The Taoyuan City Government’s restoration of novelist Chung Chao-cheng’s (鍾肇政) former residence has “obliterated the memory” of the family’s home, the novelist’s son Chung Yen-wei (鍾延威) said on Tuesday.
Chung Chao-cheng, 93, widely considered the doyen of Taiwan’s “nativist literature movement” (鄉土文學), penned The Dull Ice Flower (魯冰花), the Turbid Waters Trilogy (濁流三部曲) and the Taiwanese Trilogy (台灣人三部曲), among other classics of Taiwanese literature.
The city’s restoration of the residence, a teachers’ dormitory in Longtan District (龍潭), was meant to commemorate his contribution to Taiwanese literature.
Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times
However, Chung Yen-wei wrote a scathing review of the project after he and his father toured the completed site at the city’s invitation.
“As father and I entered the dormitory complex and walked toward our old dorm, we were dumbstruck by the sight that greeted us,” he wrote in a Facebook post that was later deleted, but not before being quoted by the Chinese-language Apple Daily and the United Daily News.
“I felt an almost physical blow to the chest; was this supposed to be the dorm I lived in?” he wrote. “Stealing a glance at my father, I saw he seemed to have fallen prey to a confusion of gigantic proportions.”
When the city and the Ministry of Culture decided to restore the dormitory at the family’s prompting, officials had conducted a detailed survey of the building’s layout, fixtures and furniture, with which he and his father had helped at many points, Chung Yen-wei said, adding that the contractor had apparently ignored all of the family’s input in the restoration work.
The post sparked a series of responses by city officials, as well as a statement of apology and promises to improve from the Hakka Affairs Council.
Chung Yen-wei later that day deleted the post, saying that certain aspects of his remarks were erroneous.
He said that while he originally claimed that the city government approved the project without evaluating the contractor’s work, the project is awaiting final inspection by city officials and no formal decision has been made.
The Chung family thanked Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) for leading efforts to recognize Chung Chao-cheng’s literary accomplishments, Chung Yen-wei said, adding that he would continue to provide constructive criticism of the project.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
RSS