It is natural for Taiwanese to speak Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), and it is something to be proud of, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said yesterday at the launch ceremony for the Hoat-Ki Taiwanese Foundation (蔣發太、孫玉枝台語文教育基金會), billed as the first establishment in southern Taiwan to focus on promoting Hoklo culture.
Chiung Hoat-thai (蔣發太) and Sun Giok-ki (孫玉枝) were both born in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (岡山), and the couple endured hardships while raising five sons and ensuring that they received higher education and became successful.
Two of their sons, Chiung Eng-khim (蔣榮欽) and Chiung Eng-hok (蔣榮福), became physicians, while Chiung Eng-hong (蔣榮豐) became a pharmacist, Chiung Ui-chi (蔣為志) became a lawyer and Chiung Wi-vun (蔣為文) is now the director of National Cheng Kung University’s (NCKU) Center for Taiwanese Languages Testing.
Photo courtesy of the foundation
The Chiung family has a tradition of setting up scholarships. Chiung Hoat-thai used his parents’ names to set up a scholarship to encourage students to study and to support Hoklo promotional events.
His five sons set up scholarships at Kaohsiung Hou-Hong Elementary School and Kaohsiung Chien-Feng Elementary School, and supported the establishment of the Kangshan College Students’ Association, the KCA Cafe, the Firefly Summer Camp (火金姑夏令營) for disadvantaged students, and the Agongdian River Literature Award (阿公店溪文學獎).
Sun Giok-ki, Chiung Eng-khim and Chiung Eng-hok in June donated NT$10 million (US$313,972) to establish the Hoat-Ki Taiwanese Foundation for promoting Hoklo culture.
Attendees at the founding ceremony yesterday included Democratic Progressive Party legislators Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) and Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩).
Foundation chairman Chiung Eng-khim said his grandmother did not know how to read, and was filled with regrets when she was laughed at for asking young people to help her read the bus information, so when her offspring succeeded in their careers, they established scholarships to encourage disadvantaged students to study.
The Hoat-Ki Taiwanese Foundation would aim to promote “Taiwan Studies” based on Hoklo education, hoping to promote the standardization, popularization and internationalization and of the Hoklo language, in the spirit of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity and International Mother Language Day, he said.
Foundation executive director Chiung Wi-vun said the foundation would push forward to make March 11, the day that Taiwanese intellectual and 228 Incident victim Lin Mo-sei (林茂生) died, Taiwan Teacher’s Day; and March 14, the day that public prosecutor and 228 victim Wang Yu-lin (王育霖) died, Taiwan Poet’s Day.
Lin was an educator born in Tainan and became the first Taiwanese professor at NCKU, as well as the first person in Taiwan to receive a doctorate in philosophy in the US, while Wang was a poet and prosecutor who insisted on fairness and justice, and spoke out for Taiwan, Chiung said.
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