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Taiwan (/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ (About this sound listen)), officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a state in East Asia. Its neighbors include the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the west, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taiwan is the most populous state and largest economy that is not a member of the United Nations.

 

The island of Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, was inhabited by aborigines before the 17th century, when Dutch and Spanish colonies opened the island to mass Han immigration. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty of China. The Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China (ROC) was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROC's loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. Although the ROC continued to claim to be the legitimate government of China, its effective jurisdiction has, since the loss of Hainan in 1950, been limited to Taiwan and its surrounding islands, with the main island making up 99% of its de facto territory. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, when the PRC assumed China's seat, causing the ROC to lose its UN membership.

 

In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system. Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, healthcare,[15] public education, economic freedom, and human development.[d][13][16] The country benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most highly educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree.[17][18]

 

The PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refuses diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC. Today, 20 countries maintain official ties with the ROC but many other states maintain unofficial ties through representative offices and institutions that function as de facto embassies and consulates. Although Taiwan is fully self-governing, most international organizations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or allow it to participate only as a non-state actor. Internally, the major division in politics is between the aspirations of eventual Chinese unification or Taiwanese independence, though both sides have moderated their positions to broaden their appeal. The PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible.[19]

  

Etymology

See also: Chinese Taipei, Formosa, and Names of China

Taiwan

Taiwan (Chinese characters).svg

"Taiwan" in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom) Chinese characters

ROC (Chinese characters).svg

"Republic of China" in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom) Chinese characters

Chinese name

Traditional Chinese 臺灣 or 台灣

Simplified Chinese 台湾

[show]Transcriptions

China

Traditional Chinese 中國

Simplified Chinese 中国

Literal meaning Middle or Central State[20]

[show]Transcriptions

Republic of China

Traditional Chinese 中華民國

Simplified Chinese 中华民国

Postal Chunghwa Minkuo

[show]Transcriptions

Japanese name

Kanji 台湾

Kana たいわん

Kyūjitai 臺灣

[show]Transcriptions

 

There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, derived from explorers or rulers by each particular period. The former name Formosa (福爾摩沙) dates from 1542,[verification needed] when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means "beautiful island".[21] The name "Formosa" eventually "replaced all others in European literature"[22] and was in common use in English in the early 20th century.[23]

 

In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company established a commercial post at Fort Zeelandia (modern-day Anping, Tainan) on a coastal sandbar called "Tayouan",[24] after their ethnonym for a nearby Taiwanese aboriginal tribe, written by the Dutch and Portuguese variously as Taiouwang, Tayowan, Teijoan, etc.[25] This name was also adopted into the Chinese vernacular (in particular, Hokkien, as Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tāi-oân/Tâi-oân) as the name of the sandbar and nearby area (Tainan). The modern word "Taiwan" is derived from this usage, which is seen in various forms (大員, 大圓, 大灣, 臺員, 臺圓 and 臺窩灣) in Chinese historical records. The area of modern-day Tainan was the first permanent settlement by Western colonists and Chinese immigrants, grew to be the most important trading centre, and served as the capital of the island until 1887. Use of the current Chinese name (臺灣) was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture. Through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as "Taiwan".[26][27][28][29]

 

In his Daoyi Zhilüe (1349), Wang Dayuan used "Liuqiu" as a name for the island of Taiwan, or the part of it near to Penghu.[30] Elsewhere, the name was used for the Ryukyu Islands in general or Okinawa, the largest of them; indeed the name Ryūkyū is the Japanese form of Liúqiú. The name also appears in the Book of Sui (636) and other early works, but scholars cannot agree on whether these references are to the Ryukyus, Taiwan or even Luzon.[31]

 

The official name of the state is the "Republic of China"; it has also been known under various names throughout its existence. Shortly after the ROC's establishment in 1912, while it was still located on the Chinese mainland, the government used the short form "China" Zhōngguó (中國), to refer to itself, which derives from zhōng ("central" or "middle") and guó ("state, nation-state"), [e] A term which also developed under the Zhou Dynasty in reference to its royal demesne[f] and the name was then applied to the area around Luoyi (present-day Luoyang) during the Eastern Zhou and then to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qingera .[33] During the 1950s and 1960s, after the government had fled to Taiwan due to losing the Chinese Civil War, it was commonly referred to as "Nationalist China" (or "Free China") to differentiate it from "Communist China" (or "Red China").[35] It was a member of the United Nations representing "China" until 1971, when it lost its seat to the People's Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become commonly known as "Taiwan", after the island that comprises 99% of the territory under its control. In some contexts, especially official ones from the ROC government, the name is written as "Republic of China (Taiwan)", "Republic of China/Taiwan", or sometimes "Taiwan (ROC)."[36] The Republic of China participates in most international forums and organizations under the name "Chinese Taipei" due to diplomatic pressure from the People's Republic of China. For instance, it is the name under which it has competed at the Olympic Games since 1984, and its name as an observer at the World Health Organization.[37]

History

Main articles: History of Taiwan and History of the Republic of China

See the History of China article for historical information in the Chinese Mainland before 1949.

Prehistoric Taiwan

Main article: Prehistory of Taiwan

A young Tsou man

 

Taiwan was joined to the mainland in the Late Pleistocene, until sea levels rose about 10,000 years ago. Fragmentary human remains dated 20,000 to 30,000 years ago have been found on the island, as well as later artefacts of a Paleolithic culture.[38][39][40]

 

Around 6,000 years ago, Taiwan was settled by farmers, most likely from mainland China.[41] They are believed to be the ancestors of today's Taiwanese aborigines, whose languages belong to the Austronesian language family, but show much greater diversity than the rest of the family, which spans a huge area from Maritime Southeast Asia west to Madagascar and east as far as New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island. This has led linguists to propose Taiwan as the urheimat of the family, from which seafaring peoples dispersed across Southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans.[42][43]

 

Han Chinese fishermen began settling in the Penghu islands in the 13th century.[44] Hostile tribes, and a lack of valuable trade products, meant that few outsiders visited the main island until the 16th century.[44] By the 1700's visits to the coast by fishermen from Fujian, as well as Chinese and Japanese pirates, became more frequent.[44]

Opening in the 17th century

Main articles: Dutch Formosa, Spanish Formosa, and Kingdom of Tungning

Fort Zeelandia, the Governor's residence in Dutch Formosa

 

The Dutch East India Company attempted to establish a trading outpost on the Penghu Islands (Pescadores) in 1622, but were militarily defeated and driven off by the Ming authorities.[45]

 

In 1624, the company established a stronghold called Fort Zeelandia on the coastal islet of Tayouan, which is now part of the main island at Anping, Tainan.[29] David Wright, a Scottish agent of the company who lived on the island in the 1650s, described the lowland areas of the island as being divided among 11 chiefdoms ranging in size from two settlements to 72. Some of these fell under Dutch control, while others remained independent.[29][46] The Company began to import labourers from Fujian and Penghu (Pescadores), many of whom settled.[45]

 

In 1626, the Spanish Empire landed on and occupied northern Taiwan, at the ports of Keelung and Tamsui, as a base to extend their trading. This colonial period lasted 16 years until 1642, when the last Spanish fortress fell to Dutch forces.

 

Following the fall of the Ming dynasty, Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), a self-styled Ming loyalist, arrived on the island and captured Fort Zeelandia in 1662, expelling the Dutch Empire and military from the island. Koxinga established the Kingdom of Tungning (1662–1683), with his capital at Tainan. He and his heirs, Zheng Jing, who ruled from 1662 to 1682, and Zheng Keshuang, who ruled less than a year, continued to launch raids on the southeast coast of mainland China well into the Qing dynasty era.[45]

Qing rule

 

In 1683, following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang of southern Fujian, the Qing dynasty formally annexed Taiwan, placing it under the jurisdiction of Fujian province. The Qing imperial government tried to reduce piracy and vagrancy in the area, issuing a series of edicts to manage immigration and respect aboriginal land rights. Immigrants mostly from southern Fujian continued to enter Taiwan. The border between taxpaying lands and "savage" lands shifted eastward, with some aborigines becoming sinicized while others retreated into the mountains. During this time, there were a number of conflicts between groups of Han Chinese from different regions of southern Fujian, particularly between those from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, and between southern Fujian Chinese and aborigines.

 

Northern Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were the scene of subsidiary campaigns in the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). The French occupied Keelung on 1 October 1884, but were repulsed from Tamsui a few days later. The French won some tactical victories but were unable to exploit them, and the Keelung Campaign ended in stalemate. The Pescadores Campaign, beginning on 31 March 1885, was a French victory, but had no long-term consequences. The French evacuated both Keelung and the Penghu archipelago after the end of the war.

 

In 1887, the Qing upgraded the island's administration from Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian to Fujian-Taiwan-Province (福建臺灣省), the twentieth in the empire, with its capital at Taipei. This was accompanied by a modernization drive that included building China's first railroad.[47]

Japanese rule

Main articles: Taiwan under Japanese rule and Republic of Formosa

Japanese colonial soldiers march Taiwanese captured after the Tapani Incident from the Tainan jail to court, 1915.

 

As the Qing dynasty was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Taiwan, along with Penghu and Liaodong Peninsula, were ceded in full sovereignty to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Inhabitants on Taiwan and Penghu wishing to remain Qing subjects were given a two-year grace period to sell their property and move to mainland China. Very few Taiwanese saw this as feasible.[48] On 25 May 1895, a group of pro-Qing high officials proclaimed the Republic of Formosa to resist impending Japanese rule. Japanese forces entered the capital at Tainan and quelled this resistance on 21 October 1895.[49] Guerrilla fighting continued periodically until about 1902 and ultimately took the lives of 14,000 Taiwanese, or 0.5% of the population.[50] Several subsequent rebellions against the Japanese (the Beipu uprising of 1907, the Tapani incident of 1915, and the Musha incident of 1930) were all unsuccessful but demonstrated opposition to Japanese colonial rule.

 

Japanese colonial rule was instrumental in the industrialization of the island, extending the railroads and other transportation networks, building an extensive sanitation system, and establishing a formal education system.[51] Japanese rule ended the practice of headhunting.[52] During this period the human and natural resources of Taiwan were used to aid the development of Japan and the production of cash crops such as rice and sugar greatly increased. By 1939, Taiwan was the seventh greatest sugar producer in the world.[53] Still, the Taiwanese and aborigines were classified as second- and third-class citizens. After suppressing Chinese guerrillas in the first decade of their rule, Japanese authorities engaged in a series of bloody campaigns against the mountain aboriginals, culminating in the Musha Incident of 1930.[54] Intellectuals and laborers who participated in left-wing movements within Taiwan were also arrested and massacred (e.g. Chiang Wei-shui (蔣渭水) and Masanosuke Watanabe (渡辺政之輔)).[55]

 

Around 1935, the Japanese began an island-wide assimilation project to bind the island more firmly to the Japanese Empire and people were taught to see themselves as Japanese under the Kominka Movement, during which time Taiwanese culture and religion were outlawed and the citizens were encouraged to adopt Japanese surnames.[56] The "South Strike Group" was based at the Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei. During World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military.[57] For example, former ROC President Lee Teng-hui's elder brother served in the Japanese navy and was killed in action in the Philippines in February 1945. The Imperial Japanese Navy operated heavily out of Taiwanese ports. In October 1944, the Formosa Air Battle was fought between American carriers and Japanese forces based in Taiwan. Important Japanese military bases and industrial centres throughout Taiwan, like Kaohsiung, were targets of heavy American bombings.[58] Also during this time, over 2,000 women were forced into sexual slavery for Imperial

 

On 25 October 1945, the US Navy ferried ROC troops to Taiwan in order to accept the formal surrender of Japanese military forces in Taipei on behalf of the Allied Powers, as part of General Order No. 1 for temporary military occupation. General Rikichi Andō, governor-general of Taiwan and commander-in-chief of all Japanese forces on the island, signed the receipt and handed it over to General Chen Yi of the ROC military to complete the official turnover. Chen Yi proclaimed that day to be "Taiwan Retrocession Day", but the Allies considered Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to be under military occupation and still under Japanese sovereignty until 1952, when the Treaty of San Francisco took effect.[62][63] Although the 1943 Cairo Declaration had envisaged returning these territories to China, in the Treaty of San Francisco and Treaty of Taipei Japan has renounced all claim to them without specifying to what country they were to be surrendered. This introduced the problem of the legal status of Taiwan.

 

The ROC administration of Taiwan under Chen Yi was strained by increasing tensions between Taiwanese-born people and newly arrived mainlanders, which were compounded by economic woes, such as hyperinflation. Furthermore, cultural and linguistic conflicts between the two groups quickly led to the loss of popular support for the new government, while the mass movement led by the working committee of the Communist Party also aimed to bring down the Kuomintang government.[64][65] The shooting of a civilian on 28 February 1947 triggered island-wide unrest, which was suppressed with military force in what is now called the February 28 Incident. Mainstream estimates of the number killed range from 18,000 to 30,000. Those killed were mainly members of the Taiwanese elite.[66][67]

The Nationalists' retreat to Taipei: after the Nationalists lost Nanjing (Nanking) they next moved to Guangzhou (Canton), then to Chongqing (Chungking), Chengdu (Chengtu) and Xichang (Sichang) before arriving in Taipei.

 

After the end of World War II, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang), led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Party of China, led by Mao Zedong. Throughout the months of 1949, a series of Chinese Communist offensives led to the capture of its capital Nanjing on 23 April and the subsequent defeat of the Nationalist army on the mainland, and the Communists founded the People's Republic of China on 1 October.[68]

 

After losing most of the mainland, the Kuomintang held remaining control of Tibet, the portions of Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Yunnan provinces along with the Hainan Island until 1951 before the Communists subsequently captured both territories. From this point onwards, the Kuomintang's territory was reduced to Taiwan, Penghu, the portions of the Fujian province (Kinmen and Matsu Islands), and two major islands of Dongsha Islands and Nansha Islands. The Kuomintang continued to claim sovereignty over all "China", which it defined to include mainland China, Taiwan, Outer Mongolia and other areas. On mainland China, the victorious Communists claimed they ruled the sole and only China (which they claimed included Taiwan) and that the Republic of China no longer existed.[73]

A Chinese man in military uniform, smiling and looking towards the left. He holds a sword in his left hand and has a medal in shape of a sun on his chest.

Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang from 1925 until his death in 1975

Chinese Nationalist one-party rule

 

Martial law, declared on Taiwan in May 1949,[74] continued to be in effect after the central government relocated to Taiwan. It was not repealed until 1987,[74] and was used as a way to suppress the political opposition in the intervening years.[75] During the White Terror, as the period is known, 140,000 people were imprisoned or executed for being perceived as anti-KMT or pro-Communist.[76] Many citizens were arrested, tortured, imprisoned and executed for their real or perceived link to the Communists. Since these people were mainly from the intellectual and social elite, an entire generation of political and social leaders was decimated. In 1998 law was passed to create the "Compensation Foundation for Improper Verdicts" which oversaw compensation to White Terror victims and families. President Ma Ying-jeou made an official apology in 2008, expressing hope that there will never be a tragedy similar to White Terror.[77]

 

Initially, the United States abandoned the KMT and expected that Taiwan would fall to the Communists. However, in 1950 the conflict between North Korea and South Korea, which had been ongoing since the Japanese withdrawal in 1945, escalated into full-blown war, and in the context of the Cold War, US President Harry S. Truman intervened again and dispatched the US Navy's 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent hostilities between Taiwan and mainland China.[78] In the Treaty of San Francisco and the Treaty of Taipei, which came into force respectively on 28 April 1952 and 5 August 1952, Japan formally renounced all right, claim and title to Taiwan and Penghu, and renounced all treaties signed with China before 1942. Neither treaty specified to whom sovereignty over the islands should be transferred, because the United States and the United Kingdom disagreed on whether the ROC or the PRC was the legitimate government of China.[79] Continuing conflict of the Chinese Civil War through the 1950s, and intervention by the United States notably resulted in legislation such as the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty and the Formosa Resolution of 1955.

With President Chiang Kai-shek, the US President Dwight D. Eisenhower waved to crowds during his visit to Taipei in June 1960.

 

As the Chinese Civil War continued without truce, the government built up military fortifications throughout Taiwan. Within this effort, KMT veterans built the now famous Central Cross-Island Highway through the Taroko Gorge in the 1950s. The two sides would continue to engage in sporadic military clashes with seldom publicized details well into the 1960s on the China coastal islands with an unknown number of night raids. During the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in September 1958, Taiwan's landscape saw Nike-Hercules missile batteries added, with the formation of the 1st Missile Battalion Chinese Army that would not be deactivated until 1997. Newer generations of missile batteries have since replaced the Nike Hercules systems throughout the island.

  

Up until the 1970s, the government was regarded by Western critics as undemocratic for upholding martial law, for severely repressing any political opposition and for controlling media. The KMT did not allow the creation of new parties and those that existed did not seriously compete with the KMT. Thus, competitive democratic elections did not exist.[83][84][85][86][87] From the late 1970s to the 1990s, however, Taiwan went through reforms and social changes that transformed it from an authoritarian state to a democracy. In 1979, a pro-democracy protest known as the Kaohsiung Incident took place in Kaohsiung to celebrate Human Rights Day. Although the protest was rapidly crushed by the authorities, it is today considered as the main event that united Taiwan's opposition.[88]

Democratization

Main articles: Democratic reforms of Taiwan and Elections in Taiwan

 

Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's son and successor as the president, began to liberalize the political system in the mid-1980s. In 1984, the younger Chiang selected Lee Teng-hui, a Taiwanese-born, US-educated technocrat, to be his vice-president. In 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed and inaugurated as the first opposition party in the ROC to counter the KMT. A year later, Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law on the main island of Taiwan (martial law was lifted on Penghu in 1979, Matsu island in 1992 and Kinmen island in 1993). With the advent of democratization, the issue of the political status of Taiwan gradually resurfaced as a controversial issue where, previously, the discussion of anything other than unification under the ROC was taboo.

 

After the death of Chiang Ching-kuo in January 1988, Lee Teng-hui succeeded him as president. Lee continued to democratize the government and decrease the concentration of government authority in the hands of mainland Chinese. Under Lee, Taiwan underwent a process of localization in which Taiwanese culture and history were promoted over a pan-China viewpoint in contrast to earlier KMT policies which had promoted a Chinese identity. Lee's reforms included printing banknotes from the Central Bank rather than the Provincial Bank of Taiwan, and streamlining the Taiwan Provincial Government with most of its functions transferred to the Executive Yuan. Under Lee, the original members of the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly(a former supreme legislative body defunct in 2005）,[89] elected in 1947 to represent mainland Chinese constituencies and having held the seats without re-election for more than four decades, were forced to resign in 1991. The previously nominal representation in the Legislative Yuan was brought to an end, reflecting the reality that the ROC had no jurisdiction over mainland China, and vice versa. Restrictions on the use of Taiwanese Hokkien in the broadcast media and in schools were also lifted.[citation needed]

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Taiwan's special envoy to the APEC summit, Lien Chan, November 2011

 

Democratic reforms continued in the 1990s, with Lee Teng-hui re-elected in 1996, in the first direct presidential election in the history of the ROC.[90] During the later years of Lee's administration, he was involved in corruption controversies relating to government release of land and weapons purchase, although no legal proceedings commenced. In 1997,"To meet the requisites of the nation prior to national unification",[91] the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China was passed and then the former "constitution of five powers" turns to be more tripartite. In 2000, Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party was elected as the first non-Kuomintang (KMT) President and was re-elected to serve his second and last term since 2004. Polarized politics has emerged in Taiwan with the formation of the Pan-Blue Coalition of parties led by the KMT, favouring eventual Chinese reunification, and the Pan-Green Coalition of parties led by the DPP, favouring an eventual and official declaration of Taiwanese independence.[92][clarification needed] In early 2006, President Chen Shui-bian remarked: “The National Unification Council will cease to function. No budget will be ear-marked for it and its personnel must return to their original posts...The National Unification Guidelines will cease to apply."[93]

The ruling DPP has traditionally leaned in favour of Taiwan independence and rejects the "One-China policy".

 

On 30 September 2007, the ruling DPP approved a resolution asserting a separate identity from China and called for the enactment of a new constitution for a "normal country". It also called for general use of "Taiwan" as the country's name, without abolishing its formal name, the Republic of China.[94] The Chen administration also pushed for referendums on national defence and UN entry in the 2004 and 2008 elections, which failed due to voter turnout below the required legal threshold of 50% of all registered voters.[95] The Chen administration was dogged by public concerns over reduced economic growth, legislative gridlock due to a pan-blue, opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan and corruption involving the First Family as well as government officials.[96][97]

 

The KMT increased its majority in the Legislative Yuan in the January 2008 legislative elections, while its nominee Ma Ying-jeou went on to win the presidency in March of the same year, campaigning on a platform of increased economic growth and better ties with the PRC under a policy of "mutual nondenial".[95] Ma took office on 20 May 2008, the same day that President Chen Shui-bian stepped down and was notified by prosecutors of possible corruption charges. Part of the rationale for campaigning for closer economic ties with the PRC stems from the strong economic growth China attained since joining the World Trade Organization. However, some analysts say that despite the election of Ma Ying-jeou, the diplomatic and military tensions with the PRC have not been reduced.[98]

 

On 24 May 2017, the Constitutional Court ruled that current marriage laws are unconstitutional and that same-sex couples in the Taiwanese LGBT community should have the right to marry. The court has given the Legislative Yuan two years to adequately amend Taiwanese marriage laws. According to the court ruling, if amendments are not passed within two years, same-sex marriages will automatically become legal in Taiwan.[99]

Geography

Main article: Geography of Taiwan

Taiwan is mostly mountainous in the east, with gently sloping plains in the west. The Penghu Islands are west of the main island.

 

The total area of the current jurisdiction of the Republic of China is 36,193 km2 (13,974 sq mi),[8] making it the world's 137th-largest country/dependency, smaller than Switzerland and larger than Belgium.

 

The island of Taiwan has an area of 35,883 km2 (13,855 sq mi), and lies some 180 kilometres (110 mi) from the southeastern coast of mainland China across the Taiwan Strait.[8] The East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait directly to the south, and the South China Sea to the southwest. Its shape is similar to a sweet potato, giving rise to the name sweet potato used by Taiwanese Hokkien speakers for people of Taiwanese descent.[100]

 

The island is characterized by the contrast between the eastern two-thirds, consisting mostly of rugged mountains running in five ranges from the northern to the southern tip of the island, and the flat to gently rolling Chianan Plains in the west that are also home to most of Taiwan's population. Taiwan's highest point is Yu Shan (Jade Mountain) at 3,952 metres (12,966 ft),[101] making Taiwan the world's fourth-highest island.

 

The Penghu Islands, 50 km (31.1 mi) west of the main island, have an area of 126.9 km2 (49.0 sq mi). More distant islands controlled by the Republic of China are the Kinmen, Wuchiu and Matsu Islands off the coast of Fujian, with a total area of 180.5 km2 (69.7 sq mi), and the Pratas Islands and Taiping Island in the South China Sea, with a total area of 2.9 km2 (1.1 sq mi) and no permanent inhabitants.[8] The ROC government also claims the Senkaku Islands to the northeast, which are controlled by Japan.

Climate

 

Taiwan lies on the Tropic of Cancer, and its general climate is marine tropical.[7] The northern and central regions are subtropical, whereas the south is tropical and the mountainous regions are temperate.[102] The average rainfall is 2,600 millimetres (100 inches) per year for the island proper; the rainy season is concurrent with the onset of the summer East Asian Monsoon in May and June.[103] The entire island experiences hot, humid weather from June through September. Typhoons are most common in July, August and September.[103] During the winter (November to March), the northeast experiences steady rain, while the central and southern parts of the island are mostly sunny.

Geology

Main article: Geology of Taiwan

Dabajian Mountain

 

The island of Taiwan lies in a complex tectonic area between the Yangtze Plate to the west and north, the Okinawa Plate on the north-east, and the Philippine Mobile Belt on the east and south. The upper part of the crust on the island is primarily made up of a series of terranes, mostly old island arcs which have been forced together by the collision of the forerunners of the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. These have been further uplifted as a result of the detachment of a portion of the Eurasian Plate as it was subducted beneath remnants of the Philippine Sea Plate, a process which left the crust under Taiwan more buoyant.[104]

  

The major seismic faults in Taiwan correspond to the various suture zones between the various terranes. These have produced major quakes throughout the history of the island. On 21 September 1999, a 7.3 quake known as the "921 earthquake" killed more than 2,400 people. The seismic hazard map for Taiwan by the USGS shows 9/10 of the island as the highest rating (most hazardous).[106]

Political and legal status

Main article: Political status of Taiwan

See also: List of states with limited recognition and Foreign relations of China § International territorial disputes

  

The political and legal statuses of Taiwan are contentious issues. The People's Republic of China (PRC) claims that the Republic of China government is illegitimate, referring to it as the "Taiwan Authority" even though current ROC territories have never been controlled by the PRC.[107][108] The ROC has its own constitution, independently elected president and armed forces. It has not formally renounced its claim to the mainland, but ROC government publications have increasingly downplayed it.[109]

 

Internationally, there is controversy on whether the ROC still exists as a state or a defunct state per international law due to the lack of wide diplomatic recognition. In a poll of Taiwanese aged 20 and older taken by TVBS in March 2009, a majority of 64% opted for the "status quo", while 19% favoured "independence" and 5% favoured "unification".[110]

Relations with the PRC

 

After the KMT's retreat to Taiwan, most countries, notably the countries in the Western Bloc, continued to maintain relations with the ROC. Due to diplomatic pressure, recognition gradually eroded and many countries switched recognition to the PRC in the 1970s. UN Resolution 2758 (25 October 1971) recognized the People's Republic of China as China's sole representative in the United Nations.[122]

 

The PRC refuses to have diplomatic relations with any nation that recognizes the ROC, and requires all nations with which it has diplomatic relations to make a statement recognizing its claims to Taiwan.[123] As a result, only 19 UN member states and the Holy See maintain official diplomatic relations with the Republic of China. The ROC maintains unofficial relations with most countries via de facto embassies and consulates called Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Offices (TECRO), with branch offices called "Taipei Economic and Cultural Offices" (TECO). Both TECRO and TECO are "unofficial commercial entities" of the ROC in charge of maintaining diplomatic relations, providing consular services (i.e. visa applications), and serving the national interests of the ROC in other countries.[124]

 

On 16 December 2015, the Obama administration announced a deal to sell $1.83 billion worth of arms to the armed forces of the ROC.[128][129] China's foreign ministry had expressed its disapproval for the sales and issued the US a "stern warning", saying it would hurt China–US relations.[130]

Participation in international events and organizations

See also: Foreign relations of Taiwan § Relation with International organizations

 

The ROC was a founding member of the United Nations, and held the seat of China on the Security Council and other UN bodies until 1971, when it was expelled by Resolution 2758 and replaced in all UN organs with the PRC. Each year since 1992, the ROC has petitioned the UN for entry, but its applications have not made it past committee.[131]

A white symbol in shape of a five petal flower ringed by a blue and a red line. In its centre stands a circular symbol depicting a white sun on a blue background. The five Olympic circles (blue, yellow, black, green and red) stand below it.

The flag used by Taiwan at the Olympic Games, where it competes as "Chinese Taipei" (中華台北).

 

Due to its limited international recognition, the Republic of China is a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, represented by a government-funded organization, the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) under the name "Taiwan".[132][133]

 

Also due to its One China policy, the PRC only participates in international organizations where the ROC is not recognized as a sovereign country. Most member states, including the United States, do not wish to discuss the issue of the ROC's political status for fear of souring diplomatic ties with the PRC.[134] However, both the US and Japan publicly support the ROC's bid for membership in the World Health Organization as an observer.[135] However, though the ROC sought to participate in the WHO since 1997,[136][137] their efforts were blocked by the PRC until 2010, when they were invited as observers to attend the World Health Assembly, under the name "Chinese Taipei".[138]

 

Due to PRC pressure, the ROC is forced to use the name "Chinese Taipei" in international events, such as the Olympic Games, where the PRC is also a party.[139] The ROC is typically barred from using its national anthem and national flag in international events due to PRC pressure; ROC spectators attending events such as the Olympics are often barred from bringing ROC flags into venues.[140] Taiwan also participates in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (since 1991) and the World Trade Organization (since 2002) under the name "Chinese Taipei". The ROC is able to participate as "China" in organizations that the PRC does not participate in, such as the World Organization of the Scout Movement.

Opinions within Taiwan

See also: Taiwan independence and Chinese Unification

  

The Democratic Progressive Party, the largest Pan-Green party, officially seeks independence, but in practice also supports the status quo because its members and the public would not accept the risk of provoking the PRC.[143][144]

  

On 27 September 2017, Taiwanese premier William Lai said that he was a “political worker who advocates Taiwan independence”, but that as Taiwan was an independent country called the Republic of China, it had no need to declare independence.[146] The relationship with the PRC and the related issues of Taiwanese independence and Chinese unification continue to dominate politics.[147]

Government and politics

Main articles: Government of the Republic of China and Politics of the Republic of China

See also: Elections in Taiwan and Human rights in Taiwan

蔡英文官方元首肖像照.png 賴清德市長.jpg

Tsai Ing-wen

President William Lai Premier

  

The first line of defence against invasion by the PRC is the ROC's own armed forces. Current ROC military doctrine is to hold out against an invasion or blockade until the US military responds.[195] There is, however, no guarantee in the Taiwan Relations Act or any other treaty that the United States will defend Taiwan, even in the event of invasion.[196] The joint declaration on security between the US and Japan signed in 1996 may imply that Japan would be involved in any response. However, Japan has refused to stipulate whether the "area surrounding Japan" mentioned in the pact includes Taiwan, and the precise purpose of the pact is unclear.[197] The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS Treaty) may mean that other US allies, such as Australia, could theoretically be involved.[198] In practice, the risk of losing economic ties with China may prevent Australia from taking action.[199] The United States, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Chile, and Peru conduct maritime exercises in the Pacific Ocean every two years called RIMPAC. They are conducted to promote stability and to be able to respond in case of an armed conflict in the region – that includes an invasion of Taiwan by China.[200]

Administrative divisions

  

Since 1949, the government has made some changes in the area under its control. Taipei became a special municipality in 1967 and Kaohsiung in 1979. The two provincial governments were "streamlined", with their functions transferred to the central government (Fujian in 1956 and Taiwan in 1998).[204] In 2010, New Taipei, Taichung and Tainan were upgraded to special municipalities. And in 2014, Taoyuan County was also upgraded to Taoyuan special municipality. This brought the top-level divisions to their current state:[205]

Level 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

Division

type Special municipality

(直轄市 zhíxiáshì) (6) Mountain Indigenous District

(原住民區 yuánzhùmín qū) (6) Urban Village

(里 lǐ) Neighborhood

(鄰 lín)

District

(區 qū) (164)

Province

(省 shěng) (2)

(Streamlined) City

(市 shì) (3)

County

(縣 xiàn) (13) County-controlled city

(縣轄市 xiànxiáshì) (14)

Urban Township

(鎮 zhèn) (38)

Rural Township

(鄉 xiāng) (122) Rural Village

(村 cūn)

Mountain Indigenous Township

(山地鄉 shāndì xiāng) (24)

Total 22 368 7,851 147,785

Photo Copyright 2012, dynamo.photography.

