Members of the Hong Kong performance troupe Nonsensemakers on Monday accused the Hong Kong government of political bias over demands they claimed had been placed on the group as it prepares for an event.
A Nonsensemakers member surnamed Tai (戴) said on Facebook that the Department of Leisure and Cultural Services had made verbal demands that the troupe remove the word “national” from acting producer Luo Shu-yan’s (羅淑燕) alma mater, Taipei National University of the Arts, which is in a brochure introducing the group.
Tai said the Hong Kong government’s alleged demand was “absurd and terrible,” adding that “Hong Kong today is a totalitarian government that cannot even allow a name.”
Tai said that Hong Kong society is losing its freedoms of speech and creativity, adding that everyone must stand fast in the face of totalitarianism.
The troupe said it had tried to reason with the department on multiple occasions and even offered to change the introduction from Chinese to English.
However, the department insisted that the Chinese shorthand “Taipei University of Arts” must be used, the troupe said.
Nonsensemakers posted an article on Facebook later on Monday saying that it would rather remove the controversial wording from the introduction than print partial or edited information.
The name of one’s alma mater is a basic fact and to include it in its entirety is to respect both art and the academia, the troupe said, adding that hopefully, Hong Kong continues to enjoy the troupe’s most prized core values — freedom of speech and creativity.
The group included in the post a photograph of Luo holding her diploma from the university.
Taipei National University of the Arts president Yang Chi-wen (楊其文) told On.cc, a Hong Kong Web-based media outlet, that the department’s demand that the word “national” be removed was “incredibly stupid and without wisdom.”
Yang said he would continue to protest the politicizing of art by the department.
As of press time last night, the department had yet to respond to a request for comment.
Chinese-language Hong Kong newspaper Headline Daily found an archived use of the full name of the university in official department documents dating back to October 2003.
The department then issued a media release promoting a new rendition to the Chinese opera piece Golden House for My Beloved (金屋藏嬌) by Wu Hsing-kuo (吳興國), who the department called “Taipei National University of Arts department of drama associate professor.”
Nonsensemakers have an upcoming performance of The Third Lie in Hong Kong, a retelling of the book of the same name by Agota Kristof. It is the third in a trilogy, with The Notebook and The Proof the first and second books respectively.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS