jong said that he plans to find other lighthouse keepers and ask them to tell their stories.
“My father kept an oil lamp that he used at work. I am sure his colleagues also kept similar items. Rather than letting family members throw these items away, we can collect them for an exhibit. We can also launch an oral history project to interview retired lighthouse keepers,” Chi said.
Baisha Cape was built more than 100 years ago with red bricks held together by a mixture of sticky rice, dark brown sugar and lime.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Actor Lee Wei (李威) was released on bail on Monday after being named as a suspect in the death of a woman whose body was found in the meeting place of a Buddhist group in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) last year, prosecutors said. Lee, 44, was released on NT$300,000 (US$9,148) bail, while his wife, surnamed Chien (簡), was released on NT$150,000 bail after both were summoned to give statements regarding the woman’s death. The home of Lee, who has retreated from the entertainment business in the past few years, was also searched by prosecutors and police earlier on Monday. Lee was questioned three
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
RSS