Taiwanese calligrapher Chen Shih-hsien (陳世憲), who has long promoted cultural interaction with Japan, was on Friday last week invited to be a goodwill ambassador of Taketa City.
Chen said he first visited the city in Kyushu more than 20 years ago to visit a museum renovated from a samurai’s residence more than 400 years ago.
“At the time I thought to myself: ‘One day, I will hold an exhibition here,’” Chen said.
Photo courtesy of Chen Shih-hsien
He later met a retired teacher in Taketa and the two became fast friends, leading to the city becoming his “home away from home,” which he vowed to visit at least once every year, Chen said.
Taketa in the southwest corner of Oita Prefecture is home to Oka Castle, a remnant of Heian Period architecture. The castle was popularized by local songwriter Taki Rentaro’s Kojo no Suki (Moon Over the Ruined Castle).
In 2015, Chen finally fulfilled his wish and held a calligraphy exhibition at the museum.
The exhibition also featured his two books: Taketa and I (竹田因緣) and Traveling Word — Chen Shih-hsien’s Calligraphy Around the World (字遊─陳世憲的書法世界旅行).
Both books contain stories of his interactions with people in Taketa, Chen said, adding that he often goes to sing Kojo no Suki at karaoke when he misses his friends in Taketa.
The city said it began arranging visits to Kaohsiung’s Tienliao District (田寮) in 2015 and last year made official its cultural tourism ties with the district.
Chen held his third exhibition in Taketa during the Chikuraku Festival, which took place from Friday to Sunday, and wrote a haiku to commemorate a statue of a woman carved by Japanese sculptor Fumio Asakura.
The festival has been celebrated annually since 2000, when it was started as a way to maintain local bamboo groves and attract tourists.
Asakura mentored Taiwanese sculptors Huang Tu-shui (黃土水) and Pu Tien-sheng (蒲添生) when they were studying in Tokyo, Chen said.
Taketa Mayor Katsuji Shuto presented Chen with the goodwill ambassador honor, while Chen said he would invite a group of Taiwanese artists to attend a newly constructed performance hall in the city.
Theaters and institutions in Taiwan have received 28 threatening e-mails, including bomb threats, since a documentary critical of China began being screened across the nation last month, the National Security Bureau said yesterday. The actions are part of China’s attempts to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty, it said. State Organs (國有器官) documents allegations that Chinese government officials engage in organ harvesting and other illegal activities. From last month to Friday last week, 28 incidents have been reported of theaters or institutions receiving threats, including bomb and shooting threats, if they did not stop showing the documentary, the bureau said. Although the threats were not carried out,
‘GRAY ZONE’ TACTICS: China continues to build up its military capacity while regularly deploying jets and warships around Taiwan, with the latest balloon spotted on Sunday The US is drawing up contingency plans for military deployments in Japan and the Philippines in case of a Taiwan emergency, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported. They would be incorporated in a first joint operation plan to be formulated in December, Kyodo reported late on Sunday, citing sources familiar with Japan-US relations. A US Marine Corps regiment that possesses High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems — a light multiple rocket launcher — would be deployed along the Nansei Island chain stretching from Kyushu to Yonaguni near Taiwan, Kyodo said. According to US military guidelines for dispatching marines in small formations to several locations,
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday confirmed that Chinese students visiting Taiwan at the invitation of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation were almost all affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During yesterday’s meeting convened by the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) asked whether the visit was a way to spread China’s so-called “united front” rhetoric, to which MAC Deputy Ministry Shen You-chung (沈有忠) responded with the CCP comment. The MAC noticed that the Chinese individuals visiting Taiwan, including those in sports, education, or religion, have had increasingly impressive backgrounds, demonstrating that the
As Taiwan celebrated its baseball team’s victory in the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s Premier12 on Sunday, how politicians referred to the team in their congratulatory messages reflected the nation’s political divide. Taiwan, competing under the name Chinese Taipei (中華台北隊), made history with its first-ever Premier12 championship after beating Japan 4-0 at the Tokyo Dome. Right after the game, President William Lai (賴清德) congratulated the team via a post on his Facebook page. Besides the players, Lai also lauded the team’s coaching and medical staff, and the fans cheering for them in Tokyo or watching the live broadcast, saying that “every
RSS