No trip to Chiayi County is complete without an afternoon tour of the campus of National Chung Cheng University, considered to be one of the most beautiful schools nationwide and one of the most sought-after locations for an engagement photo shoot.
Located in the county’s Minsyong Township (民雄), the university was converted from a sugarcane farm in 1987 after the Ministry of Education gave the green light for its establishment.
The school was designed by Taiwanese architect Lee Tsu-yuan (李祖原), also the designer of the Taipei 101 skyscraper, and was modeled on the University of Cambridge in England.
Photo: CNA
It was chosen as the most beautiful college in the nation in an online poll conducted by search engine Yahoo in 2012.
National Chung Cheng University became a tourist hot spot after it was featured in the popular Taiwanese soap opera Meteor Garden (流星花園), which was based on the Japanese comic book of the same name and was first aired by Taiwan’s Chinese Television System in 2001.
Meteor Garden centers on the romance between a poor girl and a member of a group of four snobbish rich men at an elite high school.
The university made it onto the big screen recently after Taiwanese director Umin Boya (馬志翔) filmed his latest movie, Kano, at the school’s baseball field.
Kano features the story of a high-school baseball team composed of Taiwanese, Japanese and Aboriginal boys in Chiayi in 1929.
After Boya wrapped up filming for the movie, the school subsequently constructed an exhibition hall, named the Sport Story Museum (運動故事館), to preserve some of the movie sets and open them up to the public.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
The Civil Aviation Administration yesterday said that it is considering punishments for China Airlines (CAL) and Starlux Airlines for making hard landings and overworking their cabin crew when the nation was hit by Typhoon Kong-rey in October last year. The civil aviation authority launched an investigation after media reported that many airlines were forced to divert their flights to different airports or go around after failing to land when the typhoon affected the nation on Oct. 30 and 31 last year. The agency reviewed 503 flights dispatched by Taiwanese airlines during those two days, as well as weather data, flight hours
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Three people have had their citizenship revoked after authorities confirmed that they hold Chinese ID cards, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said yesterday. Two of the three people were featured in a recent video about Beijing’s “united front” tactics by YouTuber Pa Chiung (八炯) and Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源), including Su Shi-en (蘇士恩), who displayed a Chinese ID card in the video, and taekwondo athlete Lee Tung-hsien (李東憲), who mentioned he had obtained a Chinese ID card in a telephone call with Chen, Liang told the council’s weekly news conference. Lee, who reportedly worked in