All rights reserved, no use without license

 

++++ FROM WIKIPEDIA ++++

 

Taiwan (/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ (About this sound listen)), officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a state in East Asia. Its neighbors include the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the west, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taiwan is the most populous state and largest economy that is not a member of the United Nations.

 

The island of Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, was inhabited by aborigines before the 17th century, when Dutch and Spanish colonies opened the island to mass Han immigration. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty of China. The Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China (ROC) was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROC's loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. Although the ROC continued to claim to be the legitimate government of China, its effective jurisdiction has, since the loss of Hainan in 1950, been limited to Taiwan and its surrounding islands, with the main island making up 99% of its de facto territory. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, when the PRC assumed China's seat, causing the ROC to lose its UN membership.

 

In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system. Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, healthcare,[16] public education, economic freedom, and human development.[d][14][17] The country benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most highly educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree.[18][19]

 

The PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refuses diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC. Today, 20 countries maintain official ties with the ROC but many other states maintain unofficial ties through representative offices and institutions that function as de facto embassies and consulates. Although Taiwan is fully self-governing, most international organizations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or allow it to participate only as a non-state actor. Internally, the major division in politics is between the aspirations of eventual Chinese unification or Taiwanese independence, though both sides have moderated their positions to broaden their appeal. The PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible.[20]

 

Etymology

See also: Chinese Taipei, Formosa, and Names of China

Taiwan

Taiwan (Chinese characters).svg

(top) "Taiwan" in Traditional Chinese characters and Kyūjitai Japanese Kanji. (bottom) "Taiwan" in Simplified Chinese characters and Japanese Kanji.

Chinese name

Traditional Chinese 臺灣 or 台灣

Simplified Chinese 台湾

[show]Transcriptions

Japanese name

Kanji 台湾

Kana たいわん

Kyūjitai 臺灣

[show]Transcriptions

Republic of China

ROC (Chinese characters).svg

"Republic of China" in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom) Chinese characters

Traditional Chinese 中華民國

Simplified Chinese 中华民国

Postal Chunghwa Minkuo

[show]Transcriptions

China

Traditional Chinese 中國

Simplified Chinese 中国

Literal meaning Middle or Central State[21]

[show]Transcriptions

 

There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, derived from explorers or rulers by each particular period. The former name Formosa (福爾摩沙) dates from 1542,[verification needed] when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means "beautiful island".[22] The name "Formosa" eventually "replaced all others in European literature"[23] and was in common use in English in the early 20th century.[24]

 

In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company established a commercial post at Fort Zeelandia (modern-day Anping, Tainan) on a coastal sandbar called "Tayouan",[25] after their ethnonym for a nearby Taiwanese aboriginal tribe, written by the Dutch and Portuguese variously as Taiouwang, Tayowan, Teijoan, etc.[26] This name was also adopted into the Chinese vernacular (in particular, Hokkien, as Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tāi-oân/Tâi-oân) as the name of the sandbar and nearby area (Tainan). The modern word "Taiwan" is derived from this usage, which is seen in various forms (大員, 大圓, 大灣, 臺員, 臺圓 and 臺窩灣) in Chinese historical records. The area of modern-day Tainan was the first permanent settlement by Western colonists and Chinese immigrants, grew to be the most important trading centre, and served as the capital of the island until 1887. Use of the current Chinese name (臺灣) was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture. Through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as "Taiwan".[27][28][29][30]

 

In his Daoyi Zhilüe (1349), Wang Dayuan used "Liuqiu" as a name for the island of Taiwan, or the part of it near to Penghu.[31] Elsewhere, the name was used for the Ryukyu Islands in general or Okinawa, the largest of them; indeed the name Ryūkyū is the Japanese form of Liúqiú. The name also appears in the Book of Sui (636) and other early works, but scholars cannot agree on whether these references are to the Ryukyus, Taiwan or even Luzon.[32]

 

The official name of the state is the "Republic of China"; it has also been known under various names throughout its existence. Shortly after the ROC's establishment in 1912, while it was still located on the Chinese mainland, the government used the short form "China" Zhōngguó (中國), to refer to itself, which derives from zhōng ("central" or "middle") and guó ("state, nation-state"), [e] A term which also developed under the Zhou Dynasty in reference to its royal demesne[f] and the name was then applied to the area around Luoyi (present-day Luoyang) during the Eastern Zhou and then to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qingera .[34] During the 1950s and 1960s, after the government had fled to Taiwan due to losing the Chinese Civil War, it was commonly referred to as "Nationalist China" (or "Free China") to differentiate it from "Communist China" (or "Red China").[36] It was a member of the United Nations representing "China" until 1971, when it lost its seat to the People's Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become commonly known as "Taiwan", after the island that comprises 99% of the territory under its control. In some contexts, especially official ones from the ROC government, the name is written as "Republic of China (Taiwan)", "Republic of China/Taiwan", or sometimes "Taiwan (ROC)."[37] The Republic of China participates in most international forums and organizations under the name "Chinese Taipei" due to diplomatic pressure from the People's Republic of China. For instance, it is the name under which it has competed at the Olympic Games since 1984, and its name as an observer at the World Health Organization.[38]

History

Main articles: History of Taiwan and History of the Republic of China

See the History of China article for historical information in the Chinese Mainland before 1949.

Prehistoric Taiwan

Main article: Prehistory of Taiwan

A young Tsou man

 

Taiwan was joined to the mainland in the Late Pleistocene, until sea levels rose about 10,000 years ago. Fragmentary human remains dated 20,000 to 30,000 years ago have been found on the island, as well as later artefacts of a Paleolithic culture.[39][40][41]

 

Around 6,000 years ago, Taiwan was settled by farmers, most likely from mainland China.[42] They are believed to be the ancestors of today's Taiwanese aborigines, whose languages belong to the Austronesian language family, but show much greater diversity than the rest of the family, which spans a huge area from Maritime Southeast Asia west to Madagascar and east as far as New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island. This has led linguists to propose Taiwan as the urheimat of the family, from which seafaring peoples dispersed across Southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans.[43][44]

 

Han Chinese fishermen began settling in the Penghu islands in the 13th century.[45] Hostile tribes, and a lack of valuable trade products, meant that few outsiders visited the main island until the 16th century.[45] By the 1700's visits to the coast by fishermen from Fujian, as well as Chinese and Japanese pirates, became more frequent.[45]

Opening in the 17th century

 

The Dutch East India Company attempted to establish a trading outpost on the Penghu Islands (Pescadores) in 1622, but were militarily defeated and driven off by the Ming authorities.[46]

 

In 1624, the company established a stronghold called Fort Zeelandia on the coastal islet of Tayouan, which is now part of the main island at Anping, Tainan.[30] David Wright, a Scottish agent of the company who lived on the island in the 1650s, described the lowland areas of the island as being divided among 11 chiefdoms ranging in size from two settlements to 72. Some of these fell under Dutch control, while others remained independent.[30][47] The Company began to import labourers from Fujian and Penghu (Pescadores), many of whom settled.[46]

 

In 1626, the Spanish Empire landed on and occupied northern Taiwan, at the ports of Keelung and Tamsui, as a base to extend their trading. This colonial period lasted 16 years until 1642, when the last Spanish fortress fell to Dutch forces.

 

Following the fall of the Ming dynasty, Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), a self-styled Ming loyalist, arrived on the island and captured Fort Zeelandia in 1662, expelling the Dutch Empire and military from the island. Koxinga established the Kingdom of Tungning (1662–1683), with his capital at Tainan. He and his heirs, Zheng Jing, who ruled from 1662 to 1682, and Zheng Keshuang, who ruled less than a year, continued to launch raids on the southeast coast of mainland China well into the Qing dynasty era.[46]

Qing rule

In 1683, following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang of southern Fujian, the Qing dynasty formally annexed Taiwan, placing it under the jurisdiction of Fujian province. The Qing imperial government tried to reduce piracy and vagrancy in the area, issuing a series of edicts to manage immigration and respect aboriginal land rights. Immigrants mostly from southern Fujian continued to enter Taiwan. The border between taxpaying lands and "savage" lands shifted eastward, with some aborigines becoming sinicized while others retreated into the mountains. During this time, there were a number of conflicts between groups of Han Chinese from different regions of southern Fujian, particularly between those from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, and between southern Fujian Chinese and aborigines.

 

Northern Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were the scene of subsidiary campaigns in the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). The French occupied Keelung on 1 October 1884, but were repulsed from Tamsui a few days later. The French won some tactical victories but were unable to exploit them, and the Keelung Campaign ended in stalemate. The Pescadores Campaign, beginning on 31 March 1885, was a French victory, but had no long-term consequences. The French evacuated both Keelung and the Penghu archipelago after the end of the war.

 

In 1887, the Qing upgraded the island's administration from Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian to Fujian-Taiwan-Province (福建臺灣省), the twentieth in the empire, with its capital at Taipei. This was accompanied by a modernization drive that included building China's first railroad.[48]

Japanese rule

Main articles: Taiwan under Japanese rule and Republic of Formosa

Japanese colonial soldiers march Taiwanese captured after the Tapani Incident from the Tainan jail to court, 1915.

 

As the Qing dynasty was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Taiwan, along with Penghu and Liaodong Peninsula, were ceded in full sovereignty to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Inhabitants on Taiwan and Penghu wishing to remain Qing subjects were given a two-year grace period to sell their property and move to mainland China. Very few Taiwanese saw this as feasible.[49] On 25 May 1895, a group of pro-Qing high officials proclaimed the Republic of Formosa to resist impending Japanese rule. Japanese forces entered the capital at Tainan and quelled this resistance on 21 October 1895.[50] Guerrilla fighting continued periodically until about 1902 and ultimately took the lives of 14,000 Taiwanese, or 0.5% of the population.[51] Several subsequent rebellions against the Japanese (the Beipu uprising of 1907, the Tapani incident of 1915, and the Musha incident of 1930) were all unsuccessful but demonstrated opposition to Japanese colonial rule.

 

Japanese colonial rule was instrumental in the industrialization of the island, extending the railroads and other transportation networks, building an extensive sanitation system, and establishing a formal education system.[52] Japanese rule ended the practice of headhunting.[53] During this period the human and natural resources of Taiwan were used to aid the development of Japan and the production of cash crops such as rice and sugar greatly increased. By 1939, Taiwan was the seventh greatest sugar producer in the world.[54] Still, the Taiwanese and aborigines were classified as second- and third-class citizens. After suppressing Chinese guerrillas in the first decade of their rule, Japanese authorities engaged in a series of bloody campaigns against the mountain aboriginals, culminating in the Musha Incident of 1930.[55] Intellectuals and laborers who participated in left-wing movements within Taiwan were also arrested and massacred (e.g. Chiang Wei-shui (蔣渭水) and Masanosuke Watanabe (渡辺政之輔)).[56]

 

Around 1935, the Japanese began an island-wide assimilation project to bind the island more firmly to the Japanese Empire and people were taught to see themselves as Japanese under the Kominka Movement, during which time Taiwanese culture and religion were outlawed and the citizens were encouraged to adopt Japanese surnames.[57] The "South Strike Group" was based at the Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei. During World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military.[58] For example, former ROC President Lee Teng-hui's elder brother served in the Japanese navy and was killed in action in the Philippines in February 1945. The Imperial Japanese Navy operated heavily out of Taiwanese ports. In October 1944, the Formosa Air Battle was fought between American carriers and Japanese forces based in Taiwan. Important Japanese military bases and industrial centres throughout Taiwan, like Kaohsiung, were targets of heavy American bombings.[59] Also during this time, over 2,000 women were forced into sexual slavery for Imperial Japanese troops, now euphemistically called "comfort women."[60]

 

In 1938, there were 309,000 Japanese settlers in Taiwan.[61] After World War II, most of the Japanese were expelled and sent to Japan.[62]

Republic of China

 

On 25 October 1945, the US Navy ferried ROC troops to Taiwan in order to accept the formal surrender of Japanese military forces in Taipei on behalf of the Allied Powers, as part of General Order No. 1 for temporary military occupation. General Rikichi Andō, governor-general of Taiwan and commander-in-chief of all Japanese forces on the island, signed the receipt and handed it over to General Chen Yi of the ROC military to complete the official turnover. Chen Yi proclaimed that day to be "Taiwan Retrocession Day", but the Allies considered Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to be under military occupation and still under Japanese sovereignty until 1952, when the Treaty of San Francisco took effect.[63][64] Although the 1943 Cairo Declaration had envisaged returning these territories to China, in the Treaty of San Francisco and Treaty of Taipei Japan has renounced all claim to them without specifying to what country they were to be surrendered. This introduced the problem of the legal status of Taiwan.

 

The ROC administration of Taiwan under Chen Yi was strained by increasing tensions between Taiwanese-born people and newly arrived mainlanders, which were compounded by economic woes, such as hyperinflation. Furthermore, cultural and linguistic conflicts between the two groups quickly led to the loss of popular support for the new government, while the mass movement led by the working committee of the Communist Party also aimed to bring down the Kuomintang government.[65][66] The shooting of a civilian on 28 February 1947 triggered island-wide unrest, which was suppressed with military force in what is now called the February 28 Incident. Mainstream estimates of the number killed range from 18,000 to 30,000. Those killed were mainly members of the Taiwanese elite.[67][68]

The Nationalists' retreat to Taipei: after the Nationalists lost Nanjing (Nanking) they next moved to Guangzhou (Canton), then to Chongqing (Chungking), Chengdu (Chengtu) and Xichang (Sichang) before arriving in Taipei.

 

After the end of World War II, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang), led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Party of China, led by Mao Zedong. Throughout the months of 1949, a series of Chinese Communist offensives led to the capture of its capital Nanjing on 23 April and the subsequent defeat of the Nationalist army on the mainland, and the Communists founded the People's Republic of China on 1 October.[69]

 

On 7 December 1949, after the loss of four capitals, Chiang evacuated his Nationalist government to Taiwan and made Taipei the temporary capital of the ROC (also called the "wartime capital" by Chiang Kai-shek).[70] Some 2 million people, consisting mainly of soldiers, members of the ruling Kuomintang and intellectual and business elites, were evacuated from mainland China to Taiwan at that time, adding to the earlier population of approximately six million. In addition, the ROC government took to Taipei many national treasures and much of China's gold reserves and foreign currency reserves.[71][72][73]

 

After losing most of the mainland, the Kuomintang held remaining control of Tibet, the portions of Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Yunnan provinces along with the Hainan Island until 1951 before the Communists subsequently captured both territories. From this point onwards, the Kuomintang's territory was reduced to Taiwan, Penghu, the portions of the Fujian province (Kinmen and Matsu Islands), and two major islands of Dongsha Islands and Nansha Islands. The Kuomintang continued to claim sovereignty over all "China", which it defined to include mainland China, Taiwan, Outer Mongolia and other areas. On mainland China, the victorious Communists claimed they ruled the sole and only China (which they claimed included Taiwan) and that the Republic of China no longer existed.[74]

A Chinese man in military uniform, smiling and looking towards the left. He holds a sword in his left hand and has a medal in shape of a sun on his chest.

Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang from 1925 until his death in 1975

Chinese Nationalist one-party rule

 

Martial law, declared on Taiwan in May 1949,[75] continued to be in effect after the central government relocated to Taiwan. It was not repealed until 1987,[75] and was used as a way to suppress the political opposition in the intervening years.[76] During the White Terror, as the period is known, 140,000 people were imprisoned or executed for being perceived as anti-KMT or pro-Communist.[77] Many citizens were arrested, tortured, imprisoned and executed for their real or perceived link to the Communists. Since these people were mainly from the intellectual and social elite, an entire generation of political and social leaders was decimated. In 1998 law was passed to create the "Compensation Foundation for Improper Verdicts" which oversaw compensation to White Terror victims and families. President Ma Ying-jeou made an official apology in 2008, expressing hope that there will never be a tragedy similar to White Terror.[78]

 

Initially, the United States abandoned the KMT and expected that Taiwan would fall to the Communists. However, in 1950 the conflict between North Korea and South Korea, which had been ongoing since the Japanese withdrawal in 1945, escalated into full-blown war, and in the context of the Cold War, US President Harry S. Truman intervened again and dispatched the US Navy's 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent hostilities between Taiwan and mainland China.[79] In the Treaty of San Francisco and the Treaty of Taipei, which came into force respectively on 28 April 1952 and 5 August 1952, Japan formally renounced all right, claim and title to Taiwan and Penghu, and renounced all treaties signed with China before 1942. Neither treaty specified to whom sovereignty over the islands should be transferred, because the United States and the United Kingdom disagreed on whether the ROC or the PRC was the legitimate government of China.[80] Continuing conflict of the Chinese Civil War through the 1950s, and intervention by the United States notably resulted in legislation such as the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty and the Formosa Resolution of 1955.

With President Chiang Kai-shek, the US President Dwight D. Eisenhower waved to crowds during his visit to Taipei in June 1960.

 

As the Chinese Civil War continued without truce, the government built up military fortifications throughout Taiwan. Within this effort, KMT veterans built the now famous Central Cross-Island Highway through the Taroko Gorge in the 1950s. The two sides would continue to engage in sporadic military clashes with seldom publicized details well into the 1960s on the China coastal islands with an unknown number of night raids. During the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in September 1958, Taiwan's landscape saw Nike-Hercules missile batteries added, with the formation of the 1st Missile Battalion Chinese Army that would not be deactivated until 1997. Newer generations of missile batteries have since replaced the Nike Hercules systems throughout the island.

 

During the 1960s and 1970s, the ROC maintained an authoritarian, single-party government while its economy became industrialized and technology oriented. This rapid economic growth, known as the Taiwan Miracle, was the result of a fiscal regime independent from mainland China and backed up, among others, by the support of US funds and demand for Taiwanese products.[81][82] In the 1970s, Taiwan was economically the second fastest growing state in Asia after Japan.[83] Taiwan, along with Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore, became known as one of the Four Asian Tigers. Because of the Cold War, most Western nations and the United Nations regarded the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China until the 1970s. Later, especially after the termination of the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, most nations switched diplomatic recognition to the PRC (see United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758).

 

Up until the 1970s, the government was regarded by Western critics as undemocratic for upholding martial law, for severely repressing any political opposition and for controlling media. The KMT did not allow the creation of new parties and those that existed did not seriously compete with the KMT. Thus, competitive democratic elections did not exist.[84][85][86][87][88] From the late 1970s to the 1990s, however, Taiwan went through reforms and social changes that transformed it from an authoritarian state to a democracy. In 1979, a pro-democracy protest known as the Kaohsiung Incident took place in Kaohsiung to celebrate Human Rights Day. Although the protest was rapidly crushed by the authorities, it is today considered as the main event that united Taiwan's opposition.[89]

Democratization

 

Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's son and successor as the president, began to liberalize the political system in the mid-1980s. In 1984, the younger Chiang selected Lee Teng-hui, a Taiwanese-born, US-educated technocrat, to be his vice-president. In 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed and inaugurated as the first opposition party in the ROC to counter the KMT. A year later, Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law on the main island of Taiwan (martial law was lifted on Penghu in 1979, Matsu island in 1992 and Kinmen island in 1993). With the advent of democratization, the issue of the political status of Taiwan gradually resurfaced as a controversial issue where, previously, the discussion of anything other than unification under the ROC was taboo.

 

After the death of Chiang Ching-kuo in January 1988, Lee Teng-hui succeeded him as president. Lee continued to democratize the government and decrease the concentration of government authority in the hands of mainland Chinese. Under Lee, Taiwan underwent a process of localization in which Taiwanese culture and history were promoted over a pan-China viewpoint in contrast to earlier KMT policies which had promoted a Chinese identity. Lee's reforms included printing banknotes from the Central Bank rather than the Provincial Bank of Taiwan, and streamlining the Taiwan Provincial Government with most of its functions transferred to the Executive Yuan. Under Lee, the original members of the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly(a former supreme legislative body defunct in 2005）,[90] elected in 1947 to represent mainland Chinese constituencies and having held the seats without re-election for more than four decades, were forced to resign in 1991. The previously nominal representation in the Legislative Yuan was brought to an end, reflecting the reality that the ROC had no jurisdiction over mainland China, and vice versa. Restrictions on the use of Taiwanese Hokkien in the broadcast media and in schools were also lifted.[citation needed]

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Taiwan's special envoy to the APEC summit, Lien Chan, November 2011

 

Democratic reforms continued in the 1990s, with Lee Teng-hui re-elected in 1996, in the first direct presidential election in the history of the ROC.[91] During the later years of Lee's administration, he was involved in corruption controversies relating to government release of land and weapons purchase, although no legal proceedings commenced. In 1997,"To meet the requisites of the nation prior to national unification",[92] the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China was passed and then the former "constitution of five powers" turns to be more tripartite. In 2000, Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party was elected as the first non-Kuomintang (KMT) President and was re-elected to serve his second and last term since 2004. Polarized politics has emerged in Taiwan with the formation of the Pan-Blue Coalition of parties led by the KMT, favouring eventual Chinese reunification, and the Pan-Green Coalition of parties led by the DPP, favouring an eventual and official declaration of Taiwanese independence.[93][clarification needed] In early 2006, President Chen Shui-bian remarked: “The National Unification Council will cease to function. No budget will be ear-marked for it and its personnel must return to their original posts...The National Unification Guidelines will cease to apply."[94]

The ruling DPP has traditionally leaned in favour of Taiwan independence and rejects the "One-China policy".

 

On 30 September 2007, the ruling DPP approved a resolution asserting a separate identity from China and called for the enactment of a new constitution for a "normal country". It also called for general use of "Taiwan" as the country's name, without abolishing its formal name, the Republic of China.[95] The Chen administration also pushed for referendums on national defence and UN entry in the 2004 and 2008 elections, which failed due to voter turnout below the required legal threshold of 50% of all registered voters.[96] The Chen administration was dogged by public concerns over reduced economic growth, legislative gridlock due to a pan-blue, opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan and corruption involving the First Family as well as government officials.[97][98]

 

The KMT increased its majority in the Legislative Yuan in the January 2008 legislative elections, while its nominee Ma Ying-jeou went on to win the presidency in March of the same year, campaigning on a platform of increased economic growth and better ties with the PRC under a policy of "mutual nondenial".[96] Ma took office on 20 May 2008, the same day that President Chen Shui-bian stepped down and was notified by prosecutors of possible corruption charges. Part of the rationale for campaigning for closer economic ties with the PRC stems from the strong economic growth China attained since joining the World Trade Organization. However, some analysts say that despite the election of Ma Ying-jeou, the diplomatic and military tensions with the PRC have not been reduced.[99]

 

On 24 May 2017, the Constitutional Court ruled that current marriage laws have been violating the Constitution by denying Taiwanese same-sex couples the right to marry. The Court ruled that if the Legislative Yuan does not pass adequate amendments to Taiwanese marriage laws within two years, same-sex marriages will automatically become legitimate in Taiwan.[100]

Geography

Taiwan is mostly mountainous in the east, with gently sloping plains in the west. The Penghu Islands are west of the main island.

 

The total area of the current jurisdiction of the Republic of China is 36,193 km2 (13,974 sq mi),[9] making it the world's 137th-largest country/dependency, smaller than Switzerland and larger than Belgium.

 

The island of Taiwan has an area of 35,883 km2 (13,855 sq mi), and lies some 180 kilometres (110 mi) from the southeastern coast of mainland China across the Taiwan Strait.[9] The East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait directly to the south, and the South China Sea to the southwest. Its shape is similar to a sweet potato, giving rise to the name sweet potato used by Taiwanese Hokkien speakers for people of Taiwanese descent.[101]

 

The island is characterized by the contrast between the eastern two-thirds, consisting mostly of rugged mountains running in five ranges from the northern to the southern tip of the island, and the flat to gently rolling Chianan Plains in the west that are also home to most of Taiwan's population. Taiwan's highest point is Yu Shan (Jade Mountain) at 3,952 metres (12,966 ft),[102] making Taiwan the world's fourth-highest island.

 

The Penghu Islands, 50 km (31.1 mi) west of the main island, have an area of 126.9 km2 (49.0 sq mi). More distant islands controlled by the Republic of China are the Kinmen, Wuchiu and Matsu Islands off the coast of Fujian, with a total area of 180.5 km2 (69.7 sq mi), and the Pratas Islands and Taiping Island in the South China Sea, with a total area of 2.9 km2 (1.1 sq mi) and no permanent inhabitants.[9] The ROC government also claims the Senkaku Islands to the northeast, which are controlled by Japan.

Climate

 

Taiwan lies on the Tropic of Cancer, and its general climate is marine tropical.[8] The northern and central regions are subtropical, whereas the south is tropical and the mountainous regions are temperate.[103] The average rainfall is 2,600 millimetres (100 inches) per year for the island proper; the rainy season is concurrent with the onset of the summer East Asian Monsoon in May and June.[104] The entire island experiences hot, humid weather from June through September. Typhoons are most common in July, August and September.[104] During the winter (November to March), the northeast experiences steady rain, while the central and southern parts of the island are mostly sunny.

Geology

Main article: Geology of Taiwan

Dabajian Mountain

 

The island of Taiwan lies in a complex tectonic area between the Yangtze Plate to the west and north, the Okinawa Plate on the north-east, and the Philippine Mobile Belt on the east and south. The upper part of the crust on the island is primarily made up of a series of terranes, mostly old island arcs which have been forced together by the collision of the forerunners of the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. These have been further uplifted as a result of the detachment of a portion of the Eurasian Plate as it was subducted beneath remnants of the Philippine Sea Plate, a process which left the crust under Taiwan more buoyant.[105]

 

The east and south of Taiwan are a complex system of belts formed by, and part of the zone of, active collision between the North Luzon Trough portion of the Luzon Volcanic Arc and South China, where accreted portions of the Luzon Arc and Luzon forearc form the eastern Coastal Range and parallel inland Longitudinal Valley of Taiwan respectively.[106]

 

The major seismic faults in Taiwan correspond to the various suture zones between the various terranes. These have produced major quakes throughout the history of the island. On 21 September 1999, a 7.3 quake known as the "921 earthquake" killed more than 2,400 people. The seismic hazard map for Taiwan by the USGS shows 9/10 of the island as the highest rating (most hazardous).[107]

Political and legal status

Main article: Political status of Taiwan

 

The political and legal statuses of Taiwan are contentious issues. The People's Republic of China (PRC) claims that the Republic of China government is illegitimate, referring to it as the "Taiwan Authority" even though current ROC territories have never been controlled by the PRC.[108][109] The ROC has its own constitution, independently elected president and armed forces. It has not formally renounced its claim to the mainland, but ROC government publications have increasingly downplayed it.[110]

 

Internationally, there is controversy on whether the ROC still exists as a state or a defunct state per international law due to the lack of wide diplomatic recognition. In a poll of Taiwanese aged 20 and older taken by TVBS in March 2009, a majority of 64% opted for the "status quo", while 19% favoured "independence" and 5% favoured "unification".[111]

Relations with the PRC

 

The political environment is complicated by the potential for military conflict should Taiwan declare de jure independence; it is the official PRC policy to use force to ensure unification if peaceful unification is no longer possible, as stated in its anti-secession law, and for this reason there are substantial military installations on the Fujian coast.[112][113][114][115][116]

 

On 29 April 2005, Kuomintang Chairman Lien Chan travelled to Beijing and met with Communist Party of China (CPC) Secretary-General Hu Jintao,[117] the first meeting between the leaders of the two parties since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. On 11 February 2014, Mainland Affairs Council Head Wang Yu-chi travelled to Nanjing and met with Taiwan Affairs Office Head Zhang Zhijun, the first meeting between high-ranking officials from either side.[118] Zhang paid a reciprocal visit to Taiwan and met Wang on 25 June 2014, making Zhang the first minister-level PRC official to ever visit Taiwan.[119] On 7 November 2015, Ma Ying-jeou (in his capacity as Leader of Taiwan) and Xi Jinping (in his capacity as Leader of Mainland China) travelled to Singapore and met up,[120] marking the highest-level exchange between the two sides since 1949.

GUM (Russian: ГУМ, pronounced [gum], an abbreviation of Russian: Главный универсальный магазин, romanized: Glavnyy universalnyy magazin, lit. 'Main Universal Store') is the main department store in many cities of the former Soviet Union, known as State Department Store (Russian: Государственный универсальный магазин, romanized: Gosudarstvennyy universalnyy magazin) during the Soviet era (until 1991). Similarly named stores operated in some Soviet republics and in post-Soviet states.

 

The most famous GUM is the large store facing Red Square in the Kitai-gorod area – itself traditionally a mall of Moscow. Originally, and today again, the building functions as a shopping mall. During most of the Soviet period it was essentially a department store as there was one vendor: the Soviet State. Before the 1920s the location was known as the Upper Trading Rows (Russian: Верхние торговые ряды, romanized: Verkhniye Torgovyye Ryady).

 

As of 2021, GUM carries over 100 different brands,[1] and has cafes and restaurants inside the mall.

 

Moscow GUM

Design and structure

With the façade extending for 242 m (794 ft) along the eastern side of Red Square, the Upper Trading Rows were built between 1890 and 1893 by Alexander Pomerantsev (responsible for architecture) and Vladimir Shukhov (responsible for engineering). The trapezoidal building features a combination of elements of Russian medieval architecture and a steel framework and glass roof, a similar style to the great 19th-century railway stations of London. William Craft Brumfield described the GUM building as "a tribute both to Shukhov's design and to the technical proficiency of Russian architecture toward the end of the 19th century".

 

The glass-roofed design made the building unique at the time of construction. The roof, the diameter of which is 14 m (46 ft), looks light, but it is a firm construction made of more than 50,000 metal pods (about 743 t (819 short tons)), capable of supporting snowfall accumulation. Illumination is provided by huge arched skylights of iron and glass, each weighing some 740 t (820 short tons) and containing in excess of 20,000 panes of glass. The facade is divided into several horizontal tiers, lined with red Finnish granite, Tarusa marble, and limestone. Each arcade is on three levels, linked by walkways of reinforced concrete.

 

History

Catherine II of Russia commissioned Giacomo Quarenghi, a Neoclassical architect from Italy, to design a huge trade area along the east side of Red Square. However, that building was lost to the 1812 Fire of Moscow and replaced by trading rows designed by Joseph Bove. In turn, the current structure opened in 1894, replacing Bove's.

 

By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the building contained some 1,200 stores. After the Revolution, GUM was nationalized. During the NEP period (1921–28), however, GUM as a State Department Store operated as a model retail enterprise for consumers throughout Russia regardless of class, gender, and ethnicity. GUM's stores were used to further Bolshevik goals of rebuilding private enterprise along socialist lines and "democratizing consumption for workers and peasants nationwide". In the end, GUM's efforts to build communism through consumerism were unsuccessful and arguably "only succeeded in alienating consumers from state stores and instituting a culture of complaint and entitlement".

 

GUM continued to be used as a department store until Joseph Stalin converted it into office space in 1928 for the committee in charge of his first Five Year Plan.[4] After the suicide of Stalin's wife Nadezhda in 1932, the GUM was used briefly to display her body.

 

After reopening as a department store in 1953, GUM became one of the few stores in the Soviet Union that did not have shortages of consumer goods, and the queues of shoppers were long, often extending entirely across Red Square.

 

Several times during the 1960s and 1970s, the Second Secretary of the Communist Party Mikhail Suslov, who hated having a department store facing Lenin's Mausoleum, tried to convert GUM into an exhibition hall and museum showcasing the achievements of the Soviet Union and Communism, without the knowledge of General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. Each time, however, Brezhnev was tipped off and put a stop to such plans.

 

At the end of the Soviet era, GUM was partially, then fully, privatized, and it had a number of owners before it ended up being owned by the supermarket company Perekrestok. In May 2005, a 50.25% interest was sold to Bosco di Ciliegi, a Russian luxury goods distributor and boutique operator. As a private shopping mall, it was renamed in such a fashion that it could maintain its old acronym. The first word Gosudarstvennyi ("state") has been replaced with Glavnyi ("main"), so that GUM is now an abbreviation for "Main Universal Store".

 

Red Square (Russian: Красная площадь, romanized: Krasnaya ploshchad', IPA: [ˈkrasnəjə ˈploɕːɪtʲ]) is one of the oldest and largest squares in Moscow, the capital of Russia. It is located in Moscow's historic centre, in the eastern walls of the Kremlin. It is the city's most prominent landmark, with famous buildings such as Saint Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's Mausoleum and the GUM department store. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990. Red Square has been the scene of executions, demonstrations, riots, parades, and speeches. Almost 800,000 square feet (73,000 square metres), it lies directly east of the Kremlin and north of the Moskva River. A moat that separated the square from the Kremlin was paved over in 1812.

 

Moscow is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million residents within the city limits, over 18.8 million residents in the urban area, and over 21.5 million residents in the metropolitan area. The city covers an area of 2,511 square kilometers (970 sq mi), while the urban area covers 5,891 square kilometers (2,275 sq mi), and the metropolitan area covers over 26,000 square kilometers (10,000 sq mi). Moscow is among the world's largest cities, being the most populous city entirely in Europe, the largest urban and metropolitan area in Europe, and the largest city by land area on the European continent.

 

First documented in 1147, Moscow grew to become a prosperous and powerful city that served as the capital of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. When the Tsardom of Russia was proclaimed, Moscow remained the political and economic center for most of its history. Under the reign of Peter the Great, the Russian capital was moved to the newly founded city of Saint Petersburg in 1712, diminishing Moscow's influence. Following the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Russian SFSR, the capital was moved back to Moscow in 1918, where it later became the political center of the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Moscow remained the capital city of the newly established Russian Federation.

 

The northernmost and coldest megacity in the world, Moscow is governed as a federal city, where it serves as the political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe. As an alpha world city, Moscow has one of the world's largest urban economies. The city is one of the fastest-growing tourist destinations in the world, and is one of Europe's most visited cities. Moscow is home to the sixth-highest number of billionaires of any city in the world. The Moscow International Business Center is one of the largest financial centers in Europe and the world, and features the majority of Europe's tallest skyscrapers. Moscow was the host city of the 1980 Summer Olympics, and one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

 

As the historic core of Russia, Moscow serves as the home of numerous Russian artists, scientists, and sports figures due to the presence of its various museums, academic and political institutions, and theaters. The city is home to several UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is well known for its display of Russian architecture, particularly its historic Red Square, and buildings such as the Saint Basil's Cathedral and the Moscow Kremlin, of which the latter serves as the seat of power of the Government of Russia. Moscow is home to many Russian companies in numerous industries and is served by a comprehensive transit network, which includes four international airports, ten railway terminals, a tram system, a monorail system, and most notably the Moscow Metro, the busiest metro system in Europe, and one of the largest rapid transit systems in the world. The city has over 40 percent of its territory covered by greenery, making it one of the greenest cities in the world.

 

Russia (Russian: Россия, romanized: Rossiya), or the Russian Federation,[b] is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the largest country in the world by area, extending across eleven time zones. It shares land boundaries with fourteen countries.[c] It is the world's ninth-most populous country and Europe's most populous country. The country's capital as well as its largest city is Moscow. Saint Petersburg is Russia's second-largest city and cultural capital. Other major urban areas in the country include Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, Krasnodar and Rostov-on-Don.

 

The East Slavs emerged as a recognised group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries CE. The first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus', arose in the 9th century, and in 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Rus' ultimately disintegrated, with the Grand Duchy of Moscow growing to become the Tsardom of Russia. By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers, developing into the Russian Empire, which remains the third-largest empire in history. However, with the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia's monarchic rule was abolished and eventually replaced by the Russian SFSR—the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Following the Russian Civil War, the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union with three other Soviet republics, within which it was the largest and principal constituent. At the expense of millions of lives, the Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialisation in the 1930s and later played a decisive role for the Allies in World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front. With the onset of the Cold War, it competed with the United States for global ideological influence. The Soviet era of the 20th century saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements, including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space.

 

In 1991, the Russian SFSR emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the independent Russian Federation. A new constitution was adopted, which established a federal semi-presidential system. Since the turn of the century, Russia's political system has been dominated by Vladimir Putin, under whom the country has experienced democratic backsliding and a shift towards authoritarianism. Russia has been militarily involved in a number of conflicts in former Soviet states and other countries, including its war with Georgia in 2008 and annexation of Crimea in 2014 from neighbouring Ukraine, followed by the further annexation of four other regions in 2022 during an ongoing invasion.

 

Internationally, Russia ranks among the lowest in measurements of democracy, human rights and freedom of the press; the country also has high levels of perceived corruption. The Russian economy ranks 11th by nominal GDP, relying heavily on its abundant natural resources, and 68th by GDP per capita. Its mineral and energy sources are the world's largest, and its figures for oil production and natural gas production rank highly globally. Russia possesses the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and has the third-highest military expenditure. The country is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council; a member state of the G20, SCO, BRICS, APEC, OSCE, and WTO; and the leading member state of post-Soviet organisations such as CIS, CSTO, and EAEU/EEU. Russia is home to 30 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Photo Copyright 2012, dynamo.photography.

All rights reserved, no use without license

 

++++ FROM WIKIPEDIA ++++

 

Mount Hehuan (Chinese: 合歡山; pinyin: Héhuān Shān; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ha̍p-hoan-soaⁿ; also called Joy Mountain) is a 3,416-metre-high (11,207 ft) mountain in Central Taiwan. The peak lies on the boundaries of Nantou and Hualien counties and is within the Taroko Gorge National Park. Hehuanshan is a popular destination for the local people of central Taiwan. The 3,421-metre East Peak and 3,422-metre North Peak of Hehuanshan are actually both higher than the main peak.

 

Recreation

 

Snow, rare in the rest of Taiwan, is relatively common on the mountain during winter months. The Hehuanshan Road leads most of the way up the mountain to Wuling, a saddle between the Main Peak and the East Peak of Hehuanshan. Wuling is the highest point on the island of Taiwan accessible by public roads.

 

There was at one point[when?] a ski lift on the mountain, but later, due to the inconsistency of snowfall, the lift was removed. Remains of the ski lift mechanism are still visible to hikers on the east peak trail.

 

From the Hehuanshan Road, a trail about one kilometer long leads to the summit of the main peak. At the summit, there is a weather station.

 

Hehuanshan is part of the Central Mountain Range (中央山脈) that makes up the backbone of Taiwan.

History

 

In the past, a military training area was built in the proximity of Hehuanshan. The mountain range also features the remains of a ski lift, reportedly used by Taiwan's elite during the martial law period and inaccessible to most people. The unreliability of snowfall has meant that the ski lift was abandoned years ago.

Hehuanshan Road

Hehuanshan East and Main Peak at sunset from North Peak

 

The Hehuanshan Road is currently the only paved road leading across the Central Mountains from Taichung City to Hualien via the famous Taroko Gorge. The Central Cross-Island Highway, which originally crossed the mountains north of Hehuanshan, was damaged during the September 21, 1999 earthquake and had been under repair for five years afterwards. But prior to its re-opening disaster struck again in form of a typhoon and it was decided to keep it closed indefinitely.

 

The Hehuanshan Road leads up from Puli in central Nantou past Wushe (Ren-ai) and Chingjing Farm up to Wuling. Wuling, at 3,275 metres above sea level, is the highest automobile pass in Taiwan. The road is narrow and winding throughout, and is considered a dangerous and difficult road by many drivers. This road often becomes clogged in winter, when many locals travel up the mountain to see snow. Recently, after several incidents, buses and large trucks were barred from this stretch of road.

 

Taiwan (/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ (About this sound listen)), officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a state in East Asia. Its neighbors include the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the west, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taiwan is the most populous state and largest economy that is not a member of the United Nations.

 

The island of Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, was inhabited by aborigines before the 17th century, when Dutch and Spanish colonies opened the island to mass Han immigration. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty of China. The Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China (ROC) was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROC's loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. Although the ROC continued to claim to be the legitimate government of China, its effective jurisdiction has, since the loss of Hainan in 1950, been limited to Taiwan and its surrounding islands, with the main island making up 99% of its de facto territory. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, when the PRC assumed China's seat, causing the ROC to lose its UN membership.

 

In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system. Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, healthcare,[16] public education, economic freedom, and human development.[d][14][17] The country benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most highly educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree.[18][19]

 

The PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refuses diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC. Today, 20 countries maintain official ties with the ROC but many other states maintain unofficial ties through representative offices and institutions that function as de facto embassies and consulates. Although Taiwan is fully self-governing, most international organizations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or allow it to participate only as a non-state actor. Internally, the major division in politics is between the aspirations of eventual Chinese unification or Taiwanese independence, though both sides have moderated their positions to broaden their appeal. The PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible.[20]

 

Etymology

See also: Chinese Taipei, Formosa, and Names of China

Taiwan

Taiwan (Chinese characters).svg

(top) "Taiwan" in Traditional Chinese characters and Kyūjitai Japanese Kanji. (bottom) "Taiwan" in Simplified Chinese characters and Japanese Kanji.

Chinese name

Traditional Chinese 臺灣 or 台灣

Simplified Chinese 台湾

[show]Transcriptions

Japanese name

Kanji 台湾

Kana たいわん

Kyūjitai 臺灣

[show]Transcriptions

Republic of China

ROC (Chinese characters).svg

"Republic of China" in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom) Chinese characters

Traditional Chinese 中華民國

Simplified Chinese 中华民国

Postal Chunghwa Minkuo

[show]Transcriptions

China

Traditional Chinese 中國

Simplified Chinese 中国

Literal meaning Middle or Central State[21]

[show]Transcriptions

 

There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, derived from explorers or rulers by each particular period. The former name Formosa (福爾摩沙) dates from 1542,[verification needed] when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means "beautiful island".[22] The name "Formosa" eventually "replaced all others in European literature"[23] and was in common use in English in the early 20th century.[24]

 

In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company established a commercial post at Fort Zeelandia (modern-day Anping, Tainan) on a coastal sandbar called "Tayouan",[25] after their ethnonym for a nearby Taiwanese aboriginal tribe, written by the Dutch and Portuguese variously as Taiouwang, Tayowan, Teijoan, etc.[26] This name was also adopted into the Chinese vernacular (in particular, Hokkien, as Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tāi-oân/Tâi-oân) as the name of the sandbar and nearby area (Tainan). The modern word "Taiwan" is derived from this usage, which is seen in various forms (大員, 大圓, 大灣, 臺員, 臺圓 and 臺窩灣) in Chinese historical records. The area of modern-day Tainan was the first permanent settlement by Western colonists and Chinese immigrants, grew to be the most important trading centre, and served as the capital of the island until 1887. Use of the current Chinese name (臺灣) was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture. Through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as "Taiwan".[27][28][29][30]

 

In his Daoyi Zhilüe (1349), Wang Dayuan used "Liuqiu" as a name for the island of Taiwan, or the part of it near to Penghu.[31] Elsewhere, the name was used for the Ryukyu Islands in general or Okinawa, the largest of them; indeed the name Ryūkyū is the Japanese form of Liúqiú. The name also appears in the Book of Sui (636) and other early works, but scholars cannot agree on whether these references are to the Ryukyus, Taiwan or even Luzon.[32]

 

The official name of the state is the "Republic of China"; it has also been known under various names throughout its existence. Shortly after the ROC's establishment in 1912, while it was still located on the Chinese mainland, the government used the short form "China" Zhōngguó (中國), to refer to itself, which derives from zhōng ("central" or "middle") and guó ("state, nation-state"), [e] A term which also developed under the Zhou Dynasty in reference to its royal demesne[f] and the name was then applied to the area around Luoyi (present-day Luoyang) during the Eastern Zhou and then to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qingera .[34] During the 1950s and 1960s, after the government had fled to Taiwan due to losing the Chinese Civil War, it was commonly referred to as "Nationalist China" (or "Free China") to differentiate it from "Communist China" (or "Red China").[36] It was a member of the United Nations representing "China" until 1971, when it lost its seat to the People's Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become commonly known as "Taiwan", after the island that comprises 99% of the territory under its control. In some contexts, especially official ones from the ROC government, the name is written as "Republic of China (Taiwan)", "Republic of China/Taiwan", or sometimes "Taiwan (ROC)."[37] The Republic of China participates in most international forums and organizations under the name "Chinese Taipei" due to diplomatic pressure from the People's Republic of China. For instance, it is the name under which it has competed at the Olympic Games since 1984, and its name as an observer at the World Health Organization.[38]

History

Main articles: History of Taiwan and History of the Republic of China

See the History of China article for historical information in the Chinese Mainland before 1949.

Prehistoric Taiwan

Main article: Prehistory of Taiwan

A young Tsou man

 

Taiwan was joined to the mainland in the Late Pleistocene, until sea levels rose about 10,000 years ago. Fragmentary human remains dated 20,000 to 30,000 years ago have been found on the island, as well as later artefacts of a Paleolithic culture.[39][40][41]

 

Around 6,000 years ago, Taiwan was settled by farmers, most likely from mainland China.[42] They are believed to be the ancestors of today's Taiwanese aborigines, whose languages belong to the Austronesian language family, but show much greater diversity than the rest of the family, which spans a huge area from Maritime Southeast Asia west to Madagascar and east as far as New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island. This has led linguists to propose Taiwan as the urheimat of the family, from which seafaring peoples dispersed across Southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans.[43][44]

 

Han Chinese fishermen began settling in the Penghu islands in the 13th century.[45] Hostile tribes, and a lack of valuable trade products, meant that few outsiders visited the main island until the 16th century.[45] By the 1700's visits to the coast by fishermen from Fujian, as well as Chinese and Japanese pirates, became more frequent.[45]

Opening in the 17th century

 

The Dutch East India Company attempted to establish a trading outpost on the Penghu Islands (Pescadores) in 1622, but were militarily defeated and driven off by the Ming authorities.[46]

 

In 1624, the company established a stronghold called Fort Zeelandia on the coastal islet of Tayouan, which is now part of the main island at Anping, Tainan.[30] David Wright, a Scottish agent of the company who lived on the island in the 1650s, described the lowland areas of the island as being divided among 11 chiefdoms ranging in size from two settlements to 72. Some of these fell under Dutch control, while others remained independent.[30][47] The Company began to import labourers from Fujian and Penghu (Pescadores), many of whom settled.[46]

 

In 1626, the Spanish Empire landed on and occupied northern Taiwan, at the ports of Keelung and Tamsui, as a base to extend their trading. This colonial period lasted 16 years until 1642, when the last Spanish fortress fell to Dutch forces.

 

Following the fall of the Ming dynasty, Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), a self-styled Ming loyalist, arrived on the island and captured Fort Zeelandia in 1662, expelling the Dutch Empire and military from the island. Koxinga established the Kingdom of Tungning (1662–1683), with his capital at Tainan. He and his heirs, Zheng Jing, who ruled from 1662 to 1682, and Zheng Keshuang, who ruled less than a year, continued to launch raids on the southeast coast of mainland China well into the Qing dynasty era.[46]

Qing rule

In 1683, following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang of southern Fujian, the Qing dynasty formally annexed Taiwan, placing it under the jurisdiction of Fujian province. The Qing imperial government tried to reduce piracy and vagrancy in the area, issuing a series of edicts to manage immigration and respect aboriginal land rights. Immigrants mostly from southern Fujian continued to enter Taiwan. The border between taxpaying lands and "savage" lands shifted eastward, with some aborigines becoming sinicized while others retreated into the mountains. During this time, there were a number of conflicts between groups of Han Chinese from different regions of southern Fujian, particularly between those from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, and between southern Fujian Chinese and aborigines.

 

Northern Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were the scene of subsidiary campaigns in the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). The French occupied Keelung on 1 October 1884, but were repulsed from Tamsui a few days later. The French won some tactical victories but were unable to exploit them, and the Keelung Campaign ended in stalemate. The Pescadores Campaign, beginning on 31 March 1885, was a French victory, but had no long-term consequences. The French evacuated both Keelung and the Penghu archipelago after the end of the war.

 

In 1887, the Qing upgraded the island's administration from Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian to Fujian-Taiwan-Province (福建臺灣省), the twentieth in the empire, with its capital at Taipei. This was accompanied by a modernization drive that included building China's first railroad.[48]

Japanese rule

Main articles: Taiwan under Japanese rule and Republic of Formosa

Japanese colonial soldiers march Taiwanese captured after the Tapani Incident from the Tainan jail to court, 1915.

 

As the Qing dynasty was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Taiwan, along with Penghu and Liaodong Peninsula, were ceded in full sovereignty to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Inhabitants on Taiwan and Penghu wishing to remain Qing subjects were given a two-year grace period to sell their property and move to mainland China. Very few Taiwanese saw this as feasible.[49] On 25 May 1895, a group of pro-Qing high officials proclaimed the Republic of Formosa to resist impending Japanese rule. Japanese forces entered the capital at Tainan and quelled this resistance on 21 October 1895.[50] Guerrilla fighting continued periodically until about 1902 and ultimately took the lives of 14,000 Taiwanese, or 0.5% of the population.[51] Several subsequent rebellions against the Japanese (the Beipu uprising of 1907, the Tapani incident of 1915, and the Musha incident of 1930) were all unsuccessful but demonstrated opposition to Japanese colonial rule.

 

Japanese colonial rule was instrumental in the industrialization of the island, extending the railroads and other transportation networks, building an extensive sanitation system, and establishing a formal education system.[52] Japanese rule ended the practice of headhunting.[53] During this period the human and natural resources of Taiwan were used to aid the development of Japan and the production of cash crops such as rice and sugar greatly increased. By 1939, Taiwan was the seventh greatest sugar producer in the world.[54] Still, the Taiwanese and aborigines were classified as second- and third-class citizens. After suppressing Chinese guerrillas in the first decade of their rule, Japanese authorities engaged in a series of bloody campaigns against the mountain aboriginals, culminating in the Musha Incident of 1930.[55] Intellectuals and laborers who participated in left-wing movements within Taiwan were also arrested and massacred (e.g. Chiang Wei-shui (蔣渭水) and Masanosuke Watanabe (渡辺政之輔)).[56]

 

Around 1935, the Japanese began an island-wide assimilation project to bind the island more firmly to the Japanese Empire and people were taught to see themselves as Japanese under the Kominka Movement, during which time Taiwanese culture and religion were outlawed and the citizens were encouraged to adopt Japanese surnames.[57] The "South Strike Group" was based at the Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei. During World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military.[58] For example, former ROC President Lee Teng-hui's elder brother served in the Japanese navy and was killed in action in the Philippines in February 1945. The Imperial Japanese Navy operated heavily out of Taiwanese ports. In October 1944, the Formosa Air Battle was fought between American carriers and Japanese forces based in Taiwan. Important Japanese military bases and industrial centres throughout Taiwan, like Kaohsiung, were targets of heavy American bombings.[59] Also during this time, over 2,000 women were forced into sexual slavery for Imperial Japanese troops, now euphemistically called "comfort women."[60]

 

In 1938, there were 309,000 Japanese settlers in Taiwan.[61] After World War II, most of the Japanese were expelled and sent to Japan.[62]

Republic of China

 

On 25 October 1945, the US Navy ferried ROC troops to Taiwan in order to accept the formal surrender of Japanese military forces in Taipei on behalf of the Allied Powers, as part of General Order No. 1 for temporary military occupation. General Rikichi Andō, governor-general of Taiwan and commander-in-chief of all Japanese forces on the island, signed the receipt and handed it over to General Chen Yi of the ROC military to complete the official turnover. Chen Yi proclaimed that day to be "Taiwan Retrocession Day", but the Allies considered Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to be under military occupation and still under Japanese sovereignty until 1952, when the Treaty of San Francisco took effect.[63][64] Although the 1943 Cairo Declaration had envisaged returning these territories to China, in the Treaty of San Francisco and Treaty of Taipei Japan has renounced all claim to them without specifying to what country they were to be surrendered. This introduced the problem of the legal status of Taiwan.

 

The ROC administration of Taiwan under Chen Yi was strained by increasing tensions between Taiwanese-born people and newly arrived mainlanders, which were compounded by economic woes, such as hyperinflation. Furthermore, cultural and linguistic conflicts between the two groups quickly led to the loss of popular support for the new government, while the mass movement led by the working committee of the Communist Party also aimed to bring down the Kuomintang government.[65][66] The shooting of a civilian on 28 February 1947 triggered island-wide unrest, which was suppressed with military force in what is now called the February 28 Incident. Mainstream estimates of the number killed range from 18,000 to 30,000. Those killed were mainly members of the Taiwanese elite.[67][68]

The Nationalists' retreat to Taipei: after the Nationalists lost Nanjing (Nanking) they next moved to Guangzhou (Canton), then to Chongqing (Chungking), Chengdu (Chengtu) and Xichang (Sichang) before arriving in Taipei.

 

After the end of World War II, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang), led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Party of China, led by Mao Zedong. Throughout the months of 1949, a series of Chinese Communist offensives led to the capture of its capital Nanjing on 23 April and the subsequent defeat of the Nationalist army on the mainland, and the Communists founded the People's Republic of China on 1 October.[69]

 

On 7 December 1949, after the loss of four capitals, Chiang evacuated his Nationalist government to Taiwan and made Taipei the temporary capital of the ROC (also called the "wartime capital" by Chiang Kai-shek).[70] Some 2 million people, consisting mainly of soldiers, members of the ruling Kuomintang and intellectual and business elites, were evacuated from mainland China to Taiwan at that time, adding to the earlier population of approximately six million. In addition, the ROC government took to Taipei many national treasures and much of China's gold reserves and foreign currency reserves.[71][72][73]

 

After losing most of the mainland, the Kuomintang held remaining control of Tibet, the portions of Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Yunnan provinces along with the Hainan Island until 1951 before the Communists subsequently captured both territories. From this point onwards, the Kuomintang's territory was reduced to Taiwan, Penghu, the portions of the Fujian province (Kinmen and Matsu Islands), and two major islands of Dongsha Islands and Nansha Islands. The Kuomintang continued to claim sovereignty over all "China", which it defined to include mainland China, Taiwan, Outer Mongolia and other areas. On mainland China, the victorious Communists claimed they ruled the sole and only China (which they claimed included Taiwan) and that the Republic of China no longer existed.[74]

A Chinese man in military uniform, smiling and looking towards the left. He holds a sword in his left hand and has a medal in shape of a sun on his chest.

Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang from 1925 until his death in 1975

Chinese Nationalist one-party rule

 

Martial law, declared on Taiwan in May 1949,[75] continued to be in effect after the central government relocated to Taiwan. It was not repealed until 1987,[75] and was used as a way to suppress the political opposition in the intervening years.[76] During the White Terror, as the period is known, 140,000 people were imprisoned or executed for being perceived as anti-KMT or pro-Communist.[77] Many citizens were arrested, tortured, imprisoned and executed for their real or perceived link to the Communists. Since these people were mainly from the intellectual and social elite, an entire generation of political and social leaders was decimated. In 1998 law was passed to create the "Compensation Foundation for Improper Verdicts" which oversaw compensation to White Terror victims and families. President Ma Ying-jeou made an official apology in 2008, expressing hope that there will never be a tragedy similar to White Terror.[78]

 

Initially, the United States abandoned the KMT and expected that Taiwan would fall to the Communists. However, in 1950 the conflict between North Korea and South Korea, which had been ongoing since the Japanese withdrawal in 1945, escalated into full-blown war, and in the context of the Cold War, US President Harry S. Truman intervened again and dispatched the US Navy's 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent hostilities between Taiwan and mainland China.[79] In the Treaty of San Francisco and the Treaty of Taipei, which came into force respectively on 28 April 1952 and 5 August 1952, Japan formally renounced all right, claim and title to Taiwan and Penghu, and renounced all treaties signed with China before 1942. Neither treaty specified to whom sovereignty over the islands should be transferred, because the United States and the United Kingdom disagreed on whether the ROC or the PRC was the legitimate government of China.[80] Continuing conflict of the Chinese Civil War through the 1950s, and intervention by the United States notably resulted in legislation such as the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty and the Formosa Resolution of 1955.

With President Chiang Kai-shek, the US President Dwight D. Eisenhower waved to crowds during his visit to Taipei in June 1960.

 

As the Chinese Civil War continued without truce, the government built up military fortifications throughout Taiwan. Within this effort, KMT veterans built the now famous Central Cross-Island Highway through the Taroko Gorge in the 1950s. The two sides would continue to engage in sporadic military clashes with seldom publicized details well into the 1960s on the China coastal islands with an unknown number of night raids. During the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in September 1958, Taiwan's landscape saw Nike-Hercules missile batteries added, with the formation of the 1st Missile Battalion Chinese Army that would not be deactivated until 1997. Newer generations of missile batteries have since replaced the Nike Hercules systems throughout the island.

 

During the 1960s and 1970s, the ROC maintained an authoritarian, single-party government while its economy became industrialized and technology oriented. This rapid economic growth, known as the Taiwan Miracle, was the result of a fiscal regime independent from mainland China and backed up, among others, by the support of US funds and demand for Taiwanese products.[81][82] In the 1970s, Taiwan was economically the second fastest growing state in Asia after Japan.[83] Taiwan, along with Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore, became known as one of the Four Asian Tigers. Because of the Cold War, most Western nations and the United Nations regarded the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China until the 1970s. Later, especially after the termination of the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, most nations switched diplomatic recognition to the PRC (see United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758).

 

Up until the 1970s, the government was regarded by Western critics as undemocratic for upholding martial law, for severely repressing any political opposition and for controlling media. The KMT did not allow the creation of new parties and those that existed did not seriously compete with the KMT. Thus, competitive democratic elections did not exist.[84][85][86][87][88] From the late 1970s to the 1990s, however, Taiwan went through reforms and social changes that transformed it from an authoritarian state to a democracy. In 1979, a pro-democracy protest known as the Kaohsiung Incident took place in Kaohsiung to celebrate Human Rights Day. Although the protest was rapidly crushed by the authorities, it is today considered as the main event that united Taiwan's opposition.[89]

Democratization

 

Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's son and successor as the president, began to liberalize the political system in the mid-1980s. In 1984, the younger Chiang selected Lee Teng-hui, a Taiwanese-born, US-educated technocrat, to be his vice-president. In 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed and inaugurated as the first opposition party in the ROC to counter the KMT. A year later, Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law on the main island of Taiwan (martial law was lifted on Penghu in 1979, Matsu island in 1992 and Kinmen island in 1993). With the advent of democratization, the issue of the political status of Taiwan gradually resurfaced as a controversial issue where, previously, the discussion of anything other than unification under the ROC was taboo.

 

After the death of Chiang Ching-kuo in January 1988, Lee Teng-hui succeeded him as president. Lee continued to democratize the government and decrease the concentration of government authority in the hands of mainland Chinese. Under Lee, Taiwan underwent a process of localization in which Taiwanese culture and history were promoted over a pan-China viewpoint in contrast to earlier KMT policies which had promoted a Chinese identity. Lee's reforms included printing banknotes from the Central Bank rather than the Provincial Bank of Taiwan, and streamlining the Taiwan Provincial Government with most of its functions transferred to the Executive Yuan. Under Lee, the original members of the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly(a former supreme legislative body defunct in 2005）,[90] elected in 1947 to represent mainland Chinese constituencies and having held the seats without re-election for more than four decades, were forced to resign in 1991. The previously nominal representation in the Legislative Yuan was brought to an end, reflecting the reality that the ROC had no jurisdiction over mainland China, and vice versa. Restrictions on the use of Taiwanese Hokkien in the broadcast media and in schools were also lifted.[citation needed]

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Taiwan's special envoy to the APEC summit, Lien Chan, November 2011

 

Democratic reforms continued in the 1990s, with Lee Teng-hui re-elected in 1996, in the first direct presidential election in the history of the ROC.[91] During the later years of Lee's administration, he was involved in corruption controversies relating to government release of land and weapons purchase, although no legal proceedings commenced. In 1997,"To meet the requisites of the nation prior to national unification",[92] the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China was passed and then the former "constitution of five powers" turns to be more tripartite. In 2000, Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party was elected as the first non-Kuomintang (KMT) President and was re-elected to serve his second and last term since 2004. Polarized politics has emerged in Taiwan with the formation of the Pan-Blue Coalition of parties led by the KMT, favouring eventual Chinese reunification, and the Pan-Green Coalition of parties led by the DPP, favouring an eventual and official declaration of Taiwanese independence.[93][clarification needed] In early 2006, President Chen Shui-bian remarked: “The National Unification Council will cease to function. No budget will be ear-marked for it and its personnel must return to their original posts...The National Unification Guidelines will cease to apply."[94]

The ruling DPP has traditionally leaned in favour of Taiwan independence and rejects the "One-China policy".

 

On 30 September 2007, the ruling DPP approved a resolution asserting a separate identity from China and called for the enactment of a new constitution for a "normal country". It also called for general use of "Taiwan" as the country's name, without abolishing its formal name, the Republic of China.[95] The Chen administration also pushed for referendums on national defence and UN entry in the 2004 and 2008 elections, which failed due to voter turnout below the required legal threshold of 50% of all registered voters.[96] The Chen administration was dogged by public concerns over reduced economic growth, legislative gridlock due to a pan-blue, opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan and corruption involving the First Family as well as government officials.[97][98]

 

The KMT increased its majority in the Legislative Yuan in the January 2008 legislative elections, while its nominee Ma Ying-jeou went on to win the presidency in March of the same year, campaigning on a platform of increased economic growth and better ties with the PRC under a policy of "mutual nondenial".[96] Ma took office on 20 May 2008, the same day that President Chen Shui-bian stepped down and was notified by prosecutors of possible corruption charges. Part of the rationale for campaigning for closer economic ties with the PRC stems from the strong economic growth China attained since joining the World Trade Organization. However, some analysts say that despite the election of Ma Ying-jeou, the diplomatic and military tensions with the PRC have not been reduced.[99]

 

On 24 May 2017, the Constitutional Court ruled that current marriage laws have been violating the Constitution by denying Taiwanese same-sex couples the right to marry. The Court ruled that if the Legislative Yuan does not pass adequate amendments to Taiwanese marriage laws within two years, same-sex marriages will automatically become legitimate in Taiwan.[100]

Geography

Taiwan is mostly mountainous in the east, with gently sloping plains in the west. The Penghu Islands are west of the main island.

 

The total area of the current jurisdiction of the Republic of China is 36,193 km2 (13,974 sq mi),[9] making it the world's 137th-largest country/dependency, smaller than Switzerland and larger than Belgium.

 

The island of Taiwan has an area of 35,883 km2 (13,855 sq mi), and lies some 180 kilometres (110 mi) from the southeastern coast of mainland China across the Taiwan Strait.[9] The East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait directly to the south, and the South China Sea to the southwest. Its shape is similar to a sweet potato, giving rise to the name sweet potato used by Taiwanese Hokkien speakers for people of Taiwanese descent.[101]

 

The island is characterized by the contrast between the eastern two-thirds, consisting mostly of rugged mountains running in five ranges from the northern to the southern tip of the island, and the flat to gently rolling Chianan Plains in the west that are also home to most of Taiwan's population. Taiwan's highest point is Yu Shan (Jade Mountain) at 3,952 metres (12,966 ft),[102] making Taiwan the world's fourth-highest island.

 

The Penghu Islands, 50 km (31.1 mi) west of the main island, have an area of 126.9 km2 (49.0 sq mi). More distant islands controlled by the Republic of China are the Kinmen, Wuchiu and Matsu Islands off the coast of Fujian, with a total area of 180.5 km2 (69.7 sq mi), and the Pratas Islands and Taiping Island in the South China Sea, with a total area of 2.9 km2 (1.1 sq mi) and no permanent inhabitants.[9] The ROC government also claims the Senkaku Islands to the northeast, which are controlled by Japan.

Climate

 

Taiwan lies on the Tropic of Cancer, and its general climate is marine tropical.[8] The northern and central regions are subtropical, whereas the south is tropical and the mountainous regions are temperate.[103] The average rainfall is 2,600 millimetres (100 inches) per year for the island proper; the rainy season is concurrent with the onset of the summer East Asian Monsoon in May and June.[104] The entire island experiences hot, humid weather from June through September. Typhoons are most common in July, August and September.[104] During the winter (November to March), the northeast experiences steady rain, while the central and southern parts of the island are mostly sunny.

Geology

Main article: Geology of Taiwan

Dabajian Mountain

 

The island of Taiwan lies in a complex tectonic area between the Yangtze Plate to the west and north, the Okinawa Plate on the north-east, and the Philippine Mobile Belt on the east and south. The upper part of the crust on the island is primarily made up of a series of terranes, mostly old island arcs which have been forced together by the collision of the forerunners of the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. These have been further uplifted as a result of the detachment of a portion of the Eurasian Plate as it was subducted beneath remnants of the Philippine Sea Plate, a process which left the crust under Taiwan more buoyant.[105]

 

The east and south of Taiwan are a complex system of belts formed by, and part of the zone of, active collision between the North Luzon Trough portion of the Luzon Volcanic Arc and South China, where accreted portions of the Luzon Arc and Luzon forearc form the eastern Coastal Range and parallel inland Longitudinal Valley of Taiwan respectively.[106]

 

The major seismic faults in Taiwan correspond to the various suture zones between the various terranes. These have produced major quakes throughout the history of the island. On 21 September 1999, a 7.3 quake known as the "921 earthquake" killed more than 2,400 people. The seismic hazard map for Taiwan by the USGS shows 9/10 of the island as the highest rating (most hazardous).[107]

Political and legal status

Main article: Political status of Taiwan

 

The political and legal statuses of Taiwan are contentious issues. The People's Republic of China (PRC) claims that the Republic of China government is illegitimate, referring to it as the "Taiwan Authority" even though current ROC territories have never been controlled by the PRC.[108][109] The ROC has its own constitution, independently elected president and armed forces. It has not formally renounced its claim to the mainland, but ROC government publications have increasingly downplayed it.[110]

 

Internationally, there is controversy on whether the ROC still exists as a state or a defunct state per international law due to the lack of wide diplomatic recognition. In a poll of Taiwanese aged 20 and older taken by TVBS in March 2009, a majority of 64% opted for the "status quo", while 19% favoured "independence" and 5% favoured "unification".[111]

Relations with the PRC

 

The political environment is complicated by the potential for military conflict should Taiwan declare de jure independence; it is the official PRC policy to use force to ensure unification if peaceful unification is no longer possible, as stated in its anti-secession law, and for this reason there are substantial military installations on the Fujian coast.[112][113][114][115][116]

 

On 29 April 2005, Kuomintang Chairman Lien Chan travelled to Beijing and met with Communist Party of China (CPC) Secretary-General Hu Jintao,[117] the first meeting between the leaders of the two parties since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. On 11 February 2014, Mainland Affairs Council Head Wang Yu-chi travelled to Nanjing and met with Taiwan Affairs Office Head Zhang Zhijun, the first meeting between high-ranking officials from either side.[118] Zhang paid a reciprocal visit to Taiwan and met Wang on 25 June 2014, making Zhang the first minister-level PRC official to ever visit Taiwan.[119] On 7 November 2015, Ma Ying-jeou (in his capacity as Leader of Taiwan) and Xi Jinping (in his capacity as Leader of Mainland China) travelled to Singapore and met up,[120] marking the highest-level exchange between the two sides since 1949.

as they came out of stealth mode last night. Future Ventures was part of their first seed round, and Playground Global led the Series A soon thereafter.

 

The Problem, from WIRED:

“The cost of training AI is absolutely going up,” says David Kanter, executive director of MLCommons, an organization that tracks the performance of chips designed for AI. The idea that larger models can unlock valuable new capabilities can be seen in many areas of the tech industry, he says. It may explain why Tesla is designing its own chips just to train AI models for autonomous driving.

 

Some worry that the rising cost of tapping the latest and greatest tech could slow the pace of innovation by reserving it for the biggest companies, and those that lease their tools.

 

“I think it does cut down innovation,” says Chris Manning, a Stanford professor who specializes in AI and language. “When we have only a handful of places where people can play with the innards of these models of that scale, that has to massively reduce the amount of creative exploration that happens.”

 

Kanter of MLCommons says MosaicML’s technology may help companies take their models to the next level, but it could also help democratize AI for companies without deep AI expertise. “If you can cut the cost, and give those companies access to expertise, then that will promote adoption,” he says."

 

And Forbes:

"Open.ai used thousands of high-performance GPU’s for over three months to train the 175-billion-parameter GPT-3 transformer model, at an estimated expense of nearly $12 million. So, while AI models are exploding in size, the costs are becoming prohibitive."

 

The Solution, from NextPlatform:

"MosaicML came out of stealth today with $37 million in funding from a wide range of VC partners, including Lux Capital, Future Ventures, E14, and others.

 

The real product is open source and is split between two related efforts. First is MosaicML’s “Composer”which is a library of methods for optimal training that can be strung together as “recipes” based on benchmarked findings and published works. By the way, for those who are actually doing machine learning at scale, this little tool on MosaicML’s site provides what is completely missing in the market—either from analysts, benchmarks like MLPerf, or even anecdotes.

 

According to MosaicML, “The compositions in this library have allowed us to achieve training speedups and cost reductions of 2.9X on ResNet-50 on ImageNet, 3.5X on ResNet-101 on ImageNet, and 1.7X on the GPT-125 language models (as compared to the optimized baselines on 8xA100s on AWS), all while achieving the same model quality as the baselines. To make sure that these results reflect fair comparisons, all of these data come from training on a fixed hardware configuration on publicly available clouds, and none of these methods increase the cost of inference.”

 

The other side is the Explorer interface that allow users to do what’s seen above. You set a desired tradeoff between accuracy, cost, or speed to result and get a visualization of those tradeoffs across thousands of training runs on standard benchmarks.

 

“We believe that unfettered growth of computing is not a sustainable path towards a future powered by artificial intelligence. Our mission is to reduce the time, cost, energy, and carbon impact of AI / ML training so that better AI models and applications can be developed,” the company says.

 

We tackle this problem at the algorithmic and systems level. MosaicML makes machine learning more efficient through composing a mosaic of methods that together accelerate and improve training."

 

And Forbes:

"Naveen Rao should bring ML Optimization as a service to a new level of capabilities. If the team can consistently deliver 5-10X performance improvements as Rao believes, they will quickly find themselves with a long line of customers waiting to get their foot in the door."

 

Company: www.mosaicml.com

 

During the what is later known as the “Golden age” of the alliance Kingdoms their benevolent dictator Queen Esmeralda tried to democratize her Kingdom and increase wealth and knowledge among the common people of all classes, this was even resisted by most of the poorest citizens, as some would say: “it is the good lords will that I am poor, if our good lord would want me to be wealthy I would have been born a lord and if he wanted me to be clever then I would have been born a monk scribe, to change that would be to go against our good lord's will!”

 

One day Queen Esmeralda had a great idea, after breakfast talk to her beloved Prince consort a foreign-born and good hearted drunk.

 

He had mentioned a custom at his homeland called: Sparmüll where people would put out no-longer-in use discarded objects, items and furniture on the street…

 

The Queen rose up and said: Berty what a wonderful idea!!!

We have far too much and many furniture and tit and tat in this palace! We are gonna do our own “Spaurmoll”!!!

 

Iffy Puff, her favorite pet dog agreed and immediately brought her a juicy bone to give away, he had plenty!!!

 

The Queen organized the palace guards in both spreading the word among the townsfolk and clearing the palace of excess bling, tools and luxurious furniture…

 

Her idea was that the poorest citizens would get their first pick and then the second poorest and so on…

 

Let us listen to a snippet of the conversation that day to our own amusement and joy!

 

- (Esmeralda): Oh Berty I could kiss you on that cute “pfnak” for coming up wonderful idea, you are such a cute little “kraut” I love you despite all of your little quirky shortcomings, talking about that, thank you for staying somewhat sober today, we wouldn’t want a scandal like when you streaked through the crowd on my easter speech screamin: “ich bin die kleine Königin mit eine kleiner prinz (hiccups)!!!”

 

- (Albert) Oh mein liebe Effie, don’t remind me about zatt inzident!!! I could hardenly zu my wein-inn go with a straight face for a woche! I had to have a mask on mein face looken like the gast-fantom of the oper! Yes I am *hiccups* very happy that unser old tradition is coming to a use heir in my New fatherland!!!

 

Now one of the palace guards called the first citizen in the small crowd of claimants of the handout.

 

- (Palace guard) step forwards chief mage, scientist and wizard of the kingdom!

 

- (Esmeralda) But dear Mage, are you not poor?

 

- (Mage) It depends your majesty, if you count my worldly belongings and deduct the amount of gold I owe a multitude of entities, I calculate that I am in debt of approximately 33 billion gold pieces raised by a cumulated…

 

The Queen interrupts the mage before he could finish his eternal calculation…

 

- (Queen) Very well you senile old fool, you might pick one item…

 

- (Palace guard) step forward official fool and Jester of the palace!

 

- (Esmeralda) oh are you that poor, are we not paying you enough for you stand-up routines?

 

- (Jester) No Ma’am! I am contempt with my pay! I complaint not your Royal highness!!! I just wondered if there is a piece of the former king's undergarments among the palace rubbish pile, I miss him so much after he got all religious and so!!!

 

- (Palace guard) step forwards Lady Marie-Henrietta Von Coburta-sachse and Lischtenfurst of the feodal principality of Isenkram!

 

- (Esmeralda) But Madam! You cannot fool me. You are definitely not poor. Your husband owns the second largest feodal earlship in the kingdom???

 

- (Maria-Henrietta) my Dear beloved Lady, my beloved monarch, I might be in possession of great wealth but as you said compared to the wealthiest I am but only a rat gnawing on breadcrumbs! I thought that I saw some old books over there, perhaps there will be proof that my family owns more land???

 

- (Palace guard) step forwards War-Dove rider of the american plains and hunter of buffaloes!

 

- (Esmeralda) Finally one who owns little, an immigrant from a huge land of plains, Please help yourself to some of my belongings…

 

- (War-Dove) Ugh Madam! Actually my dear beloved benevolent dictator and fellow human sister… I am rather rich I have what I need, I hunt it with my bow, you know I studied hunter-knowledge at Princeton before the Orange abominal sasquatch raised it, but my Lady I am homesick, This land has few buffalos no ears of maize and to find a turkey here is as hard finding a turkey in Turkey, there is only one ma’am and that is visir himself, eh my lady that was a joke. But honestly might there be an unused ticket to my native America among your belongings???

 

- (Palace guard) step forwards chief ichylog and Hybrid Fish/human without a given name!

 

- (Esmeralda) Dear Eastern Fisherman, what may I grant you?

 

- (Fish-Emperor) Esmelalda my loyal majesty! Could you glant me a Fiiish of the species that is clad in husky almol on its body has? one of them those that have pinchel claws as alms?

 

- (Esmeralda) Well deal fishelman, eh I mean dear fisherman I think I saw one a husk of a crab, but if you want fish meat it is just a husk, but it is yours!

 

- (Fish-Emperor) Well Queeny-lady, that is just what me wants, you westeln loundeyes don’t understand fisssch! We easteln know bettel! i just the Husk need, I will put felmented helling in to it to sell as delicious delicacy, now give me clab-fiissch!!!

 

- (Palace guard) step forwards Aspenwillow subcommander of the commune of the peoples peoples cooperate republic!

 

- (Esmeralda) Oh You??? i thought you were well-off enough feasting on the fruit of your peoples hard work and claiming the cream since you claim that your superior mind needs it to guide your oppressed proletariat in the right direction… your expanding belly doesn’t display signs of dire times???

 

- (Aspenwillow) oh Ma’am your faith in our great Saint Marx is weak… I have taken this heavy baldrick to my shoulders only because I want to carry it for the poor abused, dirty, ignorant peasants to spare their simple mind the burden of thinking. I don’t drink expensive wine and eat luxury pastries for my own joy and winning. My superior mind needs nurturing and expensive food so my mind stays healthy and strong! I would if I could work on the fields, down the mines and at the styes if I only could. I love to work hard, but faith has chosen me to be burdened by doing all my work with my mind… Oh I think I saw a crate of vintage franconian wines over there, could I help myself?

 

By now Esmeralda had enough, she was feeling quite noxious and ill!!!

 

She said to her consort and beloved prince:

 

Albert, will you carry on, and please drink freely, get pissed in an English way!!!I will be at the palace eating away my sorrows!!!

Photos from the Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery, created and curated by Bruce Mahalski.

 

Not to everyone's taste but I think I think its a great place to visit!

El arte de la talla de frutas y verduras empezó en China hará unos 2000 años, para la decoración de platos y eventos. Actualmente se sigue realizando la talla de forma habitual en restaurantes y grandes celebraciones.

 

En Tailandia se importó este arte desde China, en el año 1364, cuando una de las princesas de palacio decora una lámpara flotante (usada en una ceremonia tradicional tailandesa) con figuras talladas en frutas y verduras. Al verlo, el rey se emociona e impulsa este arte para su uso exclusivamente en la corte.

 

En el año 1932, el arte de la talla se "democratiza", al decidir el rey vigente extenderlo formando a los profesores de escuela. Así, pasa a ser una más de las artes oficiales, tal como la pintura, música, danza, etc...

 

La diferencia entre la talla china y tailandesa, se basa, básicamente, en los motivos realizados. Los chinos realizan figuras e imágenes alegóricos a sus cuentos y leyendas, mientras que los tailandeses realizan principalmente flores.

  

The art of carving fruit and vegetables will began in China about 2000 years, for decorating plates and events. Currently the size is still performed regularly in restaurants and big events.

 

In Thailand this art was imported from China, in 1364, when one of the princesses in the palace decorated a floating lamp (used in a traditional Thai ceremony) with figures carved in fruits and vegetables. Seeing him, the king is thrilled and encourages the art for use only in court.

 

In 1932, the art of carving is "democratizing" the king deciding to extend current training the school teachers. Thus, it becomes one more of the official arts such as painting, music, dance, etc ...

 

The height difference between Chinese and Thai, is based essentially on the grounds made. The Chinese made ​​allegorical figures and images to their stories and legends, while Thais mainly carried flowers.

The Chin tattooed women live in the Chin, Rakhine and Arakan states in northwestern Myanmar. The origin of facial tattoos in the region is unknown. Some believe that the practice began during the reigns of Kings long ago. The royalty used to come to the villages to capture young women. The men from the tribe may have tattooed their women to make them ugly, thereby saving them from a life of slavery. Interestingly, I heard a similar origin for body modification among the Mursi tribe in Ethiopia. As legend has it, the tribeswomen began wearing giant lip plates to make them uglier to would-be kidnappers. Now, the bigger the lip plate the higher the bride price.

For years, access to the tribal Mindat area was restricted by the burmese government. It was opened just two years ago. Only about 700 tourists visit per year. Most of them only visit the bucolic Mount Victoria by bus, never meeting the tattooed women who remain isolated, hours away by foot. Those who do wish to meet them better pack good walking shoes and be prepared to sleep in smoke-filled local houses complete with rats.

There are a few different face tattoo patterns. The spiderweb tattoo is popular in the Mrauk U region. It takes a three hour long tail boat ride to reach this remote area. This tattoo is usually accompanied by a circle in the center of the forehead which represents the sun or lines under the nose symbolizing tiger whiskers.

Another design, known as the bee pattern, is common in the Mindat area. It is composed of dots, lines and occasionally circles. It is worn by the Muun tribe who inhabit the hills of the Arakan state.

The Magan tribeswomen wear huge earrings made of beads and calabashes. They can also play the flute with their noses.

I ventured to Kanpelet village in search of the women from the U Pu tribe who have the incredibly rare whole face tattoo. This is one of the most impressive styles: the entire face is inked up. Rumors had it that only three women in this area had the tattoo. After hours of off roading, I arrive in the village only to learn that one died recently and another was very ill. I was lucky enough to meet Pa Late. At 85, she is nearly deaf but still works hard with her family in a small house on the top of a little hill.

Pa Late said that a completely black face had become a symbol of beauty in the past. The few women who refused to do it looked ugly to the men. The tattoo took three days but the pain lasted over a month.

There are two ways to make the tattoo needle. The first consists of tying three pieces of bamboo together and the second uses thorns. The ink is a mixture of cow bile, soot, plants, and pig fat. It usually took one day to complete the standard tattoo and a few more for the totally black one. The tattoo artist was a specialist or in some cases a parent. Infection was a common problem as the girls had blood all over their face.

Everything, including the eyelids, was tattooed. Many women say that the neck was the most sensitive area.

Ma Aung Seim shared her memories of the tattoo sessions : “I was 10 years old. The day before the tattoo ceremony, I only ate sugarcane and drank tea. It was forbidden to eat meat or peanuts. During the tattoo session, I cried a lot, but I could not move at all. After the session, my face bled for 3 days. It was very painful. My mother put fresh beans leaves on my face to alleviate the pain. I had no choice if i wanted to get married. Men wanted women with tattoos at this time. My mother told me that without a tattoo on my face, i would look like... a man! The web drawn on my face attracted the men like a spiderweb catches insects!”

Not all the tattooed women live in remote areas deep in the mountains. Some have integrated into modern society. Miss Heu, 67, lives in Kanpelet. Her grandmother forced her to get tattooed. She lives in a modern house and even has TV (when electricity is not out). Chin people have maintained their modesty and shyness: when a movie showspeople kissing or making love, most of them still fast forward the scene.

As a leader in the local community, Miss Heu had the chance to meet Aung San Suu Kyi when she came in the area for a meeting. She is very aware of the tattooed women and the ethnicities that are forgotten by the central government. She says she and Aung San Suu Kyi are friends now. Heu’s daughter has graduated and works in Singapore.

The Chin culture is threatened by the government as their teachers are usually not Chin. For a long time, they fought for independence, but since the country began to democratize, things have calmed down.

“I am old. Soon I will die” says to me a Chin woman from Pan Baung village, while she does the gesture of drying tears from her eyes. In her village, only 6 tattooed woman remain alive. Those women are the last of their kind…

 

© Eric Lafforgue

www.ericlafforgue.com

++++ FROM WIKIPEDIA ++++

 

Mount Hehuan (Chinese: 合歡山; pinyin: Héhuān Shān; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ha̍p-hoan-soaⁿ; also called Joy Mountain) is a 3,416-metre-high (11,207 ft) mountain in Central Taiwan. The peak lies on the boundaries of Nantou and Hualien counties and is within the Taroko Gorge National Park. Hehuanshan is a popular destination for the local people of central Taiwan. The 3,421-metre East Peak and 3,422-metre North Peak of Hehuanshan are actually both higher than the main peak.

 

Recreation

 

Snow, rare in the rest of Taiwan, is relatively common on the mountain during winter months. The Hehuanshan Road leads most of the way up the mountain to Wuling, a saddle between the Main Peak and the East Peak of Hehuanshan. Wuling is the highest point on the island of Taiwan accessible by public roads.

 

There was at one point[when?] a ski lift on the mountain, but later, due to the inconsistency of snowfall, the lift was removed. Remains of the ski lift mechanism are still visible to hikers on the east peak trail.

 

From the Hehuanshan Road, a trail about one kilometer long leads to the summit of the main peak. At the summit, there is a weather station.

 

Hehuanshan is part of the Central Mountain Range (中央山脈) that makes up the backbone of Taiwan.

History

 

In the past, a military training area was built in the proximity of Hehuanshan. The mountain range also features the remains of a ski lift, reportedly used by Taiwan's elite during the martial law period and inaccessible to most people. The unreliability of snowfall has meant that the ski lift was abandoned years ago.

Hehuanshan Road

Hehuanshan East and Main Peak at sunset from North Peak

 

The Hehuanshan Road is currently the only paved road leading across the Central Mountains from Taichung City to Hualien via the famous Taroko Gorge. The Central Cross-Island Highway, which originally crossed the mountains north of Hehuanshan, was damaged during the September 21, 1999 earthquake and had been under repair for five years afterwards. But prior to its re-opening disaster struck again in form of a typhoon and it was decided to keep it closed indefinitely.

 

The Hehuanshan Road leads up from Puli in central Nantou past Wushe (Ren-ai) and Chingjing Farm up to Wuling. Wuling, at 3,275 metres above sea level, is the highest automobile pass in Taiwan. The road is narrow and winding throughout, and is considered a dangerous and difficult road by many drivers. This road often becomes clogged in winter, when many locals travel up the mountain to see snow. Recently, after several incidents, buses and large trucks were barred from this stretch of road.

 

Taiwan (/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ (About this sound listen)), officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a state in East Asia. Its neighbors include the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the west, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taiwan is the most populous state and largest economy that is not a member of the United Nations.

 

The island of Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, was inhabited by aborigines before the 17th century, when Dutch and Spanish colonies opened the island to mass Han immigration. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty of China. The Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China (ROC) was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROC's loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. Although the ROC continued to claim to be the legitimate government of China, its effective jurisdiction has, since the loss of Hainan in 1950, been limited to Taiwan and its surrounding islands, with the main island making up 99% of its de facto territory. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, when the PRC assumed China's seat, causing the ROC to lose its UN membership.

 

In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system. Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, healthcare,[16] public education, economic freedom, and human development.[d][14][17] The country benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most highly educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree.[18][19]

 

The PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refuses diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC. Today, 20 countries maintain official ties with the ROC but many other states maintain unofficial ties through representative offices and institutions that function as de facto embassies and consulates. Although Taiwan is fully self-governing, most international organizations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or allow it to participate only as a non-state actor. Internally, the major division in politics is between the aspirations of eventual Chinese unification or Taiwanese independence, though both sides have moderated their positions to broaden their appeal. The PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible.[20]

 

Etymology

See also: Chinese Taipei, Formosa, and Names of China

Taiwan

Taiwan (Chinese characters).svg

(top) "Taiwan" in Traditional Chinese characters and Kyūjitai Japanese Kanji. (bottom) "Taiwan" in Simplified Chinese characters and Japanese Kanji.

Chinese name

Traditional Chinese 臺灣 or 台灣

Simplified Chinese 台湾

[show]Transcriptions

Japanese name

Kanji 台湾

Kana たいわん

Kyūjitai 臺灣

[show]Transcriptions

Republic of China

ROC (Chinese characters).svg

"Republic of China" in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom) Chinese characters

Traditional Chinese 中華民國

Simplified Chinese 中华民国

Postal Chunghwa Minkuo

[show]Transcriptions

China

Traditional Chinese 中國

Simplified Chinese 中国

Literal meaning Middle or Central State[21]

[show]Transcriptions

 

There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, derived from explorers or rulers by each particular period. The former name Formosa (福爾摩沙) dates from 1542,[verification needed] when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means "beautiful island".[22] The name "Formosa" eventually "replaced all others in European literature"[23] and was in common use in English in the early 20th century.[24]

 

In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company established a commercial post at Fort Zeelandia (modern-day Anping, Tainan) on a coastal sandbar called "Tayouan",[25] after their ethnonym for a nearby Taiwanese aboriginal tribe, written by the Dutch and Portuguese variously as Taiouwang, Tayowan, Teijoan, etc.[26] This name was also adopted into the Chinese vernacular (in particular, Hokkien, as Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tāi-oân/Tâi-oân) as the name of the sandbar and nearby area (Tainan). The modern word "Taiwan" is derived from this usage, which is seen in various forms (大員, 大圓, 大灣, 臺員, 臺圓 and 臺窩灣) in Chinese historical records. The area of modern-day Tainan was the first permanent settlement by Western colonists and Chinese immigrants, grew to be the most important trading centre, and served as the capital of the island until 1887. Use of the current Chinese name (臺灣) was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture. Through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as "Taiwan".[27][28][29][30]

 

In his Daoyi Zhilüe (1349), Wang Dayuan used "Liuqiu" as a name for the island of Taiwan, or the part of it near to Penghu.[31] Elsewhere, the name was used for the Ryukyu Islands in general or Okinawa, the largest of them; indeed the name Ryūkyū is the Japanese form of Liúqiú. The name also appears in the Book of Sui (636) and other early works, but scholars cannot agree on whether these references are to the Ryukyus, Taiwan or even Luzon.[32]

 

The official name of the state is the "Republic of China"; it has also been known under various names throughout its existence. Shortly after the ROC's establishment in 1912, while it was still located on the Chinese mainland, the government used the short form "China" Zhōngguó (中國), to refer to itself, which derives from zhōng ("central" or "middle") and guó ("state, nation-state"), [e] A term which also developed under the Zhou Dynasty in reference to its royal demesne[f] and the name was then applied to the area around Luoyi (present-day Luoyang) during the Eastern Zhou and then to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qingera .[34] During the 1950s and 1960s, after the government had fled to Taiwan due to losing the Chinese Civil War, it was commonly referred to as "Nationalist China" (or "Free China") to differentiate it from "Communist China" (or "Red China").[36] It was a member of the United Nations representing "China" until 1971, when it lost its seat to the People's Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become commonly known as "Taiwan", after the island that comprises 99% of the territory under its control. In some contexts, especially official ones from the ROC government, the name is written as "Republic of China (Taiwan)", "Republic of China/Taiwan", or sometimes "Taiwan (ROC)."[37] The Republic of China participates in most international forums and organizations under the name "Chinese Taipei" due to diplomatic pressure from the People's Republic of China. For instance, it is the name under which it has competed at the Olympic Games since 1984, and its name as an observer at the World Health Organization.[38]

History

Main articles: History of Taiwan and History of the Republic of China

See the History of China article for historical information in the Chinese Mainland before 1949.

Prehistoric Taiwan

Main article: Prehistory of Taiwan

A young Tsou man

 

Taiwan was joined to the mainland in the Late Pleistocene, until sea levels rose about 10,000 years ago. Fragmentary human remains dated 20,000 to 30,000 years ago have been found on the island, as well as later artefacts of a Paleolithic culture.[39][40][41]

 

Around 6,000 years ago, Taiwan was settled by farmers, most likely from mainland China.[42] They are believed to be the ancestors of today's Taiwanese aborigines, whose languages belong to the Austronesian language family, but show much greater diversity than the rest of the family, which spans a huge area from Maritime Southeast Asia west to Madagascar and east as far as New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island. This has led linguists to propose Taiwan as the urheimat of the family, from which seafaring peoples dispersed across Southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans.[43][44]

 

Han Chinese fishermen began settling in the Penghu islands in the 13th century.[45] Hostile tribes, and a lack of valuable trade products, meant that few outsiders visited the main island until the 16th century.[45] By the 1700's visits to the coast by fishermen from Fujian, as well as Chinese and Japanese pirates, became more frequent.[45]

Opening in the 17th century

 

The Dutch East India Company attempted to establish a trading outpost on the Penghu Islands (Pescadores) in 1622, but were militarily defeated and driven off by the Ming authorities.[46]

 

In 1624, the company established a stronghold called Fort Zeelandia on the coastal islet of Tayouan, which is now part of the main island at Anping, Tainan.[30] David Wright, a Scottish agent of the company who lived on the island in the 1650s, described the lowland areas of the island as being divided among 11 chiefdoms ranging in size from two settlements to 72. Some of these fell under Dutch control, while others remained independent.[30][47] The Company began to import labourers from Fujian and Penghu (Pescadores), many of whom settled.[46]

 

In 1626, the Spanish Empire landed on and occupied northern Taiwan, at the ports of Keelung and Tamsui, as a base to extend their trading. This colonial period lasted 16 years until 1642, when the last Spanish fortress fell to Dutch forces.

 

Following the fall of the Ming dynasty, Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), a self-styled Ming loyalist, arrived on the island and captured Fort Zeelandia in 1662, expelling the Dutch Empire and military from the island. Koxinga established the Kingdom of Tungning (1662–1683), with his capital at Tainan. He and his heirs, Zheng Jing, who ruled from 1662 to 1682, and Zheng Keshuang, who ruled less than a year, continued to launch raids on the southeast coast of mainland China well into the Qing dynasty era.[46]

Qing rule

In 1683, following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang of southern Fujian, the Qing dynasty formally annexed Taiwan, placing it under the jurisdiction of Fujian province. The Qing imperial government tried to reduce piracy and vagrancy in the area, issuing a series of edicts to manage immigration and respect aboriginal land rights. Immigrants mostly from southern Fujian continued to enter Taiwan. The border between taxpaying lands and "savage" lands shifted eastward, with some aborigines becoming sinicized while others retreated into the mountains. During this time, there were a number of conflicts between groups of Han Chinese from different regions of southern Fujian, particularly between those from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, and between southern Fujian Chinese and aborigines.

 

Northern Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were the scene of subsidiary campaigns in the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). The French occupied Keelung on 1 October 1884, but were repulsed from Tamsui a few days later. The French won some tactical victories but were unable to exploit them, and the Keelung Campaign ended in stalemate. The Pescadores Campaign, beginning on 31 March 1885, was a French victory, but had no long-term consequences. The French evacuated both Keelung and the Penghu archipelago after the end of the war.

 

In 1887, the Qing upgraded the island's administration from Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian to Fujian-Taiwan-Province (福建臺灣省), the twentieth in the empire, with its capital at Taipei. This was accompanied by a modernization drive that included building China's first railroad.[48]

Japanese rule

Main articles: Taiwan under Japanese rule and Republic of Formosa

Japanese colonial soldiers march Taiwanese captured after the Tapani Incident from the Tainan jail to court, 1915.

 

As the Qing dynasty was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Taiwan, along with Penghu and Liaodong Peninsula, were ceded in full sovereignty to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Inhabitants on Taiwan and Penghu wishing to remain Qing subjects were given a two-year grace period to sell their property and move to mainland China. Very few Taiwanese saw this as feasible.[49] On 25 May 1895, a group of pro-Qing high officials proclaimed the Republic of Formosa to resist impending Japanese rule. Japanese forces entered the capital at Tainan and quelled this resistance on 21 October 1895.[50] Guerrilla fighting continued periodically until about 1902 and ultimately took the lives of 14,000 Taiwanese, or 0.5% of the population.[51] Several subsequent rebellions against the Japanese (the Beipu uprising of 1907, the Tapani incident of 1915, and the Musha incident of 1930) were all unsuccessful but demonstrated opposition to Japanese colonial rule.

 

Japanese colonial rule was instrumental in the industrialization of the island, extending the railroads and other transportation networks, building an extensive sanitation system, and establishing a formal education system.[52] Japanese rule ended the practice of headhunting.[53] During this period the human and natural resources of Taiwan were used to aid the development of Japan and the production of cash crops such as rice and sugar greatly increased. By 1939, Taiwan was the seventh greatest sugar producer in the world.[54] Still, the Taiwanese and aborigines were classified as second- and third-class citizens. After suppressing Chinese guerrillas in the first decade of their rule, Japanese authorities engaged in a series of bloody campaigns against the mountain aboriginals, culminating in the Musha Incident of 1930.[55] Intellectuals and laborers who participated in left-wing movements within Taiwan were also arrested and massacred (e.g. Chiang Wei-shui (蔣渭水) and Masanosuke Watanabe (渡辺政之輔)).[56]

 

Around 1935, the Japanese began an island-wide assimilation project to bind the island more firmly to the Japanese Empire and people were taught to see themselves as Japanese under the Kominka Movement, during which time Taiwanese culture and religion were outlawed and the citizens were encouraged to adopt Japanese surnames.[57] The "South Strike Group" was based at the Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei. During World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military.[58] For example, former ROC President Lee Teng-hui's elder brother served in the Japanese navy and was killed in action in the Philippines in February 1945. The Imperial Japanese Navy operated heavily out of Taiwanese ports. In October 1944, the Formosa Air Battle was fought between American carriers and Japanese forces based in Taiwan. Important Japanese military bases and industrial centres throughout Taiwan, like Kaohsiung, were targets of heavy American bombings.[59] Also during this time, over 2,000 women were forced into sexual slavery for Imperial Japanese troops, now euphemistically called "comfort women."[60]

 

In 1938, there were 309,000 Japanese settlers in Taiwan.[61] After World War II, most of the Japanese were expelled and sent to Japan.[62]

Republic of China

 

On 25 October 1945, the US Navy ferried ROC troops to Taiwan in order to accept the formal surrender of Japanese military forces in Taipei on behalf of the Allied Powers, as part of General Order No. 1 for temporary military occupation. General Rikichi Andō, governor-general of Taiwan and commander-in-chief of all Japanese forces on the island, signed the receipt and handed it over to General Chen Yi of the ROC military to complete the official turnover. Chen Yi proclaimed that day to be "Taiwan Retrocession Day", but the Allies considered Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to be under military occupation and still under Japanese sovereignty until 1952, when the Treaty of San Francisco took effect.[63][64] Although the 1943 Cairo Declaration had envisaged returning these territories to China, in the Treaty of San Francisco and Treaty of Taipei Japan has renounced all claim to them without specifying to what country they were to be surrendered. This introduced the problem of the legal status of Taiwan.

 

The ROC administration of Taiwan under Chen Yi was strained by increasing tensions between Taiwanese-born people and newly arrived mainlanders, which were compounded by economic woes, such as hyperinflation. Furthermore, cultural and linguistic conflicts between the two groups quickly led to the loss of popular support for the new government, while the mass movement led by the working committee of the Communist Party also aimed to bring down the Kuomintang government.[65][66] The shooting of a civilian on 28 February 1947 triggered island-wide unrest, which was suppressed with military force in what is now called the February 28 Incident. Mainstream estimates of the number killed range from 18,000 to 30,000. Those killed were mainly members of the Taiwanese elite.[67][68]

The Nationalists' retreat to Taipei: after the Nationalists lost Nanjing (Nanking) they next moved to Guangzhou (Canton), then to Chongqing (Chungking), Chengdu (Chengtu) and Xichang (Sichang) before arriving in Taipei.

 

After the end of World War II, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang), led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Party of China, led by Mao Zedong. Throughout the months of 1949, a series of Chinese Communist offensives led to the capture of its capital Nanjing on 23 April and the subsequent defeat of the Nationalist army on the mainland, and the Communists founded the People's Republic of China on 1 October.[69]

 

On 7 December 1949, after the loss of four capitals, Chiang evacuated his Nationalist government to Taiwan and made Taipei the temporary capital of the ROC (also called the "wartime capital" by Chiang Kai-shek).[70] Some 2 million people, consisting mainly of soldiers, members of the ruling Kuomintang and intellectual and business elites, were evacuated from mainland China to Taiwan at that time, adding to the earlier population of approximately six million. In addition, the ROC government took to Taipei many national treasures and much of China's gold reserves and foreign currency reserves.[71][72][73]

 

After losing most of the mainland, the Kuomintang held remaining control of Tibet, the portions of Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Yunnan provinces along with the Hainan Island until 1951 before the Communists subsequently captured both territories. From this point onwards, the Kuomintang's territory was reduced to Taiwan, Penghu, the portions of the Fujian province (Kinmen and Matsu Islands), and two major islands of Dongsha Islands and Nansha Islands. The Kuomintang continued to claim sovereignty over all "China", which it defined to include mainland China, Taiwan, Outer Mongolia and other areas. On mainland China, the victorious Communists claimed they ruled the sole and only China (which they claimed included Taiwan) and that the Republic of China no longer existed.[74]

A Chinese man in military uniform, smiling and looking towards the left. He holds a sword in his left hand and has a medal in shape of a sun on his chest.

Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang from 1925 until his death in 1975

Chinese Nationalist one-party rule

 

Martial law, declared on Taiwan in May 1949,[75] continued to be in effect after the central government relocated to Taiwan. It was not repealed until 1987,[75] and was used as a way to suppress the political opposition in the intervening years.[76] During the White Terror, as the period is known, 140,000 people were imprisoned or executed for being perceived as anti-KMT or pro-Communist.[77] Many citizens were arrested, tortured, imprisoned and executed for their real or perceived link to the Communists. Since these people were mainly from the intellectual and social elite, an entire generation of political and social leaders was decimated. In 1998 law was passed to create the "Compensation Foundation for Improper Verdicts" which oversaw compensation to White Terror victims and families. President Ma Ying-jeou made an official apology in 2008, expressing hope that there will never be a tragedy similar to White Terror.[78]

 

Initially, the United States abandoned the KMT and expected that Taiwan would fall to the Communists. However, in 1950 the conflict between North Korea and South Korea, which had been ongoing since the Japanese withdrawal in 1945, escalated into full-blown war, and in the context of the Cold War, US President Harry S. Truman intervened again and dispatched the US Navy's 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent hostilities between Taiwan and mainland China.[79] In the Treaty of San Francisco and the Treaty of Taipei, which came into force respectively on 28 April 1952 and 5 August 1952, Japan formally renounced all right, claim and title to Taiwan and Penghu, and renounced all treaties signed with China before 1942. Neither treaty specified to whom sovereignty over the islands should be transferred, because the United States and the United Kingdom disagreed on whether the ROC or the PRC was the legitimate government of China.[80] Continuing conflict of the Chinese Civil War through the 1950s, and intervention by the United States notably resulted in legislation such as the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty and the Formosa Resolution of 1955.

With President Chiang Kai-shek, the US President Dwight D. Eisenhower waved to crowds during his visit to Taipei in June 1960.

 

As the Chinese Civil War continued without truce, the government built up military fortifications throughout Taiwan. Within this effort, KMT veterans built the now famous Central Cross-Island Highway through the Taroko Gorge in the 1950s. The two sides would continue to engage in sporadic military clashes with seldom publicized details well into the 1960s on the China coastal islands with an unknown number of night raids. During the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in September 1958, Taiwan's landscape saw Nike-Hercules missile batteries added, with the formation of the 1st Missile Battalion Chinese Army that would not be deactivated until 1997. Newer generations of missile batteries have since replaced the Nike Hercules systems throughout the island.

 

During the 1960s and 1970s, the ROC maintained an authoritarian, single-party government while its economy became industrialized and technology oriented. This rapid economic growth, known as the Taiwan Miracle, was the result of a fiscal regime independent from mainland China and backed up, among others, by the support of US funds and demand for Taiwanese products.[81][82] In the 1970s, Taiwan was economically the second fastest growing state in Asia after Japan.[83] Taiwan, along with Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore, became known as one of the Four Asian Tigers. Because of the Cold War, most Western nations and the United Nations regarded the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China until the 1970s. Later, especially after the termination of the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, most nations switched diplomatic recognition to the PRC (see United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758).

 

Up until the 1970s, the government was regarded by Western critics as undemocratic for upholding martial law, for severely repressing any political opposition and for controlling media. The KMT did not allow the creation of new parties and those that existed did not seriously compete with the KMT. Thus, competitive democratic elections did not exist.[84][85][86][87][88] From the late 1970s to the 1990s, however, Taiwan went through reforms and social changes that transformed it from an authoritarian state to a democracy. In 1979, a pro-democracy protest known as the Kaohsiung Incident took place in Kaohsiung to celebrate Human Rights Day. Although the protest was rapidly crushed by the authorities, it is today considered as the main event that united Taiwan's opposition.[89]

Democratization

 

Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's son and successor as the president, began to liberalize the political system in the mid-1980s. In 1984, the younger Chiang selected Lee Teng-hui, a Taiwanese-born, US-educated technocrat, to be his vice-president. In 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed and inaugurated as the first opposition party in the ROC to counter the KMT. A year later, Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law on the main island of Taiwan (martial law was lifted on Penghu in 1979, Matsu island in 1992 and Kinmen island in 1993). With the advent of democratization, the issue of the political status of Taiwan gradually resurfaced as a controversial issue where, previously, the discussion of anything other than unification under the ROC was taboo.

 

After the death of Chiang Ching-kuo in January 1988, Lee Teng-hui succeeded him as president. Lee continued to democratize the government and decrease the concentration of government authority in the hands of mainland Chinese. Under Lee, Taiwan underwent a process of localization in which Taiwanese culture and history were promoted over a pan-China viewpoint in contrast to earlier KMT policies which had promoted a Chinese identity. Lee's reforms included printing banknotes from the Central Bank rather than the Provincial Bank of Taiwan, and streamlining the Taiwan Provincial Government with most of its functions transferred to the Executive Yuan. Under Lee, the original members of the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly(a former supreme legislative body defunct in 2005）,[90] elected in 1947 to represent mainland Chinese constituencies and having held the seats without re-election for more than four decades, were forced to resign in 1991. The previously nominal representation in the Legislative Yuan was brought to an end, reflecting the reality that the ROC had no jurisdiction over mainland China, and vice versa. Restrictions on the use of Taiwanese Hokkien in the broadcast media and in schools were also lifted.[citation needed]

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Taiwan's special envoy to the APEC summit, Lien Chan, November 2011

 

Democratic reforms continued in the 1990s, with Lee Teng-hui re-elected in 1996, in the first direct presidential election in the history of the ROC.[91] During the later years of Lee's administration, he was involved in corruption controversies relating to government release of land and weapons purchase, although no legal proceedings commenced. In 1997,"To meet the requisites of the nation prior to national unification",[92] the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China was passed and then the former "constitution of five powers" turns to be more tripartite. In 2000, Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party was elected as the first non-Kuomintang (KMT) President and was re-elected to serve his second and last term since 2004. Polarized politics has emerged in Taiwan with the formation of the Pan-Blue Coalition of parties led by the KMT, favouring eventual Chinese reunification, and the Pan-Green Coalition of parties led by the DPP, favouring an eventual and official declaration of Taiwanese independence.[93][clarification needed] In early 2006, President Chen Shui-bian remarked: “The National Unification Council will cease to function. No budget will be ear-marked for it and its personnel must return to their original posts...The National Unification Guidelines will cease to apply."[94]

The ruling DPP has traditionally leaned in favour of Taiwan independence and rejects the "One-China policy".

 

On 30 September 2007, the ruling DPP approved a resolution asserting a separate identity from China and called for the enactment of a new constitution for a "normal country". It also called for general use of "Taiwan" as the country's name, without abolishing its formal name, the Republic of China.[95] The Chen administration also pushed for referendums on national defence and UN entry in the 2004 and 2008 elections, which failed due to voter turnout below the required legal threshold of 50% of all registered voters.[96] The Chen administration was dogged by public concerns over reduced economic growth, legislative gridlock due to a pan-blue, opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan and corruption involving the First Family as well as government officials.[97][98]

 

The KMT increased its majority in the Legislative Yuan in the January 2008 legislative elections, while its nominee Ma Ying-jeou went on to win the presidency in March of the same year, campaigning on a platform of increased economic growth and better ties with the PRC under a policy of "mutual nondenial".[96] Ma took office on 20 May 2008, the same day that President Chen Shui-bian stepped down and was notified by prosecutors of possible corruption charges. Part of the rationale for campaigning for closer economic ties with the PRC stems from the strong economic growth China attained since joining the World Trade Organization. However, some analysts say that despite the election of Ma Ying-jeou, the diplomatic and military tensions with the PRC have not been reduced.[99]

 

On 24 May 2017, the Constitutional Court ruled that current marriage laws have been violating the Constitution by denying Taiwanese same-sex couples the right to marry. The Court ruled that if the Legislative Yuan does not pass adequate amendments to Taiwanese marriage laws within two years, same-sex marriages will automatically become legitimate in Taiwan.[100]

Geography

Taiwan is mostly mountainous in the east, with gently sloping plains in the west. The Penghu Islands are west of the main island.

 

The total area of the current jurisdiction of the Republic of China is 36,193 km2 (13,974 sq mi),[9] making it the world's 137th-largest country/dependency, smaller than Switzerland and larger than Belgium.

 

The island of Taiwan has an area of 35,883 km2 (13,855 sq mi), and lies some 180 kilometres (110 mi) from the southeastern coast of mainland China across the Taiwan Strait.[9] The East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait directly to the south, and the South China Sea to the southwest. Its shape is similar to a sweet potato, giving rise to the name sweet potato used by Taiwanese Hokkien speakers for people of Taiwanese descent.[101]

 

The island is characterized by the contrast between the eastern two-thirds, consisting mostly of rugged mountains running in five ranges from the northern to the southern tip of the island, and the flat to gently rolling Chianan Plains in the west that are also home to most of Taiwan's population. Taiwan's highest point is Yu Shan (Jade Mountain) at 3,952 metres (12,966 ft),[102] making Taiwan the world's fourth-highest island.

 

The Penghu Islands, 50 km (31.1 mi) west of the main island, have an area of 126.9 km2 (49.0 sq mi). More distant islands controlled by the Republic of China are the Kinmen, Wuchiu and Matsu Islands off the coast of Fujian, with a total area of 180.5 km2 (69.7 sq mi), and the Pratas Islands and Taiping Island in the South China Sea, with a total area of 2.9 km2 (1.1 sq mi) and no permanent inhabitants.[9] The ROC government also claims the Senkaku Islands to the northeast, which are controlled by Japan.

Climate

 

Taiwan lies on the Tropic of Cancer, and its general climate is marine tropical.[8] The northern and central regions are subtropical, whereas the south is tropical and the mountainous regions are temperate.[103] The average rainfall is 2,600 millimetres (100 inches) per year for the island proper; the rainy season is concurrent with the onset of the summer East Asian Monsoon in May and June.[104] The entire island experiences hot, humid weather from June through September. Typhoons are most common in July, August and September.[104] During the winter (November to March), the northeast experiences steady rain, while the central and southern parts of the island are mostly sunny.

Geology

Main article: Geology of Taiwan

Dabajian Mountain

 

The island of Taiwan lies in a complex tectonic area between the Yangtze Plate to the west and north, the Okinawa Plate on the north-east, and the Philippine Mobile Belt on the east and south. The upper part of the crust on the island is primarily made up of a series of terranes, mostly old island arcs which have been forced together by the collision of the forerunners of the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. These have been further uplifted as a result of the detachment of a portion of the Eurasian Plate as it was subducted beneath remnants of the Philippine Sea Plate, a process which left the crust under Taiwan more buoyant.[105]

 

The east and south of Taiwan are a complex system of belts formed by, and part of the zone of, active collision between the North Luzon Trough portion of the Luzon Volcanic Arc and South China, where accreted portions of the Luzon Arc and Luzon forearc form the eastern Coastal Range and parallel inland Longitudinal Valley of Taiwan respectively.[106]

 

The major seismic faults in Taiwan correspond to the various suture zones between the various terranes. These have produced major quakes throughout the history of the island. On 21 September 1999, a 7.3 quake known as the "921 earthquake" killed more than 2,400 people. The seismic hazard map for Taiwan by the USGS shows 9/10 of the island as the highest rating (most hazardous).[107]

Political and legal status

Main article: Political status of Taiwan

 

The political and legal statuses of Taiwan are contentious issues. The People's Republic of China (PRC) claims that the Republic of China government is illegitimate, referring to it as the "Taiwan Authority" even though current ROC territories have never been controlled by the PRC.[108][109] The ROC has its own constitution, independently elected president and armed forces. It has not formally renounced its claim to the mainland, but ROC government publications have increasingly downplayed it.[110]

 

Internationally, there is controversy on whether the ROC still exists as a state or a defunct state per international law due to the lack of wide diplomatic recognition. In a poll of Taiwanese aged 20 and older taken by TVBS in March 2009, a majority of 64% opted for the "status quo", while 19% favoured "independence" and 5% favoured "unification".[111]

Relations with the PRC

 

The political environment is complicated by the potential for military conflict should Taiwan declare de jure independence; it is the official PRC policy to use force to ensure unification if peaceful unification is no longer possible, as stated in its anti-secession law, and for this reason there are substantial military installations on the Fujian coast.[112][113][114][115][116]

 

On 29 April 2005, Kuomintang Chairman Lien Chan travelled to Beijing and met with Communist Party of China (CPC) Secretary-General Hu Jintao,[117] the first meeting between the leaders of the two parties since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. On 11 February 2014, Mainland Affairs Council Head Wang Yu-chi travelled to Nanjing and met with Taiwan Affairs Office Head Zhang Zhijun, the first meeting between high-ranking officials from either side.[118] Zhang paid a reciprocal visit to Taiwan and met Wang on 25 June 2014, making Zhang the first minister-level PRC official to ever visit Taiwan.[119] On 7 November 2015, Ma Ying-jeou (in his capacity as Leader of Taiwan) and Xi Jinping (in his capacity as Leader of Mainland China) travelled to Singapore and met up,[120] marking the highest-level exchange between the two sides since 1949.

Cluny Museum - Temporary Exhibition: Glass, an inventive Middle Ages

From September 20, 2017 to January 8, 2018.

 

The glass is, in the Middle Ages, the object of a real fascination. The exhibition traces ten centuries of an unknown creative abundance.

If they draw their inspiration from Antiquity or Islamic productions, master glassmakers also develop virtuosic techniques, such as Venetians, famous for enamelled goblets or craftsmen in the north of France, who develop the first glasses to rod.

 

From architecture, where the stained glass testifies to the virtuosity of craftsmen, to the most prestigious tables, glass is a luxury product. Over the centuries, it gradually democratizes in the form of civilian glazing or tavern cups.

But glass is also the precision work of service: urinals enable physicians to diagnose, stills used by apothecaries, mirrors that help reading - just like the glasses, which make their appearance in the late 13 th century .

 

The exhibition "The Glass, an inventive Middle Ages" features some 230 works with illuminations, paintings and engravings, which help us understand the uses of glass throughout the medieval period.

 

www.musee-moyenage.fr/activites/expositions/expositions-e...

Hurricane Season (1999(

 

Art Rosenbaum (American 1938 - 2022)

 

artrosenbaum.org/v2/portfolio/hurricane-season-triptych/

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqoSgUmaQjw

 

Sept. 14, 2022

ATLANTA — Art Rosenbaum, a painter and folk musician acclaimed for a half-century of field recordings of American vernacular music, including old-time Appalachian fiddle tunes and ritual music imported from Africa by enslaved people, died on Sept. 4 at a hospital in Athens, Ga., his adopted hometown. He was 83.

 

His son, Neil Rosenbaum, said the cause was complications of cancer.

 

Art Rosenbaum’s passion for documenting a broad range of American musical traditions as they were passed down and performed at work camps, church gatherings and rural living rooms expanded upon the famous field recording work of the ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax. An important inspiration was Pete Seeger, another high-profile 20th-century champion of folk music. Mr. Rosenbaum wrote that Mr. Seeger had once told him, “Don’t learn from me, learn from the folks I learned from.”

 

Mr. Rosenbaum called it “good advice, and the kick in the rear that got me going.”

 

In 2007, the Atlanta-based label Dust-to-Digital released the first of two box sets of compilations from Mr. Rosenbaum’s trove, “Art of Field Recording Volume I: Fifty Years of Traditional American Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum,” which won a Grammy Award for best historical album.

 

The pop music website Pitchfork called the release “revelatory” and “an indispensable counterpoint to Harry Smith’s ‘Anthology of American Folk Music,’” a reference to the 1952 song compilation that remains a canonical touchstone for folk musicians.

 

Like Mr. Smith, the bohemian polymath who compiled the “Anthology,” Mr. Rosenbaum was an accomplished visual artist. As an art teacher, he spent the bulk of his career at the University of Georgia, in Athens, where his energetic paintings, often depicting the musicians he recorded, and his ideas about the democratization of culture had an influence that resonated far beyond the classroom.

 

Michael Stipe, the visual artist and singer with the Athens rock band R.E.M., who was a student of Mr. Rosenbaum’s in the early 1980s, said Mr. Rosenbaum’s goal “was to blur the lines between what is outsider and insider, and to bring together this untrained music and art with trained music and art, and acknowledge that each have immense power, and that they’re not that far apart.”

 

Arthur Spark Rosenbaum was born on Dec. 6, 1938, in Ogdensburg, N.Y., in St. Lawrence County. His mother, Della Spark Rosenbaum, was a medical illustrator who encouraged her children’s artistic inclinations. His father, David Rosenbaum, was an Army pathologist who sometimes sang what his son described as “Northern street songs.” Arthur later recorded one of these songs, his father’s a cappella version of the ribald 18th-century Child ballad “Our Goodman,” and included it in the 2007 box set.

 

The family eventually moved to Indianapolis, where Mr. Rosenbaum, entranced by traditional music, absorbed the Harry Smith anthology and the contemporary folk stars of the day. In high school he won an art contest at the Indiana State Fair and spent the $25 prize money on a five-string banjo. He went on to become a pre-eminent expert on traditional banjo playing and tunings and to record several albums.

 

In the mid-1950s Mr. Rosenbaum moved to New York City, then the epicenter of the burgeoning folk revival, earning an undergraduate degree in art history and a master’s degree in fine arts from Columbia University. In the summers he worked at a resort hotel on Lake Michigan, where he began making recordings of nearby field workers from Mexico and the American South.

 

In 1958, Mr. Rosenbaum tracked down and recorded in Indianapolis a musician named Scrapper Blackwell, whom he described as “one of the best and most influential blues guitarists of the 1920s and ’30s.” Back in New York, as Mr. Rosenbaum was fond of recalling, a fellow roots music obsessive named Bob Dylan would pester him for any details he could muster about Mr. Blackwell’s life and playing style.

 

It was in New York that Mr. Rosenbaum met the artist Margo Newmark, who became his wife and lifelong collaborator. She survives him.

 

In addition to her and his son, Neil, a filmmaker and musician, he is survived by a sister, Jenny Rosenbaum, a writer; and a brother, Victor Rosenbaum, a concert pianist.

 

After eight years of teaching studio art at the University of Iowa, Mr. Rosenbaum in 1976 took a similar job at the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art. With Athens as a home base, he and Ms. Newmark Rosenbaum continued making field recordings, many of them in and around Georgia, and giving the musicians they met opportunities to play before new audiences.

 

“As these traditional musicians were identified and then brought out,” said Judith McWillie, an emerita art professor at the university, “and as there were more festivals and opportunities for them to play, people began to envision an identity for Georgia that was somewhat different from the one that it had. This was the 1970s, and coming off some extremely difficult times in the South.”

 

Folk music, she said, revealed a shared cultural history: “The musicians Art brought out were Black and white.”

 

In 1984, Mr. Rosenbaum recorded an album of stories and songs by Howard Finster, the self-taught artist, preacher and self-proclaimed “man of visions” whose work has become indelibly associated with 20th-century Georgia after its use on album covers by R.E.M. and the band Talking Heads.

 

He also recorded the McIntosh County Shouters, an African American group from coastal Georgia who performed the “ring shout,” which Mr. Rosenbaum described as “an impressive fusion of call-and-response singing, polyrhythmic percussion and expressive and formalized dancelike movements.” The ring shout, he asserted, was “the oldest African American performance tradition on the North American continent.”

 

Brenton Jordan, a member of the group, said of the Rosenbaums, “It’s their legwork that actually kind of introduced the McIntosh County Shouters to the world.” He noted that the ring shout, once on the verge of extinction, has in recent years been performed by his group in Washington at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

 

The Rosenbaums published a book on the ring shout in 1998. With drawings of the performers by Mr. Rosenbaum and photos of them by Ms. Newmark Rosenbaum, it depicts a place and a culture that seems beguilingly out of phase with modern life.

 

Many of Mr. Rosenbaum’s other paintings and drawings are loose allegorical works in which the old and the new clash and cohabitate, with traditional musicians sharing space on the canvas with modern-day hipsters, skateboarders and documentarians (often Mr. Rosenbaum himself).

 

As a painter, he was inspired by Cezanne and Max Beckmann, the German Expressionist. At times his work recalls the painting of Thomas Hart Benton, the American regionalist. Some of Mr. Rosenbaum’s works are large murals on historical themes.

 

Beginning in the late 1970s, Athens saw an explosion of forward-thinking rock musicians, many of whom, like Mr. Stipe, had ties to the Georgia art school. Mr. Rosenbaum’s passions always ran to traditional music, but he remained an inspiration for contemporary musicians.

 

Lance Ledbetter, the founder and co-director of the Dust-to-Digital label, recalled Vic Chesnutt, the brilliant, idiosyncratic Athens-based songwriter who died in 2009, speaking of Mr. Rosenbaum, quoting him as saying:

 

“When you move to Athens, and you hear about this guy who plays banjo and knows all of these songs, you just follow him around like a puppy dog. And I’m not the only one who did that.”

 

www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/us/art-rosenbaum-dead.html

_______________________________________________

georgiamuseum.org

 

The Georgia Museum of Art, on the campus of the University of Georgia, in Athens, is both an academic museum and, since 1982, the official art museum of the state of Georgia. The permanent collection consists of American paintings, primarily 19th- and 20th-century; American, European and Asian works on paper; the Samuel H. Kress Study Collection of Italian Renaissance paintings; and growing collections of southern decorative arts and Asian art.

 

From the time it was opened to the public in 1948 in the basement of the old library on the university’s historic North Campus, the museum has grown consistently both in the size of its collection and in the size of its facilities. Today the museum occupies a contemporary building in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the university’s burgeoning east campus. There, 79,000 square feet house nearly 17,000 objects in the museum’s permanent collection—a dramatic leap from the core of 100 paintings donated by the museum’s founder, Alfred Heber Holbrook.

 

Much of the museum’s collection of American paintings was donated by Holbrook in memory of his first wife, Eva Underhill Holbrook. Included in this collection are works by such luminaries as Frank Weston Benson, William Merritt Chase, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Georgia O’Keeffe, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Jacob Lawrence and Theodore Robinson.

 

In 2011, the museum opened an expanded contemporary building, with additions and renovations designed by Gluckman Mayner Architects, in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the university’s burgeoning East Campus. New galleries house the permanent collection, and visitors enjoy an outdoor sculpture garden and expanded lobby. In 2012, Brenda and Larry Thompson donated 100 works of art by African American artists to the collection, mirroring Holbrook’s original gift. They also established an endowment to fund the position of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Curator of African American and African Diasporic Art. The Thompsons have continued to give to the museum (their gifts can be found in the collections database), and their gift has had a transformative effect, strongly privileging an expansion of the traditional art historical canon. They received the Patron of the Year award from the Georgia Association of Museums and Galleries in 2019.

 

The museum continues to balance its dual designation as an academic museum with its role as the official state art museum of Georgia. Its schedule is a reflection of the academic study of the history of art and a broader array of popular exhibitions that appeal to all audiences. From the time Alfred Holbrook first loaded works from his art collection in the trunk of his car to share with Georgia’s schoolchildren until today, when the museum staff crisscrosses the state of Georgia to present a variety of educational programs, the Georgia Museum of Art has made the state a richer and more culturally viable place to live.

 

....

The Chin tattooed women live in the Chin, Rakhine and Arakan states in northwestern Myanmar. The origin of facial tattoos in the region is unknown. Some believe that the practice began during the reigns of Kings long ago. The royalty used to come to the villages to capture young women. The men from the tribe may have tattooed their women to make them ugly, thereby saving them from a life of slavery. Interestingly, I heard a similar origin for body modification among the Mursi tribe in Ethiopia. As legend has it, the tribeswomen began wearing giant lip plates to make them uglier to would-be kidnappers. Now, the bigger the lip plate the higher the bride price.

For years, access to the tribal Mindat area was restricted by the burmese government. It was opened just two years ago. Only about 700 tourists visit per year. Most of them only visit the bucolic Mount Victoria by bus, never meeting the tattooed women who remain isolated, hours away by foot. Those who do wish to meet them better pack good walking shoes and be prepared to sleep in smoke-filled local houses complete with rats.

There are a few different face tattoo patterns. The spiderweb tattoo is popular in the Mrauk U region. It takes a three hour long tail boat ride to reach this remote area. This tattoo is usually accompanied by a circle in the center of the forehead which represents the sun or lines under the nose symbolizing tiger whiskers.

Another design, known as the bee pattern, is common in the Mindat area. It is composed of dots, lines and occasionally circles. It is worn by the Muun tribe who inhabit the hills of the Arakan state.

The Magan tribeswomen wear huge earrings made of beads and calabashes. They can also play the flute with their noses.

I ventured to Kanpelet village in search of the women from the U Pu tribe who have the incredibly rare whole face tattoo. This is one of the most impressive styles: the entire face is inked up. Rumors had it that only three women in this area had the tattoo. After hours of off roading, I arrive in the village only to learn that one died recently and another was very ill. I was lucky enough to meet Pa Late. At 85, she is nearly deaf but still works hard with her family in a small house on the top of a little hill.

Pa Late said that a completely black face had become a symbol of beauty in the past. The few women who refused to do it looked ugly to the men. The tattoo took three days but the pain lasted over a month.

There are two ways to make the tattoo needle. The first consists of tying three pieces of bamboo together and the second uses thorns. The ink is a mixture of cow bile, soot, plants, and pig fat. It usually took one day to complete the standard tattoo and a few more for the totally black one. The tattoo artist was a specialist or in some cases a parent. Infection was a common problem as the girls had blood all over their face.

Everything, including the eyelids, was tattooed. Many women say that the neck was the most sensitive area.

Ma Aung Seim shared her memories of the tattoo sessions : “I was 10 years old. The day before the tattoo ceremony, I only ate sugarcane and drank tea. It was forbidden to eat meat or peanuts. During the tattoo session, I cried a lot, but I could not move at all. After the session, my face bled for 3 days. It was very painful. My mother put fresh beans leaves on my face to alleviate the pain. I had no choice if i wanted to get married. Men wanted women with tattoos at this time. My mother told me that without a tattoo on my face, i would look like... a man! The web drawn on my face attracted the men like a spiderweb catches insects!”

Not all the tattooed women live in remote areas deep in the mountains. Some have integrated into modern society. Miss Heu, 67, lives in Kanpelet. Her grandmother forced her to get tattooed. She lives in a modern house and even has TV (when electricity is not out). Chin people have maintained their modesty and shyness: when a movie showspeople kissing or making love, most of them still fast forward the scene.

As a leader in the local community, Miss Heu had the chance to meet Aung San Suu Kyi when she came in the area for a meeting. She is very aware of the tattooed women and the ethnicities that are forgotten by the central government. She says she and Aung San Suu Kyi are friends now. Heu’s daughter has graduated and works in Singapore.

The Chin culture is threatened by the government as their teachers are usually not Chin. For a long time, they fought for independence, but since the country began to democratize, things have calmed down.

“I am old. Soon I will die” says to me a Chin woman from Pan Baung village, while she does the gesture of drying tears from her eyes. In her village, only 6 tattooed woman remain alive. Those women are the last of their kind…

 

© Eric Lafforgue

www.ericlafforgue.com

Attributed to Anton Ambros Egermann, 1863.

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

 

Artwork type: goblet

 

Object numberBK-2002-1

 

Dimensions

diameter 18.4 cm, height 61.8 cm x diameter 19.5 cm

----------------------------------------

A lavishly enameled goblet like this one, commemorating a Carrousel of 1863, may seem garish to modern eyes—its gleaming green glass, heraldic arms, and florid ornament calling more attention to itself than good taste might allow. Yet this ornate vessel opens a portal into a vanished world: the courtly, hierarchical society of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its German aristocratic satellites in the mid-19th century.

 

Each name and coat of arms represents a princely house or noble lineage whose members took part in a ceremonial equestrian pageant—part chivalric revival, part dynastic theater. In its exuberance and specificity, the goblet stands as a glittering fossil of the old order in the final decades before modernity, nationalism, and war swept much of it away.

 

🏇 What Is a Carrousel?

 

A carrousel—from the Italian carosello and French carrousel—was a ceremonial equestrian pageant popular in European aristocratic courts from the late Renaissance through the 18th century. It was not a children's amusement ride (that meaning came later), but rather a choreographed, stylized spectacle of horsemanship, aristocratic display, and courtly symbolism.

 

At its height, the carrousel functioned as a theatrical expression of chivalry: an elaborately staged event where noblemen (and sometimes women) performed mounted exercises in formation, often in costume, complete with heraldic regalia, allegorical themes, and richly decorated horses.

 

📅 Heyday and Historical Context

 

The carrousel reached its peak during the 17th and early 18th centuries, especially in the courts of:

 

Louis XIV of France, who staged the Grand Carrousel of 1662 in Paris to display Bourbon prestige

 

The Habsburg courts in Vienna and Prague

 

Italian and German principalities where court culture remained theatrical and ceremonial

 

These events often commemorated:

 

Dynastic marriages

 

Births of heirs

 

Victories or peace treaties

 

Coronations or major jubilees

 

Unlike the jousts of the medieval tournament, carrousels emphasized pageantry over combat.

 

Though riders might perform mock battles with lances or swords, the emphasis was on precision riding, symbolic tableaux, and visual splendor.

 

️ Typical Features of a Carrousel

 

Knights in costume, divided into teams or "quadrilles," often themed (e.g., Greeks vs. Romans, Sun vs. Moon)

 

Banners and coats of arms on riders and horses

 

Musical accompaniment, often specially composed

 

Choreographed figures, such as circles, crosses, or spirals executed on horseback

 

Mock combat or tilting at rings, but usually bloodless

 

An audience of courtiers, diplomats, and sometimes the public, watching from raised platforms

 

⚰️ Decline and Afterlife

 

By the mid-19th century, the carrousel had become an anachronistic nostalgia act: part romantic revival, part dynastic theater.

 

The Carrousel of 1863 commemorated on the goblet you’re studying belongs to this late phase—a last brilliant flourish of aristocratic display before the upheavals of nationalism, democratization, and war dismantled much of the courtly infrastructure that had sustained such events.

 

Yet even in its twilight, the carrousel retained its function: rehearsing a world of inherited rank, martial honor, and visual grandeur, even as that world quietly faded into the past.

 

In the early 1860s, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria–Este—not to be confused with his more famous nephew whose assassination sparked World War I—emerged as the likely prime mover behind the revival of the aristocratic carrousel commemorated by the goblet dated 1863.

 

A scion of the Habsburg dynasty and a figure of great ceremonial influence, Franz Ferdinand was known for his devotion to court ritual, imperial pageantry, and dynastic pride. In an age increasingly dominated by industrial progress, liberal reforms, and middle-class assertiveness, the Archduke saw the carrousel not as a quaint reenactment but as a deliberate reaffirmation of aristocratic identity and values.

 

By organizing a carrousel—complete with heraldic blazonry, equestrian quadrilles, and the active participation of Europe’s highest nobility—Franz Ferdinand staged a living tableau of Habsburg continuity and chivalric order.

 

The 1863 Carrousel held in Vienna was a significant event, emblematic of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's aristocratic traditions. While specific newspaper articles from that time detailing the event are not readily accessible, such grand occasions were typically covered extensively in contemporary media. These reports often highlighted the opulence of the ceremonies, the distinguished participants, and the elaborate displays of horsemanship and pageantry. The Carrousel would have been portrayed as a testament to the enduring legacy and cultural sophistication of the empire's nobility.

 

The 1863 event coincided with a moment of growing instability within the empire: nationalist unrest in its Slavic territories, tensions with Prussia, and anxiety over the very legitimacy of a sprawling, multiethnic monarchy. In this context, the carrousel served both as spectacle and as symbolic resistance—a gesture that looked backward, not because it was blind to modernity, but because it sought to reaffirm the old order’s claim to permanence, elegance, and authority.

 

Here is a list of the individuals named on the 1863 Carrousel goblet, along with their titles, associated noble houses, the century each house originated, and whether the house is extant today:

 

1. Archduke Albrecht of Austria (Albrecht Erzherzog von Österreich)

 

Title: Archduke of Austria

 

House: Habsburg-Lorraine

 

Origin Century: 13th century

 

Extant Today: Yes

  

2. Princess Auersperg-Colloredo (Fürstin Auersperg Colloredo)

 

Title: Princess

 

House: Auersperg (originated in the 12th century) and Colloredo (originated in the 14th century)

 

Extant Today: Yes

 

3. Archduke Ludwig Viktor of Austria (Ludwig Viktor Erzherzog von Österreich)

 

Title: Archduke of Austria

 

House: Habsburg-Lorraine

 

Origin Century: 13th century

 

Extant Today: Yes

 

4. Countess Buquoy von Oettingen-Wallerstein (Gräfin Buquoy von Oettingen-Wallerstein)

 

Title: Countess

 

House: Buquoy (originated in the 13th century) and Oettingen-Wallerstein (originated in the 12th century)

 

Extant Today: Yes

 

5. Archduke Wilhelm of Austria (Wilhelm Erzherzog von Österreich)

 

Title: Archduke of Austria

 

House: Habsburg-Lorraine

 

Origin Century: 13th century

 

Extant Today: Yes

 

6. Princess Hohenlohe-Trautmansdorff (Prinzessin Hohenlohe Trautmansdorff)

 

Title: Princess

 

House: Hohenlohe (originated in the 12th century) and Trautmansdorff (originated in the 14th century)

 

Extant Today: Yes

 

7. Archduke Leopold of Austria (Leopold Erzherzog von Österreich)

 

Title: Archduke of Austria

 

House: Habsburg-Lorraine

 

Origin Century: 13th century

 

Extant Today: Yes

 

8. Baroness Stauffenberg-Lobkowicz (Baronin Stauffenberg Lobkowicz)

 

Title: Baroness

 

House: Stauffenberg (originated in the 13th century) and Lobkowicz (originated in the 14th century)

 

Extant Today: Yes

 

9. Prince Kinsky (Fürst Kinsky)

 

Title: Prince

 

House: Kinsky (originated in the 13th century)

 

Extant Today: Yes

 

10. Countess Claudine Hohenstein (Gräfin Claudine Hohenstein)

 

Title: Countess

 

House: Hohenstein (originated in the 13th century)

 

Extant Today: No

 

11. Prince Vincenz Auersperg (Fürst Vincenz Auersperg)

 

Title: Prince

 

House: Auersperg (originated in the 12th century)

 

Extant Today: Yes

  

12. Countess Amalie Hohenstein (Gräfin Amalie Hohenstein)

 

Title: Countess

 

House: Hohenstein (originated in the 13th century)

 

Extant Today: No

  

13. Prince Lamoral Thurn und Taxis (Prinz Lamoral Thurn und Taxis)

 

Title: Prince

 

House: Thurn und Taxis (originated in the 12th century)

 

Extant Today: Yes

  

14. Princess Eleonore Schwarzenberg-Liechtenstein (Fürstin Eleonore Schwarzenberg Liechtenstein)

 

Title: Princess

 

House: Schwarzenberg (originated in the 12th century) and Liechtenstein (originated in the 12th century)

 

Extant Today: Yes

 

These individuals represent some of the most prominent noble families of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its German counterparts in the mid-19th century.

 

Their participation in the 1863 Carrousel reflects the enduring significance of aristocratic traditions and the display of heraldic lineage during a period of societal transformation.

 

Several of the noble families whose coats of arms adorn the 1863 Carrousel Goblet continue to exist today, maintaining varying degrees of public presence, titles, and heritage management roles. Most prominent among them is the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, once the ruling dynasty of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its current head is Karl von Habsburg (b. 1961), grandson of Emperor Charles I, the last sovereign of the empire before its dissolution in 1918. Karl is active in cultural heritage protection and European affairs, continuing his family’s tradition of transnational leadership—albeit in a different key.

 

The House of Auersperg, an ancient Slovenian-Austrian princely family dating to the 12th century, is also still extant. It is presently headed by Prince Franz Josef von Auersperg, and retains historic titles and cultural visibility. The House of Colloredo-Mannsfeld, with roots in the Italian nobility and a significant presence in Bohemia since the 17th century, is led today by Prince Hieronymus von Colloredo-Mannsfeld (b. 1949), known for stewarding his family’s Czech estates and supporting public cultural initiatives.

 

Likewise, the House of Oettingen-Wallerstein, which originated in Swabia in the Middle Ages, still maintains its status. Its current head, Prince Carl-Eugen, represents one of the few noble families in Germany to have retained substantial cultural holdings. The House of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, which dates to the 12th century, is led today by Prince Philipp (b. 1970), a descendant of Queen Victoria who represents a blend of German aristocracy and British royal connection.

 

The House of Stauffenberg, made famous by Claus von Stauffenberg and the failed 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, continues under Count Franz Schenk von Stauffenberg. Though not princely, the family remains symbolically potent and engaged in public discourse. The House of Lobkowicz, one of Bohemia’s most storied dynasties, is now represented by William Lobkowicz, an American-born descendant who repatriated to the Czech Republic after the fall of Communism and actively manages several palaces and a world-class art collection.

 

Other families represented on the goblet include the House of Kinsky, still present in Austria and the Czech Republic, and the House of Schwarzenberg, whose current head Karl von Schwarzenberg (b. 1937) served as Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs and was a 2013 presidential candidate. The House of Liechtenstein, uniquely among them, remains a reigning dynasty: Hans-Adam II is the sovereign Prince of Liechtenstein, with his son, Hereditary Prince Alois, serving as regent since 2004.

 

Finally, the House of Thurn und Taxis, famed for its control of early European postal services, is led by Prince Albert II (b. 1983), a media-shy but active manager of the family's Bavarian holdings and cultural legacy.

 

Together, these surviving houses offer a glimpse into the long continuity of Europe’s hereditary elites—many of whom, though dethroned politically, continue to shape cultural memory, manage historical properties, and maintain symbolic importance in the post-monarchical world. The Carrousel Goblet thus not only commemorates a moment of 19th-century aristocratic pageantry but also serves as a heraldic echo chamber for dynasties that, in surprising ways, are still with us.

  

The 1863 Carrousel goblet, attributed to Anton Ambros Egermann of Haida (now Nový Bor, Czech Republic), is a striking example of Bohemian glass artistry.

 

Standing at 61.8 cm tall, this green glass goblet is adorned with multicolored enamel-painted coats of arms representing noble families from Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, commemorating a ceremonial equestrian event known as a carrousel.

 

🏭 Maker and Place of Origin

 

Anton Ambros Egermann (1814–1888) was the son of Friedrich Egermann, a renowned glass technologist who pioneered techniques such as red staining and lithyalin glass. Operating in Haida, a prominent center for glass production in Bohemia, Anton continued his father's legacy, producing high-quality enamelled glassware.

 

Bohemia emerged as a major center of glass production by the 17th century, and its prominence only grew in the centuries that followed. Several factors explain this ascendancy. The region's abundant natural resources were key: forests provided wood to fire glass furnaces, while nearby deposits of quartz, silica, and potash furnished the essential materials for high-quality glassmaking. This ready access to materials allowed for the establishment of numerous glassworks in remote areas, especially in the mountainous northern districts.

 

Equally important was the tradition of skilled craftsmanship and innovation that took root in Bohemia. Unlike the closely guarded secrets of Venetian glassmakers, Bohemian artisans developed and shared a wide range of decorative techniques—engraving, enameling, staining, and cutting—that made their work highly sought after across Europe. Egermann himself was central to this culture of innovation, introducing new methods such as red staining and lithyalin, which gave Bohemian glass a distinctive identity apart from its Italian and French competitors.

 

Bohemia's inclusion in the Habsburg Empire also played a crucial role. Imperial patronage and access to elite courts gave Bohemian glassmakers a ready market, while the empire’s internal trade networks helped distribute their products widely. By the 19th century, towns such as Haida (now Nový Bor) had become synonymous with fine glass, and manufacturers there proved especially adept at responding to changing fashions. They produced everything from ornate luxury wares to more affordable items for the rising bourgeoisie, cementing Bohemia’s status as a glassmaking powerhouse—a legacy that endures in Czech glassmaking today.

 

️ Materials and Techniques

 

The goblet was crafted from green glass and decorated using vitreous enamel—a technique involving the application of finely ground colored glass mixed with a binder onto the glass surface.

 

After painting, the piece was fired at a temperature sufficient to fuse the enamel to the glass without deforming the vessel. This method allowed for vibrant, durable, and intricate multicolored designs, showcasing the technical prowess of Bohemian glassmakers.

 

This type of object falls under the category of "carrousel goblets," ceremonial glassware produced to commemorate aristocratic equestrian events. Such goblets were typically owned by the nobility and high-ranking individuals who participated in or were associated with these events, serving both as souvenirs and symbols of status within the courtly culture of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

 

In summary, the 1863 Carrousel goblet exemplifies the intersection of artistry, tradition, and social hierarchy, reflecting the opulence and ceremonial customs of 19th-century European nobility.

 

The exact number of surviving 1863 Carrousel goblets attributed to Anton Ambros Egermann is not definitively documented.

 

However, given their commemorative nature and the prominence of the event they celebrate, it's plausible that multiple examples were produced and distributed among the participating nobility.

 

These goblets, adorned with enamel-painted coats of arms of noble families from Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, served both as souvenirs and symbols of status within the courtly culture of the time.

 

While specific counts are unavailable, such pieces occasionally appear in museum collections and auctions, indicating that several have been preserved over time.

 

Postscript: Color Origins in the Carrousel Goblet

 

The rich green hue of the goblet’s glass body is most likely the result of adding iron oxide to the glass mixture. In low concentrations, iron oxide produces pale blue-green tints; in higher concentrations or under reducing (low-oxygen) conditions in the furnace, it yields a deeper, bottle-green color. This was a traditional and widely used method in Central European glassmaking. Occasionally, small amounts of chromium oxide could be added for more vivid or stable greens, though this was less common before the late 19th century.

 

The vibrant enamel colors painted onto the surface of the goblet were created by mixing finely ground colored glass (called frit) with metal oxides and a binding medium. These enamels were applied cold and then fired at relatively low temperatures to fuse them to the glass without melting the base vessel. The specific hues were produced using different metal oxides:

 

Cobalt oxide → deep blue

 

Copper oxide → green to turquoise

 

Iron oxide → browns, yellows, and warm reds

 

Antimony or tin oxide → white (as an opacifier)

 

Lead-tin yellow → bright yellow

 

Gold chloride → ruby red (rare and costly)

 

Manganese dioxide → purples or amethyst tints

 

The resulting palette could be remarkably bright and durable, allowing artisans to depict complex heraldic imagery and courtly finery in lasting detail. These enamel pigments were a testament to the technical sophistication of Bohemian glassmakers and their ability to merge artistry with chemistry.

 

An enameled glass goblet differs significantly from stained glass in both technique and purpose, despite both involving the coloration of glass.

 

Enameled glass is created by painting the surface of a finished glass object with finely ground colored glass powders—called enamels—mixed with a liquid binder. This decorative layer is then fired at a relatively low temperature, allowing the enamel to fuse onto the glass without melting the vessel itself. The result is a vividly colored, often opaque or semi-opaque design that sits on the surface of the glass. This technique was especially popular in luxury tableware and presentation objects, such as the Carrousel goblet, where coats of arms and pictorial scenes could be rendered in precise detail.

 

In contrast, stained glass refers to colored glass made by adding metallic oxides directly into the molten glass during its formation. Each color is inherent to a separate piece of glass, which is later cut into shapes and assembled into a panel using strips of lead called cames. Artists could add painted details—such as facial features or folds of fabric—using grisaille or silver stain, and these were then kiln-fired to fix the design. Stained glass was primarily used for architectural purposes, especially in the windows of churches and palaces, and was designed to be viewed with light shining through it. The resulting effect is luminous and atmospheric, often narrative in content.

 

The two techniques also differ in how they interact with light and wear over time. Enameled glass is meant to be viewed by reflected light, and because the decoration sits on the surface, it can wear away with use or abrasion. Stained glass, on the other hand, is inherently colored throughout the material and is typically far more stable over centuries, provided it is protected from environmental damage.

 

In essence, enameled glass was meant for personal use and close inspection, often as an object of aristocratic display, while stained glass served a more public and spiritual function, casting colored light and visual storytelling into sacred or grand secular spaces.

  

This text is a collaboration with Chat GPT

   

On the Serbian bank of the Danube by the Iron Gate 1 dam is this memorial to former Yugoslavian dictator Josip Broz Tito.

 

Below is two versions of Tito and his impact on the Balkans. The first gleaned from various sources and the second by a Yugoslav resident Martin Vucic.

 

Josip Broz Tito was born May 7, 1892 in Croatia & died May 4, 1980 in Belgrade. Tito was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman.

 

Tito was the chief architect of the “second Yugoslavia,” a socialist federation that lasted from World War II until 1991. He was the first Communist leader in power to defy Soviet hegemony, a backer of independent roads to socialism (sometimes referred to as “national communism”), and a promoter of the policy of nonalignment between the two hostile blocs in the Cold War.

 

The irony of Tito’s life is he created the conditions for the eventual destruction of his lifelong effort. Instead of allowing the process of democratization to establish its own limits, he constantly upset the work of reformers while failing to satisfy their adversaries.

 

He created a federal state, yet he constantly fretted over the pitfalls of decentralization. He knew that the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and others could not be integrated within some new supranation, nor would they willingly accept the hegemony of any of their number; yet his supranational Yugoslavism frequently smacked of unitarism.

 

He promoted self-management but never gave up on the party’s monopoly of power. He permitted broad freedoms in science, art, and culture that were unheard of in the Soviet bloc, but he kept excoriatingthe West.

 

He preached peaceful coexistence but built an army that, in 1991, delivered the coup de grâce to the dying Yugoslav state. At his death, the state treasury was empty and political opportunists unchecked. He died too late for constructive change, too early to prevent chaos.

 

From 1945 to 1953 Tito acted as prime minister and minister of defense in the government, whose most dramatic political action was the capture, trial, and execution of General Mihajlovic in 1946. Between 1945 and 1948 Tito led his country through an extreme form of dictatorship (rule by one all-powerful person) in order to mold Yugoslavia into a state modeled after the Soviet Union. In January 1953, he was named first president of Yugoslavia and president of the Federal Executive Council. In 1963 he was named president for life.

 

By 1953 Tito had changed Yugoslavia's relationship with the Soviet Union. He refused to approve Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's plans for integrating Yugoslavia into the East European Communist bloc and started on his own policies, relaxing of central control over many areas of national life, and putting it back into the control of the citizens. Although relations between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia improved when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) visited Belgrade after Stalin's death in 1955, they never returned to what they were before 1948.

 

Tito attempted to build a bloc of "nonaligned" countries after Stalin's death. Under his leadership, Yugoslavia maintained friendly ties with the Arab states and criticized Israeli aggression in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. He protested the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, and maintained friendly relations with Romania after Nicolae Ceausescu (1918–1989) became its leader in 1965. Under Tito's leadership Yugoslavia was a very active member of the United Nations.

 

Tito was married twice and had two sons. His first wife was Russian. After World War II he married Jovanka, a Serbian woman from Croatia many years younger than him. His wife often accompanied him on his travels. President for life, Tito ruled until his death in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, on May 4, 1980.

 

From various sources.

  

And a second opinion of Titos’ reign by Martin Vucic:

 

I feel compelled to address some of the the misinformation and misconceptions concerning Tito and Yugoslavia, propagated by Tito’s apologists and Yugoslav communists nostalgic for the now defunct Yugoslav state.

 

Unfortunately many people uncritically accept the airbrushed version of Tito and Yugoslavia without examining historical fact and reality.

 

Contrary to popular belief Tito was a ruthless and bloodthirsty communist dictator and Yugoslavia was a poor and backward totalitarian state ruled by Tito and his corrupt communist party cronies.

 

Yugoslavia was never a cohesive unitary state being composed of multiple nations with competing interests and historic grievances. Albanians, Bosnian Muslims, Croats, Macedonians, Serbs, Slovenes combined to form a single state under the aegis of Serbia and her allies, Britain and France soon after world war one ended.

 

This was the first Yugoslavia which collapsed at the being of world war two. Tito’s Yugoslavia was not the benign communist utopia often presented to gullible western media.

 

Political opposition to Tito and his Yugoslav communist party was not tolerated and immediately suppressed. Tito and the Yugoslav communist party ruled using state terror, imprisonment and murder much like his contemporary Stalin.

 

At the close of the second world war Tito and his communist partisans executed, imprisoned and tortured hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians, these were primarily Croatians, who had fought against Tito’s forces or were opposed to communism.

 

Finding themselves on the losing side of the war, these unfortunate people surrendered to the British Army in Austria seeking protection from Tito’s communist partisan forces. The British callously handed them over to Tito’s partisans who immediately began mass executions, tortures and forced marches (known as the Bleiburg Massacres).

 

The exact number of victims is not known, sadly mass graves from the period litter Slovenia and Croatia and are still being discovered to this day. It is a terrible irony that Tito, a Croat himself, was responsible for more deaths of his own compatriots than the opposing Axis forces were.

 

Moving on from massacres, Tito’s Yugoslavia was the archetypal totalitarian communist state complete with its own gulags for political prisoners such as “Goli Otok”, a barren rocky island in the Adriatic, and a Tito personality cult not dissimilar to that of Mao or Stalin.

 

The Tito personality cult is still alive today albeit with diminished intensity, annual gatherings of Yugoslav Communist nostalgics and cultists to honour Tito are still held at his birthplace in Croatia.

 

Tito’s Yugoslav state had all the trappings of Stalin’s Soviet Union, the Yugoslav secret police (known as the UDBA) scoured the globe spying on, hunting down and murdering hundreds of political opponents, emigres and intellectuals in a ruthless and violent campaign which lasted right up until 1989 (e.g. murders of Stjepan Durekovic in Germany and the Sevo Family in Italy, Yugolsav embassy shooting in Sydney Australia).

 

Besides political murders, Tito (the president for life) also enjoyed the good life. He had a string of palaces and retreats built for himself across Yugoslavia and lived a life of luxury hosting international celebrities and foreign dignitaries while his people lived in poverty.

 

Poor economic prospects and the lack of political freedoms forced many Croats and others to migrate or seek work in Germany and other Western countries.

 

Economically, Tito’s Yugoslavia was essentially insolvent with entrenched hyperinflation. Massive levels of official corruption and incompetent management by the communist party served to ensure continued economic stagnation.

 

Tito was however a canny operator, he was able to exploit the cold war to his advantage by playing the West and East off against each other. In order to keep Yugoslavia afloat economically and maintain his power base borrowed large sums from both the East and West while championing the “non aligned” movement.

 

Tito died in 1980, and the cold war ended in 1989. Yugoslavia being an artificial state based on repression, corruption and injustice collapsed like a house of cards. The various nations which comprised Yugoslavia; Albanians, Bosnian Muslims, Croats, Macedonians, Serbs, Slovenes having competing interests and grievances, guaranteed its dissolution.

The beginning of the 1930’s marks the democratization of aerodynamics in the car lines. Each manufacturer tries to harmonize its range with more contemporary offerings, including Peugeot with its 301 Profilée version. The model we present is in an advanced state of preservation, but is very healthy. Its paint is not the original one, and shows an old quality restoration. The interior is complete, but the upholstery is in a rather used state. From a mechanical point of view, a restoration will be necessary, but the package seems to be in good condition. Here is the opportunity to acquire one of the rare survivors of the 301 Profilée versions!

 

l'Aventure Peugeot Citroën DS, la Vente Officielle

Aguttes

Estimated : € 5.000 - 10.000

Sold for € 8.580

 

Citroen Heritage

93600 Aulnay-sous-Bois

France

September 2021

Maker: Charles Amand-Durand (1831-1905) from an engraving by Albrecht Durer

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: Amand-Durand heliogravure

Size: 6 1/2 in x 9 1/4 in

Location:

 

Object No: 2022.509a

Shelf: N-10

 

Publication:

 

Other Collections:

 

Provenance: welsh bridge

Rank: 200

 

Notes: In this somewhat enigmatic memento mori image, Dürer (1471-1528) represents various materials--feathers, metal, foliage, hair, cloth and flesh--to tout his skill as an up-and-coming virtuoso in the art of engraving. According to Bartrum, "The figure of Death is here disguised as a wild man, the traditional German and Swiss mythological figure who is seen frequently in heraldic imagery of the period . . . The true identity of Death is revealed on the shield to the onlooker, but it is not recognized by the lady," ( Albrecht Dürer and his Legacy, London, 2002, page 148). Bartsch 101; Meder 98.

 

Charles Amand-Durand, born in Cheny (Yonne), was an established and reputable French painter & engraver who lived from 1831-1905. He was a passionate and talented artist who deeply admired the 15th, 16th, and 17th century Old Masters’ engravings. However, whilst studying the engravings Durand could see that many of them were in a poor condition, either because of the ravages of time, or because they had also started out as inferior impressions, taken from worn-out copper plates, that may have also been reworked or adulterated by other hands. The original copper plates used by Rembrandt, Durer, Beham, and others, were now too worn to be printed from and there were too few fine prints in existence that reflected the artists' true intentions. Durand's task of recreating the early etching plates created by these old masters started when the main curator of the Louvre gave him the important mission of restoring the worn down and fragile engravings made by Rembrandt. The etchings Durand created were based on research and studies he did at the Louvre and other museums and also private collections. And in order to form exact reproductions, he used as his guide, not the worn original copper or wood plates, but the 1st & 2nd state prints of the original works. He then duplicated the images onto new copper plates, which he often reworked to achieve an incredible clarity and accuracy of 1/1000mm through his own technical abilities. His main series of facsimiles began in 1869 with a major periodical publication, Etchings and Engravings of the Old Masters, which contained 401 pieces reproduced under the direction of G. Duplessis, curator of the Department of Prints at the National Library. This was followed by the publications of engraved works by van Dijck (21 plates, 1875), Dürer (108 pl., 1876), Potter (21 pl., 1877), Claude Gellée (42 pl., 1848), Mantegna ( 27 pl., 1879), Ruisdael (12 pl., 1880), Schongauer (117 pl., 1881), Lucas de Leyde (174 pl., 1882), A. van Ostade (51 pl., no text), and finally by Rembrandt (350 pl., no text, 1883). His works can be identified by the red Helio-A.D stamp on the verso (included in the Lugt Stamp Catalogue #2934). Like others before him, Charles Armand-Durand attempted to democratize the art industry by reproducing the works of famed artists which were hidden from the general public in the repositories of the French National Library, or in the ownership of private collectors and preserve the original quality for future generations.

 

Durands re-engravings became so well respected that major collectors & institutions throughout Europe sought to acquire them during the 19th century and beyond.

 

To view our archive organized by Collections, visit: OUR COLLECTIONS

 

For information about reproducing this image, visit: THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE

Hurricane Season (1999(

 

Art Rosenbaum (American 1938 - 2022)

 

artrosenbaum.org/v2/portfolio/hurricane-season-triptych/

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqoSgUmaQjw

 

Sept. 14, 2022

ATLANTA — Art Rosenbaum, a painter and folk musician acclaimed for a half-century of field recordings of American vernacular music, including old-time Appalachian fiddle tunes and ritual music imported from Africa by enslaved people, died on Sept. 4 at a hospital in Athens, Ga., his adopted hometown. He was 83.

 

His son, Neil Rosenbaum, said the cause was complications of cancer.

 

Art Rosenbaum’s passion for documenting a broad range of American musical traditions as they were passed down and performed at work camps, church gatherings and rural living rooms expanded upon the famous field recording work of the ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax. An important inspiration was Pete Seeger, another high-profile 20th-century champion of folk music. Mr. Rosenbaum wrote that Mr. Seeger had once told him, “Don’t learn from me, learn from the folks I learned from.”

 

Mr. Rosenbaum called it “good advice, and the kick in the rear that got me going.”

 

In 2007, the Atlanta-based label Dust-to-Digital released the first of two box sets of compilations from Mr. Rosenbaum’s trove, “Art of Field Recording Volume I: Fifty Years of Traditional American Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum,” which won a Grammy Award for best historical album.

 

The pop music website Pitchfork called the release “revelatory” and “an indispensable counterpoint to Harry Smith’s ‘Anthology of American Folk Music,’” a reference to the 1952 song compilation that remains a canonical touchstone for folk musicians.

 

Like Mr. Smith, the bohemian polymath who compiled the “Anthology,” Mr. Rosenbaum was an accomplished visual artist. As an art teacher, he spent the bulk of his career at the University of Georgia, in Athens, where his energetic paintings, often depicting the musicians he recorded, and his ideas about the democratization of culture had an influence that resonated far beyond the classroom.

 

Michael Stipe, the visual artist and singer with the Athens rock band R.E.M., who was a student of Mr. Rosenbaum’s in the early 1980s, said Mr. Rosenbaum’s goal “was to blur the lines between what is outsider and insider, and to bring together this untrained music and art with trained music and art, and acknowledge that each have immense power, and that they’re not that far apart.”

 

Arthur Spark Rosenbaum was born on Dec. 6, 1938, in Ogdensburg, N.Y., in St. Lawrence County. His mother, Della Spark Rosenbaum, was a medical illustrator who encouraged her children’s artistic inclinations. His father, David Rosenbaum, was an Army pathologist who sometimes sang what his son described as “Northern street songs.” Arthur later recorded one of these songs, his father’s a cappella version of the ribald 18th-century Child ballad “Our Goodman,” and included it in the 2007 box set.

 

The family eventually moved to Indianapolis, where Mr. Rosenbaum, entranced by traditional music, absorbed the Harry Smith anthology and the contemporary folk stars of the day. In high school he won an art contest at the Indiana State Fair and spent the $25 prize money on a five-string banjo. He went on to become a pre-eminent expert on traditional banjo playing and tunings and to record several albums.

 

In the mid-1950s Mr. Rosenbaum moved to New York City, then the epicenter of the burgeoning folk revival, earning an undergraduate degree in art history and a master’s degree in fine arts from Columbia University. In the summers he worked at a resort hotel on Lake Michigan, where he began making recordings of nearby field workers from Mexico and the American South.

 

In 1958, Mr. Rosenbaum tracked down and recorded in Indianapolis a musician named Scrapper Blackwell, whom he described as “one of the best and most influential blues guitarists of the 1920s and ’30s.” Back in New York, as Mr. Rosenbaum was fond of recalling, a fellow roots music obsessive named Bob Dylan would pester him for any details he could muster about Mr. Blackwell’s life and playing style.

 

It was in New York that Mr. Rosenbaum met the artist Margo Newmark, who became his wife and lifelong collaborator. She survives him.

 

In addition to her and his son, Neil, a filmmaker and musician, he is survived by a sister, Jenny Rosenbaum, a writer; and a brother, Victor Rosenbaum, a concert pianist.

 

After eight years of teaching studio art at the University of Iowa, Mr. Rosenbaum in 1976 took a similar job at the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art. With Athens as a home base, he and Ms. Newmark Rosenbaum continued making field recordings, many of them in and around Georgia, and giving the musicians they met opportunities to play before new audiences.

 

“As these traditional musicians were identified and then brought out,” said Judith McWillie, an emerita art professor at the university, “and as there were more festivals and opportunities for them to play, people began to envision an identity for Georgia that was somewhat different from the one that it had. This was the 1970s, and coming off some extremely difficult times in the South.”

 

Folk music, she said, revealed a shared cultural history: “The musicians Art brought out were Black and white.”

 

In 1984, Mr. Rosenbaum recorded an album of stories and songs by Howard Finster, the self-taught artist, preacher and self-proclaimed “man of visions” whose work has become indelibly associated with 20th-century Georgia after its use on album covers by R.E.M. and the band Talking Heads.

 

He also recorded the McIntosh County Shouters, an African American group from coastal Georgia who performed the “ring shout,” which Mr. Rosenbaum described as “an impressive fusion of call-and-response singing, polyrhythmic percussion and expressive and formalized dancelike movements.” The ring shout, he asserted, was “the oldest African American performance tradition on the North American continent.”

 

Brenton Jordan, a member of the group, said of the Rosenbaums, “It’s their legwork that actually kind of introduced the McIntosh County Shouters to the world.” He noted that the ring shout, once on the verge of extinction, has in recent years been performed by his group in Washington at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

 

The Rosenbaums published a book on the ring shout in 1998. With drawings of the performers by Mr. Rosenbaum and photos of them by Ms. Newmark Rosenbaum, it depicts a place and a culture that seems beguilingly out of phase with modern life.

 

Many of Mr. Rosenbaum’s other paintings and drawings are loose allegorical works in which the old and the new clash and cohabitate, with traditional musicians sharing space on the canvas with modern-day hipsters, skateboarders and documentarians (often Mr. Rosenbaum himself).

 

As a painter, he was inspired by Cezanne and Max Beckmann, the German Expressionist. At times his work recalls the painting of Thomas Hart Benton, the American regionalist. Some of Mr. Rosenbaum’s works are large murals on historical themes.

 

Beginning in the late 1970s, Athens saw an explosion of forward-thinking rock musicians, many of whom, like Mr. Stipe, had ties to the Georgia art school. Mr. Rosenbaum’s passions always ran to traditional music, but he remained an inspiration for contemporary musicians.

 

Lance Ledbetter, the founder and co-director of the Dust-to-Digital label, recalled Vic Chesnutt, the brilliant, idiosyncratic Athens-based songwriter who died in 2009, speaking of Mr. Rosenbaum, quoting him as saying:

 

“When you move to Athens, and you hear about this guy who plays banjo and knows all of these songs, you just follow him around like a puppy dog. And I’m not the only one who did that.”

 

www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/us/art-rosenbaum-dead.html

_______________________________________________

georgiamuseum.org

 

The Georgia Museum of Art, on the campus of the University of Georgia, in Athens, is both an academic museum and, since 1982, the official art museum of the state of Georgia. The permanent collection consists of American paintings, primarily 19th- and 20th-century; American, European and Asian works on paper; the Samuel H. Kress Study Collection of Italian Renaissance paintings; and growing collections of southern decorative arts and Asian art.

 

From the time it was opened to the public in 1948 in the basement of the old library on the university’s historic North Campus, the museum has grown consistently both in the size of its collection and in the size of its facilities. Today the museum occupies a contemporary building in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the university’s burgeoning east campus. There, 79,000 square feet house nearly 17,000 objects in the museum’s permanent collection—a dramatic leap from the core of 100 paintings donated by the museum’s founder, Alfred Heber Holbrook.

 

Much of the museum’s collection of American paintings was donated by Holbrook in memory of his first wife, Eva Underhill Holbrook. Included in this collection are works by such luminaries as Frank Weston Benson, William Merritt Chase, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Georgia O’Keeffe, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Jacob Lawrence and Theodore Robinson.

 

In 2011, the museum opened an expanded contemporary building, with additions and renovations designed by Gluckman Mayner Architects, in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the university’s burgeoning East Campus. New galleries house the permanent collection, and visitors enjoy an outdoor sculpture garden and expanded lobby. In 2012, Brenda and Larry Thompson donated 100 works of art by African American artists to the collection, mirroring Holbrook’s original gift. They also established an endowment to fund the position of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Curator of African American and African Diasporic Art. The Thompsons have continued to give to the museum (their gifts can be found in the collections database), and their gift has had a transformative effect, strongly privileging an expansion of the traditional art historical canon. They received the Patron of the Year award from the Georgia Association of Museums and Galleries in 2019.

 

The museum continues to balance its dual designation as an academic museum with its role as the official state art museum of Georgia. Its schedule is a reflection of the academic study of the history of art and a broader array of popular exhibitions that appeal to all audiences. From the time Alfred Holbrook first loaded works from his art collection in the trunk of his car to share with Georgia’s schoolchildren until today, when the museum staff crisscrosses the state of Georgia to present a variety of educational programs, the Georgia Museum of Art has made the state a richer and more culturally viable place to live.

 

....

  

There is a quiet kind of courage in a man who smiles in the face of formality—who, in the most august corridors of science, chooses to wear a tie adorned with bright yellow smiley faces for his official portrait. That man is Bruce Alberts, a molecular biologist of towering intellect, irreverent humor, and deep humanity.

 

I met Bruce at his home perched high above San Francisco—reached by a steep climb that feels metaphorical once you step inside. The house is filled with Asian art and artifacts, collected not by Bruce, but by his wife, Betty Neary Alberts. A lifelong devotee of Asian art, Betty has shaped their home into something between a sanctuary and a living museum. Each object seems to hum with memory and meaning—testaments not just to culture, but to a shared life of curiosity and care.

 

Bruce greets you not with ceremony, but with ease. His posture is relaxed, his tone conspiratorial, as if you’ve just sat down beside him in a lab coffee room rather than at the former nerve center of the National Academy of Sciences. He chuckles as he tells the story of that infamous NAS portrait—the one with the smiley tie. “Some of the members were horrified,” he tells me with a grin. “Said it was unbecoming.” But he never considered changing it. “I loved that tie,” he says. So do I.

 

That small act—wearing joy on your chest in the heart of institutional seriousness—says something profound about Bruce Alberts. Here is a man who has spent his life decoding the exquisite machinery of cells, the polymerases and helicases and the elegant ballet of DNA replication. Yet he never forgot that science is a deeply human endeavor. It is done by people, for people, in all our fallibility and hope.

 

Alberts is best known as a co-author of Molecular Biology of the Cell, the textbook that launched a million biology majors. First published in 1983, it has become a rite of passage for students entering the molecular world. But beyond the technical achievement, it was Alberts’ belief in the democratization of knowledge that shaped its tone—rigorous, yes, but also readable, even playful in its way.

 

His scientific legacy is vast. As a researcher at UCSF, he pioneered our understanding of protein complexes that carry out DNA replication. But it is perhaps as a scientific statesman that Alberts made his most lasting impact. As President of the National Academy of Sciences from 1993 to 2005, he championed science education reform, emphasizing inquiry-based learning over rote memorization. He believed that every child deserved the opportunity to experience the thrill of discovery, not just the weight of facts.

 

He served as editor-in-chief of Science magazine, advised presidents, and traveled the world as a diplomatic ambassador for science. Through it all, he carried with him a conviction that science must be open, collaborative, and anchored in integrity. When he spoke about the culture of science, it was not to lament its imperfections, but to urge its continuous evolution. He pushed for transparency, for reproducibility, for humility in the face of complexity.

 

Yet for all his accolades—National Medal of Science, 18 honorary degrees, the leadership of the world’s most prestigious scientific body—what lingers most after spending time with Bruce is not awe, but warmth. He is quick to laugh, unafraid to poke fun at himself, and effortlessly generous with his time. There is a deep kindness behind his eyes, the kind that can’t be faked.

 

As we sat in the room surrounded by Betty’s lovingly curated Japanese screens and Chinese scrolls, I couldn’t help but see a kind of symmetry in his life. The cell, after all, is a collaboration of countless parts. So too is a life well lived. Bruce Alberts has orchestrated a life of meaning—not just through molecules and mechanisms, but through the people he’s lifted, the institutions he’s reshaped, and the joy he’s insisted on carrying with him.

 

Even, and perhaps especially, when it’s printed on a tie.

Hurricane Season (1999(

 

Art Rosenbaum (American 1938 - 2022)

 

artrosenbaum.org/v2/portfolio/hurricane-season-triptych/

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqoSgUmaQjw

 

Sept. 14, 2022

ATLANTA — Art Rosenbaum, a painter and folk musician acclaimed for a half-century of field recordings of American vernacular music, including old-time Appalachian fiddle tunes and ritual music imported from Africa by enslaved people, died on Sept. 4 at a hospital in Athens, Ga., his adopted hometown. He was 83.

 

His son, Neil Rosenbaum, said the cause was complications of cancer.

 

Art Rosenbaum’s passion for documenting a broad range of American musical traditions as they were passed down and performed at work camps, church gatherings and rural living rooms expanded upon the famous field recording work of the ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax. An important inspiration was Pete Seeger, another high-profile 20th-century champion of folk music. Mr. Rosenbaum wrote that Mr. Seeger had once told him, “Don’t learn from me, learn from the folks I learned from.”

 

Mr. Rosenbaum called it “good advice, and the kick in the rear that got me going.”

 

In 2007, the Atlanta-based label Dust-to-Digital released the first of two box sets of compilations from Mr. Rosenbaum’s trove, “Art of Field Recording Volume I: Fifty Years of Traditional American Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum,” which won a Grammy Award for best historical album.

 

The pop music website Pitchfork called the release “revelatory” and “an indispensable counterpoint to Harry Smith’s ‘Anthology of American Folk Music,’” a reference to the 1952 song compilation that remains a canonical touchstone for folk musicians.

 

Like Mr. Smith, the bohemian polymath who compiled the “Anthology,” Mr. Rosenbaum was an accomplished visual artist. As an art teacher, he spent the bulk of his career at the University of Georgia, in Athens, where his energetic paintings, often depicting the musicians he recorded, and his ideas about the democratization of culture had an influence that resonated far beyond the classroom.

 

Michael Stipe, the visual artist and singer with the Athens rock band R.E.M., who was a student of Mr. Rosenbaum’s in the early 1980s, said Mr. Rosenbaum’s goal “was to blur the lines between what is outsider and insider, and to bring together this untrained music and art with trained music and art, and acknowledge that each have immense power, and that they’re not that far apart.”

 

Arthur Spark Rosenbaum was born on Dec. 6, 1938, in Ogdensburg, N.Y., in St. Lawrence County. His mother, Della Spark Rosenbaum, was a medical illustrator who encouraged her children’s artistic inclinations. His father, David Rosenbaum, was an Army pathologist who sometimes sang what his son described as “Northern street songs.” Arthur later recorded one of these songs, his father’s a cappella version of the ribald 18th-century Child ballad “Our Goodman,” and included it in the 2007 box set.

 

The family eventually moved to Indianapolis, where Mr. Rosenbaum, entranced by traditional music, absorbed the Harry Smith anthology and the contemporary folk stars of the day. In high school he won an art contest at the Indiana State Fair and spent the $25 prize money on a five-string banjo. He went on to become a pre-eminent expert on traditional banjo playing and tunings and to record several albums.

 

In the mid-1950s Mr. Rosenbaum moved to New York City, then the epicenter of the burgeoning folk revival, earning an undergraduate degree in art history and a master’s degree in fine arts from Columbia University. In the summers he worked at a resort hotel on Lake Michigan, where he began making recordings of nearby field workers from Mexico and the American South.

 

In 1958, Mr. Rosenbaum tracked down and recorded in Indianapolis a musician named Scrapper Blackwell, whom he described as “one of the best and most influential blues guitarists of the 1920s and ’30s.” Back in New York, as Mr. Rosenbaum was fond of recalling, a fellow roots music obsessive named Bob Dylan would pester him for any details he could muster about Mr. Blackwell’s life and playing style.

 

It was in New York that Mr. Rosenbaum met the artist Margo Newmark, who became his wife and lifelong collaborator. She survives him.

 

In addition to her and his son, Neil, a filmmaker and musician, he is survived by a sister, Jenny Rosenbaum, a writer; and a brother, Victor Rosenbaum, a concert pianist.

 

After eight years of teaching studio art at the University of Iowa, Mr. Rosenbaum in 1976 took a similar job at the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art. With Athens as a home base, he and Ms. Newmark Rosenbaum continued making field recordings, many of them in and around Georgia, and giving the musicians they met opportunities to play before new audiences.

 

“As these traditional musicians were identified and then brought out,” said Judith McWillie, an emerita art professor at the university, “and as there were more festivals and opportunities for them to play, people began to envision an identity for Georgia that was somewhat different from the one that it had. This was the 1970s, and coming off some extremely difficult times in the South.”

 

Folk music, she said, revealed a shared cultural history: “The musicians Art brought out were Black and white.”

 

In 1984, Mr. Rosenbaum recorded an album of stories and songs by Howard Finster, the self-taught artist, preacher and self-proclaimed “man of visions” whose work has become indelibly associated with 20th-century Georgia after its use on album covers by R.E.M. and the band Talking Heads.

 

He also recorded the McIntosh County Shouters, an African American group from coastal Georgia who performed the “ring shout,” which Mr. Rosenbaum described as “an impressive fusion of call-and-response singing, polyrhythmic percussion and expressive and formalized dancelike movements.” The ring shout, he asserted, was “the oldest African American performance tradition on the North American continent.”

 

Brenton Jordan, a member of the group, said of the Rosenbaums, “It’s their legwork that actually kind of introduced the McIntosh County Shouters to the world.” He noted that the ring shout, once on the verge of extinction, has in recent years been performed by his group in Washington at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

 

The Rosenbaums published a book on the ring shout in 1998. With drawings of the performers by Mr. Rosenbaum and photos of them by Ms. Newmark Rosenbaum, it depicts a place and a culture that seems beguilingly out of phase with modern life.

 

Many of Mr. Rosenbaum’s other paintings and drawings are loose allegorical works in which the old and the new clash and cohabitate, with traditional musicians sharing space on the canvas with modern-day hipsters, skateboarders and documentarians (often Mr. Rosenbaum himself).

 

As a painter, he was inspired by Cezanne and Max Beckmann, the German Expressionist. At times his work recalls the painting of Thomas Hart Benton, the American regionalist. Some of Mr. Rosenbaum’s works are large murals on historical themes.

 

Beginning in the late 1970s, Athens saw an explosion of forward-thinking rock musicians, many of whom, like Mr. Stipe, had ties to the Georgia art school. Mr. Rosenbaum’s passions always ran to traditional music, but he remained an inspiration for contemporary musicians.

 

Lance Ledbetter, the founder and co-director of the Dust-to-Digital label, recalled Vic Chesnutt, the brilliant, idiosyncratic Athens-based songwriter who died in 2009, speaking of Mr. Rosenbaum, quoting him as saying:

 

“When you move to Athens, and you hear about this guy who plays banjo and knows all of these songs, you just follow him around like a puppy dog. And I’m not the only one who did that.”

 

www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/us/art-rosenbaum-dead.html

_______________________________________________

georgiamuseum.org

 

The Georgia Museum of Art, on the campus of the University of Georgia, in Athens, is both an academic museum and, since 1982, the official art museum of the state of Georgia. The permanent collection consists of American paintings, primarily 19th- and 20th-century; American, European and Asian works on paper; the Samuel H. Kress Study Collection of Italian Renaissance paintings; and growing collections of southern decorative arts and Asian art.

 

From the time it was opened to the public in 1948 in the basement of the old library on the university’s historic North Campus, the museum has grown consistently both in the size of its collection and in the size of its facilities. Today the museum occupies a contemporary building in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the university’s burgeoning east campus. There, 79,000 square feet house nearly 17,000 objects in the museum’s permanent collection—a dramatic leap from the core of 100 paintings donated by the museum’s founder, Alfred Heber Holbrook.

 

Much of the museum’s collection of American paintings was donated by Holbrook in memory of his first wife, Eva Underhill Holbrook. Included in this collection are works by such luminaries as Frank Weston Benson, William Merritt Chase, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Georgia O’Keeffe, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Jacob Lawrence and Theodore Robinson.

 

In 2011, the museum opened an expanded contemporary building, with additions and renovations designed by Gluckman Mayner Architects, in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the university’s burgeoning East Campus. New galleries house the permanent collection, and visitors enjoy an outdoor sculpture garden and expanded lobby. In 2012, Brenda and Larry Thompson donated 100 works of art by African American artists to the collection, mirroring Holbrook’s original gift. They also established an endowment to fund the position of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Curator of African American and African Diasporic Art. The Thompsons have continued to give to the museum (their gifts can be found in the collections database), and their gift has had a transformative effect, strongly privileging an expansion of the traditional art historical canon. They received the Patron of the Year award from the Georgia Association of Museums and Galleries in 2019.

 

The museum continues to balance its dual designation as an academic museum with its role as the official state art museum of Georgia. Its schedule is a reflection of the academic study of the history of art and a broader array of popular exhibitions that appeal to all audiences. From the time Alfred Holbrook first loaded works from his art collection in the trunk of his car to share with Georgia’s schoolchildren until today, when the museum staff crisscrosses the state of Georgia to present a variety of educational programs, the Georgia Museum of Art has made the state a richer and more culturally viable place to live.

 

....

Charles Erskine Scott Wood (American 1852-1944)

Oil on canvas

Portland Art Museum

 

C.E.S. Wood may have been the most influential cultural figure in Portland in the forty years surrounding the turn of the twentieth century.

 

He helped found the Portland Art Museum and was instrumental in making the Multnomah County Library a free and public institution. He secured the services of his friend Olin Warner, a nationally known sculptor, to design the Skidmore Fountain, and his words "Good citizens are the riches of a city" are inscribed at its base. The Portland Rose Festival was his idea.

 

He numbered among his friends Mark Twain, Emma Goldman, John Reed, Clarence Darrow, Lincoln Steffens, Ansel Adams, John Steinbeck, Charlie Chaplin, James J. Hill, and Langston Hughes.

 

Soldier, lawyer, poet, painter, raconteur, bon vivant, politician, free spirit, and Renaissance man, Wood might also be the most interesting man in Oregon history.

 

He was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, February 20, 1852, the son of Rosemary Carson and William Maxwell Wood, first surgeon general of the U.S. Navy. Wood graduated from West Point and came west in 1874 to fight Indians.

 

He served as aide-de-camp to General O.O. Howard in the Nez Perce (1877) and Bannock-Paiute (1878) campaigns.

 

Wood recorded one of the most famous speeches in Native American oratory, the surrender speech of Chief Joseph, which reportedly ended with "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

 

There is some controversy about the recording of Joseph's speech. Wood claims to have written it down as Joseph spoke, but some historians believe that he recorded a speech Joseph gave to his chiefs in council as reported to Wood by two Nez Perce go-betweens. He and Joseph became friends, and he would twice send his oldest son Erskine to summer with Joseph in Colville, Washington.

 

Wood returned to West Point as Howard's adjutant, earning a law degree at Columbia University on the side. It was there that he participated, anonymously, in literary history, arranging for the West Point press to print Mark Twain's "1601," or Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors, a scatological story of life in Queen Elizabeth's bed chambers. The elaborately printed edition of only fifty copies is legendary among book collectors.

 

He retired from the army and returned to the West with his family, settling in Portland in the mid-1880s. He became a member of the first law firm in Oregon, Durham and Ball, where he specialized in maritime law.

 

Senator George Williams was in the firm, and many of its clients were wealthy pillars of the town. Wood represented the French banking group Lazard Freres, helping it sell a wagon road grant and arguing the case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1915. His was "probably the first million dollar fee in Oregon history."

 

Wood and his wife Nanny raised five children and were vital members of the Portland aristocracy. They had three sons, Erskine, Max, and Berwick, and two daughters, Nan and Lisa. His wife Nanny (born Nanny Moale Smith), came of age in the aristocratic circles of Washington, D.C., and was a grande dame of Portland society noted for her beautiful garden.

 

Wood's love of the visual arts is carved in Portland cultural heritage. The presence of works by several American impressionists—J. Alden Weir, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Childe Hassam, and Olin Warner—in the houses of fortunate Oregonians and in the Portland Art Museum is primarily due to Wood.

 

He was a talented painter with a particular gift for landscapes and watercolors. Some of his own work, perhaps done with Hassam in eastern Oregon on one of his visits, still hangs in the museum.

 

He called himself a philosophical anarchist but worked with the Democrats, even running for senator in 1906. A Democrat in a Republican state, he nevertheless had an influence on the political atmosphere, working closely with William U'Ren to draft and pass the initiative and referendum and direct election laws.

 

He became an advocate of Henry George's single tax, the idea of taxing only undeveloped land in order to discourage land speculation, thereby redistributing wealth and democratizing the economy.

 

In 1908, he resigned from the Oregon Bar Association after it refused to admit a black attorney. He was a vocal supporter of the suffrage movement and eloquent critic of the United States' entry into World War I.

 

He supported the Industrial Workers of the World, commonly known as the Wobblies, and he defended both Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger when their right to speak in Portland was challenged.

 

Wood was a gifted public speaker and a talented, versatile writer of poetry, fiction, drama, satire, essay, articles, and occasional verse.

 

Between 1904 and 1911, Wood wrote for The Pacific Monthly, a popular Portland magazine, publishing poems, stories, articles, book reviews, features, and a column called "Impressions."

 

In "Portland's Feast of Roses," a 1908 article boosting the Rose Festival and the growing prosperity of Oregon, Wood paused to question the cutting of old-growth timber: "There is no spot where the primeval forest is assured from the attack of that worst of all microbes, the dollar."

 

His politically charged Christmas verse (annual gifts) are beautiful examples of fine press printing. Wood's first book was A Book of Indian Tales (1901), myths and legends he collected while soldiering and exploring in the Northwest and Alaska. In 1904, he published A Masque of Love, a poetic drama defending free love.

 

In 1915, Wood published The Poet in the Desert, a long poem set in the southeastern Oregon desert, which he often visited, staying in the Harney basin area with his friend Big Bill Hanley (cattle baron and sagebrush philosopher, at whose P Ranch along the Blitzen River Wood often stayed). In this epic Jeremiad, Wood summons the spirit of the natural world—truth—in judgment of the ills of civilization—poverty, prostitution, and economic injustice.

 

Wood wrote three distinct versions of the poem—in 1915, 1918, and 1929—and it is the work for which he wished to be remembered. He gained a modicum of fame for Heavenly Discourse (1927), a book of forty satirical dialogues set in heaven with a benevolently libertarian god attended by angels and his intellectual heroes (Mark Twain, Voltaire, Rabelais). His favorite targets were prudery, prohibition, war, and evangelical fervor.

 

At the age of fifty-eight and estranged from his wife, Wood fell in love with the beautiful poet and suffragist Sara Bard Field Ehrgott. She was thirty years younger than he and married to a Baptist minister. Sara divorced her husband, spending a year in Nevada to do so, but Nanny Moale refused to consider giving Wood a divorce. In 1918, after providing for his family with the fee he received from the Lazard Freres group, he joined Sara in San Francisco. Wood's departure scandalized Portland.

 

The couple built a modest estate called "The Cats" on a hillside overlooking Los Gatos and lived a life of comfortable Bohemianism, writing and entertaining guests. Wood wrote a long rant called Too Much Government (1931) and a sequel to Heavenly Discourse called Earthly Discourse (1937).

 

Occasionally, they roused themselves for a worthy cause, actively supporting The Scottsboro Boys and Leon Trotsky's right to a fair trail and vigorously defending themselves when they came under investigation by HUAC (the House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities). Wood died just before his ninety-second birthday on January 22, 1944.

 

C.E.S. Wood helped create the institutions and form the attitudes that we recognize as intrinsic to the Oregon experience. He championed independence, social justice, the arts, freedom, and the free. He is one of the patron saints of Oregon's understanding of how to live well.

 

oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/c_e_s_wood/

There was something eerie in the air as the tumbrils passed through the streets of Paris that led to Place du Trône Renversé. It was, in fact, too eerie that the normally noisy and violent crowd was "in a respectful silence such as has never been accorded throughout the Revolution." No rotten fruit was pelted and no clamorous insult was raised on the condemned women and men. That evening one only heard the ethereal chanting of sixteen Discalced Carmelite nuns on their way to death.

 

These women could hardly be recognized as nuns. Wrapped in their white mantles, they did not, however, wear their veils. Their wimples had been cut away, exposing their necks to facilitate the truculent job of the guillotine's blade.

 

At around eight in the evening, after a ride of two hours, the tumbrils finally arrived at the place of execution. A horrid stench of rotting flesh from the common graves in nearby Picpus and of putrifying blood beneath the scaffold greeted them. The crowd remained reverently silent. The Carmelites have finally come face to face with the dreaded guillotine. Led by their courageous prioress, Mo. Thérèse of St. Augustine, they sang the Christian hymn of praise: “You are God: we praise you; You are the Lord: we acclaim you; You are the eternal Father: all creation worships you…. The glorious company of apostles praises you. The noble fellowship of prophets praises you. The white-robed army of martyrs praises you...”

   

WINDS OF AN INEVITABLE REVOLUTION

 

Many historians agree that the twentieth century traces its foundations to the events that shook France from 1789 to, strictly speaking, 1795. The French Revolution took place amid an ancien régime in social disarray. Historian Edward Tannenbaum capsulized: “Many people knew that something was wrong. There was an economic crisis aggravated by population pressure; the aristocratic resurgence exasperated sections of the bourgeoisie and the peasantry; enlightened political ideas were raising constitutional issues, and enlightened despotism was not working very well.” [1]

 

With the rising of the masses, an era of radical ideas unconceived beforehand was ushered - equality of all before the law; freedoms of speech, religion and opinion; resistance to oppression; rights to property, security and liberty. A new epoch practically began with this “mother of revolutions.”

 

Two institutions gravely affected by it were the monarchy and the Church. With the Church and State so intimately linked together in the old order, with a privileged clergy being used and misused to defend the status quo, and with a wealthy hierarchy scandalizing the impoverished populace with its wantonness and loose morals, the Church truly was bound to be shattered by the revolution's impact.

 

The clash, however, of the old and new orders produced a violent friction. Reforms were plenty, indeed, but violence also abounded, caused by years of bottled hatred or plain paranoia. Soon, freedoms highly idealized by the revolution like choice, conscience and religion were trampled upon. There were too many victims in the process, many of whom were commoners exercising their democratic rights. Among them were the sixteen Carmelites of Compiègne.

   

AN UNEXCEPTIONAL COMMUNITY

 

The twenty-one nuns of the Carmel of the Annunciation exter nally appeared unperturbed by the melee outside the walls of their monastery. They continued with the routine life that had been followed by their predecessors since the monastery was established in 1641. They were composed of fifteen choir nuns, three converses (lay sisters or sisters of the white veil), and one choir novice.[2] There were also two tourières (extern sisters) who, in the strictest sense, were laywomen and not Carmelite religious although they looked after the material and business needs of the community. Most of the sisters were between forty and fifty, three were less than thirty, and three were more than seventy.

 

The nuns came from every social stratum of French society and each had her unique personality. “Taken as a whole, the community does not present an exceptional milieu. Their fathers were a master purse-maker, shoemaker, turner, laborer, clerk, and an employee of the observatory. Only one is a counselor of the king, one a noble squire. Few were blue-blooded; most were commoners. The grille sheltered, both from the psychological and social points of view, a world in a nutshell.” The lone novice was of peasant stock, but she had for her formator the grandniece of the great aristocrat Jean-Baptiste Colbert. The pretty and young assistant infirmarian laughed at the whims of the beloved old sister “philosopher”. The well-balanced prioress had for her assistant a nun passionately in love with the divine office.

 

Inevitably, the Carmelites were also affected by the revolution. Because of the escalating violence and growing uncertainty, Mo. Thérèse of St. Augustine talked with Sr. Saint Francis Xavier, a converse, who was due to make her profession in 1789, and presented to her the dilemma menacing all religious orders. The young sister responded naively: “Ah, my dear good Mother, you can be quite in peace. So long as I have the happiness of being consecrated to my God, that is all I want. So, Mother, do not worry about me. Whatever happens, the good God will take care of all.”

 

The Constituent Assembly provisionally suspended the profession of vows in all monasteries on 29 October 1789. Mo. Thérèse was distressed that the decree prevented Sr. Constance, the lone novice, from making her profession. She wrote to a former postulant: “Sr. Constance remains always a novice here. Troubles have not been lacking on the side of her family: now they do not want her letters anymore or to hear her spoken of. The Lord permits this to be assured of her fidelity, and she accounts herself happy if they leave her in peace as at present. She hopes that the good God will at last touch their hearts and that they will look on her perseverance without sorrow.”

   

THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY

 

On 12 July 1790, the National Assembly implemented the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Among its articles was a provision for the suppression of the monastic orders and the “liberation” of monks and nuns who would choose to renounce their vows. On 15 August, the members of the Directory of the Compiègne district came to the monastery to interrogate each nun and offer her “liberty”.

 

The unanimous reply of the religious was to remain and keep their vows. Some of the nuns made their declarations more vivid:

 

“For fifty-six years I have been a Carmelite. I desire to have the same number of years more to be consecrated to the Lord.” (Sr. of Jesus Crucified)

 

“I became a religious by my own will. I have made up my mind to go on wearing this habit, even if I have to purchase this joy with my own blood.” (Sr. Euphrasie)

 

“A good spouse desires to remain with her husband. I do not wish to abandon my spouse.” (Sr. Saint Francis Xavier)

 

“If I will be able to double the bonds of my attachment to God, then, with all my strength and zeal, I will do so.” (Sr. Thérèse of the Heart of Mary)

 

In February of the following year, the nuns were ordered to elect, in the presence of the municipal officers, a prioress and a bursar. Mo. Thérèse was unanimously re-elected; Mo. Henriette was voted bursar. The state then provided the eighteen intern nuns with decent pensions.

   

ENEMIES OF THE REPUBLIC

 

Another provision of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy required priests and religious to take a loyalty oath that required them “to be faithful to the nation, the law and the king; and to maintain the constitution with all their power.” What the ambiguous statement meant was that they were to give the revolutionary government the right to control and democratize the Church in complete disregard of Papal jurisdiction. Pope Pius VI issued on 10 March 1791 a condemnation of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and forbade the clergy to take it. A schism was inevitable. The clergy was split between the “juring” (those who took the oath) and “non-juring” bishops and priests.

 

Two weeks after Easter of 1792, the guillotine was installed in Paris. Everyone was talking about it, even in the Carmel of Compiègne, and everyone feared it. In September, around 1,400 “enemies of the Republic” were killed during the infamous September Massacre; among them were hundreds of non-juring priests.

 

A belief that they would all be called to martyrdom someday prevailed in the community. Between June and September of that year, Mo. Thérèse proposed that the community offer their lives to God with an act of oblation “in order that the divine peace which Christ has brought to the world may be restored to the Church and to the State.” All promised to unite themselves to it, except for Sr. of Jesus Crucified and Sr. Charlotte of the Resurrection, the two most senior nuns. Trembling and fearful that they would end more than fifty years of peaceful life in Carmel with a bloody death, both withdrew from the community. Before the day ended, however, they prostrated themselves before the prioress and tearfully asked forgiveness for their momentary weakness. All the nuns renewed the act until the very day of their death.

   

UNITED IN SPITE OF DISPERSION

 

On 14 August 1792, the Convention ordered all French citizens receiving state pension to take the Oath of Liberté-Egalité which required them “to be faithful to the nation and to maintain liberty and equality or to die defending them.” Three days later, all religious houses were ordered vacated.

 

At this point in time, the Carmelites of Compiègne had been reduced to nineteen with the death of two sisters. The remaining nuns left the monastery and garbed secular clothes on 14 September 1792. They divided themselves into four groups with the prioress, sub-prioress, bursar and another nun heading each.

 

On 19 September, with the permission of Fr. Rigaud, their ecclesiastical superior, they all took the Oath of Liberté-Egalité. Thus, all, including the tourières, were eligible to receive pension from the state. Only Sr. Constance, the novice, was excluded from this right because the members of the Directory of Compiègne did not consider her a full religious.

 

For two years, each community strove to continue being faithful to their regular observances. “The beautiful accord which reigned among all the sisters ensured that each one never deviated from her duties. One could say that obedience was practiced with all the exactitude of the cloister.” It was difficult to find a priest to celebrate the Eucharist; nonetheless, the sisters faithfully recited the divine office at the appointed hours. Since their houses were not far apart, they managed to be in frequent contact with one another. Secretly, they sustained the members of the Confraternity of the Scapular and continued its enrollment. The extern sisters continued to buy provisions and to share these out among the different houses. The dynamism of the entire community was sustained by the daily renewal of the act of oblation and the solicitude of Mo. Thérèse.

   

REIGN OF TERROR

 

Situations worsened when Maximilien Robespierre and his henchmen, the radical and fanatical Jacobins, came into power during the summer of 1793. The Committee of Public Safety was established to protect the republic from foreign invasions and to control prices and wages all over the country. Along with this was institutionalized the infamous Reign of Terror. It not only apprehended and punished with death those who refused to be conscripted into the army but also anyone suspected of any unpatriotic behavior – or thoughts!

 

Within its brief one-year and one-month existence, over 300,000 were imprisoned of whom 50,000 were executed by musketry or in the dreaded guillotine or died in prison. France was literally transformed into an abattoir for her own people. Obsession replaced reality as the radical leaders sought to establish a utopistic society.

 

Anticlericalism reached its apex and, later, the revolution began to take the guise of a religion. First there was the abolition of the Gregorian calendar. Then churches were turned into “Temples of Reason”. Next, the juring clergy were ordered to marry (about 20,000 heeded). Finally, Robespierre established the Cult of the Supreme Being in an attempt to totally de-christianize France.

 

In March 1794, Sr. Marie of the Incarnation went to Paris to settle a serious family problem. Her stay was prolonged until June. Mo. Thérèse was also obliged to go to the capital on 13 June to bid farewell to her old and widowed mother who was to return to Franche-Comté, the cradle of her family. During that sojourn, the two nuns were by chance in the streets when tumbrils carrying those to be guillotined passed before them. Sr. Marie tried to get Mo. Thérèse to avoid the sight. The prioress, however, refused to move: “My good sister, allow me the sad consolation of seeing how martyrs go to their death.” Sr. Marie later wrote that two of the condemned fixed a deep gaze on them as if to say, “Soon, you will follow us.”

 

On the evening of 21 June, Mo. Thérèse promptly returned by stagecoach to Compiègne. She was met by some of the nuns who informed her that members of the Committee for Revolutionary Surveillance had searched all their four abodes that very morning and seized all their papers. The search continued the following day. A portrait of the guillotined king, a copy of his will, letters from their deported non-juring confessor and scapulars of the Sacred Heart were found and branded “seditious”. They also took the food prepared for the nuns, depriving them of nourishment that day.

   

SIXTEEN VICTIMS

 

As previously mentioned, nineteen of the Carmelites of Compiègne were still alive by the middle of 1792. During the time of the arrest, Sr. Marie of the Incarnation was still in Paris. Since March 1794, Sr. Thérèse of Jesus and Sr. Stanislas of Providence were in Rosières. Thus only sixteen were arrested. Through the biography written by Sr. Marie, we were not only able to know much about the arrest and execution of her community (in this entire chapter, unless noted otherwise, her accounts are enclosed in quotations) but also about their lives.

 

MO. THÉRÈSE OF ST. AUGUSTINE (Marie-Madeleine-Claudine Lidoine; b. 22 September 1752 in Paris), a woman “so loved by God,” was serving her second term as prioress when the Revolution struck. Her correspondences reveal a woman of great human and supernatural qualities.

 

MO. ST. LOUIS (Marie-Anne-Françoise Brideau; b. 07 December 1751 in Belfort), the sub-prioress, was given to silence and gentleness. She celebrated the divine office with admirable remembrance and exactitude.

 

MO. HENRIETTE OF JESUS (Marie-Françoise de Croissy; b. 18 June 1745 in Paris), the novice mistress, was the predecessor of Mo. Thérèse. She “made herself esteemed for the qualitites of her heart, her tender piety, zeal, the happy combination of every religious virtue.”

 

SR. CHARLOTTE OF THE RESURRECTION (Anne-Marie-Madeleine Thouret; b. 16 September 1715 in Mouy, Oise), the most senior member of the community, possessed a lively temperament. Fond of frequenting balls in her youth, she entered Carmel “after a tragic event.” She served as infirmarian to the point of developing a spinal column deformation that she endured until death.

 

SR. OF JESUS CRUCIFIED (Marie-Anne Piedcourt; b. 09 December 1715 in Paris) was younger than Sr. Charlotte by a few months but was senior to her by profession. She occupied the office of sacristan for many years. Speaking about their persecutors, she said: “How can we be angry with them when they open the gates of heaven for us?”

 

SR. THÉRÈSE OF THE HEART OF MARY (Marie Hanisset; b. 18 January 1742 in Reims), first sister of the turn and third bursar, was endowed with wisdom, prudence and discernment.

 

SR. THÉRÈSE OF ST. IGNATIUS (Marie-Gabrielle Trezel; b. 04 April 1743 in Compiègne), the “hidden treasure” of the community, was undoubtedly a mystic. Asked why she never brought a book for meditation, she replied: “The good God has found me so ignorant that none but He would be able to instruct me.”

 

SR. JULIE-LOUISE OF JESUS (Rose Cretien de Neuville; b. 30 December 1741 in Evreux) entered Carmel as a widow. She dreaded the guillotine but she chose to stay with her sisters.

 

SR. MARIE-HENRIETTE OF PROVIDENCE (Marie-Annette Pelras; b. 16 June 1760 in Cajarc, Lot), the assitant infirmarian, first entered the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction of Nevers but left it for the more secluded Carmelite life. Youngest among the choir nuns, she possessed a most exquisite beauty.

 

SR. EUPHRASIE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION (Marie-Claude-Cyprienne Brard; b. 12 May 1736 in Bourth, Eure), the “philosopher” and “joie de vivre of the recreation,” admitted that she was filled for some time with resentment against her prioress. She worked very hard on herself that in the end she was able to overcome her negative disposition.

 

Along with these ten choir nuns were three lay sisters. SR. MARIE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (Angélique Roussel; b. 03 August 1742 at Fresne-Mazancourt, Somme) was afflicted by atrocious pains throughout her body, which she heroically bore up until her death. SR. ST. MARTHA (Marie Dufour; b. 02 October 1741 at Bannes, Sarthe) edified her companions with her virtues. SR. ST. FRANCIS XAVIER (Elisabeth-Juliette Vérolot; b. 13 January 1764 at Lignières, Aube) was frank, lively, and full of goodness.

 

The youngest member of the community was SR. CONSTANCE (Marie-Geneviève Meunier; b. 28 May 1765 at Saint Denis, Seine). Circumstances forced her to remain as a novice for seven years. Her parents wanted her to return home and even sent the police for this purpose. Sr. Constance told them: “Gentlemen, I thank my parents if, out of love, they fear the danger that may befall me. Yet nothing except death can separate me from my mothers and sisters.”

 

The two tourières were blood sisters. ANNE-CATHERINE SOIRON (b. 02 February 1742 in Compiègne) tearfully begged the prioress not to let her and her sister be separated from the community during those crucial hours. THÉRÈSE SOIRON (b. 23 January 1748 in Compiègne) possessed such a rare beauty and charming personality that the ill-fated Princess de Lamballe wanted her to be attached to her court. She responded: “Madame, even if your Highness would offer me the crown of France, I would prefer to remain in this house, where the good God placed me and where I found the means of salvation which I would not find in the house of your Highness.”

   

IMPRISONMENT

 

On 23 June, the sixteen nuns were forcibly reunited in the Maison de Reclusion, a former monastery of the Visitation Nuns. In the room next to theirs were imprisoned a group of English Benedictine Nuns from Cambrai. The following day, the Carmelites retracted before the town mayor the Oath of Liberté-Égalité they had made – thus signing their own death warrant. Meanwhile, their captors waited for instructions from the Committee for Public Safety in Paris.

 

The three-week imprisonment was very harsh. The food was hardly palatable and the sick were not given any special diet. A few straws on the bare floor served as their beds. The two communities of nuns were forbidden to communicate with each other, yet the abbess of the Benedictines, Mo. Mary Blyde, somehow was able to converse with the Carmelites on two occasions. Fresh clothing was denied the nuns, yet they were forbidden to wash their soiled clothes. After many solicitations, they were finally granted a particular day to do their washing - but they never even had the chance to finish their laundry.

 

At 10:00 a.m. of 12 July, members of the Revolutionary Committee of Compiègne came with orders from Paris to transfer the Carmelites to the dreaded Conciergerie at the capital. Mo. Thérèse protested the untimely order. Their civilian clothes had just been put to soak. She requested permission to seek fresh clothing for her sisters to bring along. This was straightforwardly refused. Therefore, the nuns had to go to Paris wearing part of what was once their religious habits, the only dry clothing that was available.

 

After finishing their meager repast, the sixteen bade adieu to their Benedictine companions. With hands bound behind their back, they were herded into two carts for the long journey to Paris. Along with them was arrested a citizen named Mulot de la Ménardière, accused as an accomplice of the nuns. A great number of women, many of whom the nuns helped in many ways, sneered at them: “They do well to destroy them. They are useless mouths. Bravo! Bravo!” Mo. Thérèse meanwhile calmed Catherine Soiron who was outraged by the way they were being maltreated.

 

The caravan arrived at the Conciergerie between three to four in the afternoon of the following day. With their hands still tied behind them, the sisters went down one by one and stood waiting in the prison courtyard. However, the octogenarian Sr. Charlotte, deprived of her crutch and with no one to assist her, could not descend from the cart. An impatient soldier jumped aboard and callously threw her upon the paving stones where she laid motionless. Fearing he had killed her, the soldier lifted up the old nun whose face was covered with blood. “Believe me,” she told him, “I am not angry with you. On the contrary, I thank you for not having killed me for if I have died in your hands, I would have been deprived of the joy and glory of martyrdom.”

 

While waiting for their trial, the nuns occupied themselves with prayers and works of charity. They sought the sick among the imprisoned and attended to them even until late in the night. During daylight, they continued to celebrate the divine office faithfully. The other prisoners woke in the middle of the night hearing the nuns chanting Matins. Sr. Julie-Louise celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (16 July) by composing a canticle to the tune of the Marsellaise. Mo. Thérèse continually supported the sisters with her exemplary courage, calmness, and maternal attention to the needs of their distressed bodies.

   

FANATICAL PUERILITY

 

At around 9:00 a.m. of 17 July, the sixteen were brought to the Courtroom of Liberty where the Revolutionary Tribunal performed its functions. They were led before the three judges and the notorious Antoine Fouquier-Tinville, the Terror's implacable public prosecutor. He read the Act of Accusation:

   

With regard the ex-Carmelite religious Lidoine, Thouret, Brard, Dufour and the others, they kept up, although separated by their abodes, anti-revolutionary meetings and cabal among themselves and wish others whom they brought together and, by taking up again their spirit of sisterhood, conspired against the Republic. A voluminous correspondence found in their possession proves that they did not cease to plot against the Revolution. A portrait of Capet [Louis XVI], his will, the hearts, which are the rallying signs of the Vendean rebels,[3] fanatical puerility, accompanied by the letter of an émigré priest dated 1793, proved that they were in correspondence with the external enemies of France. Such are the marks of the Confederacy formed among themselves. They lived under obedience to a superior and, as for their principles and vows, their letters and writings bear witness to them…. They are more than a band, an assembly of rebels, with criminal hope of seeing the French people returned to the chains of tyrants and to the slavery of bloodthirsty priests who are impostors as well.

   

Sr. Marie-Henriette did not fail to ignore the phrase “fanatical puerility”. She asked Fouquier-Tinville to explain:

 

“What I mean is your attachment to your childish beliefs, your stupid religious practices.”

 

She then turned to the other nuns and said to them: “My dear Mother and sisters, let us rejoice in the Lord for this. We are going to die for the cause of our holy religion, our faith, our reliance in the holy Roman Catholic Church.”

 

Mo. Thérèse addressed the judges: “The letters that we have received are from the chaplain of our house condemned by your law to be deported. These letters contain nothing more than spiritual advises. At most, if these correspondences be a crime, this should be considered as mine, not of the community as our Rule forbids the sisters from making any correspondence, even with their nearest relations, without the permission of their superior. If therefore you must have a victim, here she is: it is I alone whom you must strike. My sisters are innocent.”

 

“They are your accomplices!” was the blunt reply of the presiding judge. In the end, the sixteen were convicted as enemies of the people. A sentence was given: death by guillotine.

 

The nuns received their penalty with serenity and joy. However, Thérèse Soiron fainted. Tension, fatigue, and lack of sleep and nourishment finally broke her down. The prioress quickly asked a constable for a glass of water for the tourière. When she regained consciousness, Thérèse asked pardon for her weakness and assured them she was ready to be faithful to the end.

 

After that incident, it became quite clear that the nuns needed something to eat. After all, they had not eaten anything since the break of dawn. With the permission of the prioress, Mo. St. Louis bartered a pelisse in exchange for sixteen cups of chocolate. Thus, while the executioner carried out on the other condemned prisoners the last “toilet” – the trimming away of hair and ripping of any clothing that may impede the decapitation of their heads – the nuns had the opportunity to dine in common before their execution.

 

The sentence was to be completed that same evening. The community was praying the Office for the Dead when they were summoned. The nuns bade farewell to the other prisoners, among them was a devout Catholic named Blot: “How come our dear Blot is crying? Rather, you should rejoice to see us at the end of our trials. Recommend us well to the good God and the most holy Virgin that they may assist us in these final hours. We will pray for you when we are in heaven.”

   

FINAL CHOIR

 

Cloaked in their white mantles and with hands bound at their backs, the sixteen recollectedly boarded the tumbrils that would bring them to Place du Trône Renversé where the guillotine awaited them.[4] Along the way, priests disguised as sans-culottes gave them absolution. The journey was long… but the air was permeated by their solemn chants of the sixteen, singing as they did in choir: “Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness. In your compassion, blot out my offense…. Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy….”

 

The guillotine had been standing for more than a month already at the Barrière du Trône. Upon arriving there, Sr. Constance suddenly accused herself before Mo. Thérèse of not having finished her divine office. Tenderly the prioress, told her: “Be strong, daughter. You will finish it in Paradise!” Twenty-four others were executed that day but we do not know any detail concerning them.

 

At the foot of the scaffold, the prioress asked the executioner if she might die last so that she could encourage and support her sister. She also asked for a few minutes to prepare them. This time her requests were granted. They sang once more, invoking the Holy Spirit: “Creator Spirit, come….” Afterward, they all renewed their religious vows. The ceremony completed, one unknown sister was overheard saying: “O my God! I am just too happy if this little sacrifice calms your wrath and lessens the number of victims.”

 

One by one, from the youngest to the oldest, the nuns were called.

 

“Citizeness Marie Geneviève Meunier!”

 

Summoned by her real name, Sr. Constance knelt before Mo. Thérèse and asked for her blessing and the permission to die. This being given, the novice kissed a small red-clay statuette of the Virgin and Child that Mo. Thérèse had been concealing in her hand.

 

Sr. Constance mounted the scaffold singing the psalm the nuns chanted daily to announce their coming into the house of God: “O praise the Lord, all you nations…”

 

Her sisters followed: “…acclaim him, all you peoples! Strong is his love for us; he is faithful for ever.”

 

All the sisters followed the example of the novice. They each went to their death joining the song of those waiting for their turn. While the blade of the guillotine snuffed their lives one by one, the chorus progressed into a decrescendo. As she ascended the scaffold, Sr. of Jesus Crucified was assisted by the assistants of the executioner. “My friends,” she told them, “I forgive you with all my heart, as I desire forgiveness from God.”

 

Finally, only one voice was left.

 

“Citizeness Marie Madeleine Claudine Lidoine!”

 

Having seen fifteen of her daughters precede her to the scaffold, Mo. Thérèse followed them to the guillotine. At the sixteenth thud, there was nothing left… but silence. On that day, it was said, more than one religious vocation was born and just as many conversions took place.

 

Ten days later, amidst cacophonous shouts and screams, an infuriated and disillusioned crowd led a man to his death on the guillotine. “Down with the tyrant!” they cried. This time, it was the turn of Maximilien Robespierre. More than a week later, an enervated Antoine Fouquier-Tinville followed his fate on the very instrument where he had sent hundreds to their death. And with the inglorious end of these two died, also, the Reign of Terror.

Esta maravilhosa Flor, foi uma Homenagem que recebi de nosso Querido Amigo Renê Ardanuy, meu Tão Querido e Abençoado Mentor!

Muitíssimo obrigada, Amigo Especial Renê, me sinto imensamente honrada em poder postar sua deslumbrante foto em minha humilde página!

Deus lhe abençoe, beijos em seu lindo e precioso coração.

 

"Vamos , amiga Tula!

DE: rene ardanuy

PARA: Celisa Bicudo Menêndez Serra

Sexta-feira, 3 de Junho de 2011 12:41

Fique boa amiga Tula, fique com Deus!!!"

 

Vejam sua magnífica Galeria:

www.flickr.com/photos/renear/

***

This wonderful flower was a Homage I received from our Dear Friend Rene Ardanuy, my Beloved and Blessed Mentor !

Thank you so much, René Special Friend, I feel greatly honored to post your beautiful picture in my humble page!

God bless you, kisses on your beautiful and precious heart.

 

"Come on, friend Tula!

DE: rene Ardanuy

FOR: Celisa Bicudo Menendez Serra

Friday, June 3, 2011 12:41

Be good friend Tula, stay with God! "

 

Look at his magnificent gallery:

www.flickr.com/photos/renear/

***

Cette magnifique Fleur est un Hommage que j'ai reçu de notre Cher Ami René Ardanuy, mon Bien-Aimé Mentor et Bienheureux!

Merci beaucoup, René Ami Spécial, je suis très honorée d'envoyer un beau tableau dans ma page humble!

Que Dieu vous bénisse, des baisers sur votre cœur de beaux et précieux.

 

"Allons, ami Tula!

DE: rene Ardanuy

POUR: Celisa Bicudo Menendez Serra

Friday, 3 Juin, 2011 12:41

Soyez bon ami Tula, séjour avec Dieu! "

 

Regardez son magnifique galerie:

www.flickr.com/photos/renear/

***

***

Pesquisas e Fotos Anexas obtidas via Internet

 

07 de Junho Comemoramos o Dia da Liberdade de Imprensa, Brasil

 

Liberdade de imprensa é um dos princípios pelos quais um Estado democrático assegura a liberdade de expressão aos seus cidadãos e respectivas associações, principalmente no que diz respeito a quaisquer publicações que estes possam pôr a circular.

Geralmente, refere-se a material escrito mas, segundo alguns autores, o termo "imprensa" pode, por vezes, alargar-se a outros meios de comunicação social. De qualquer forma, a liberdade de imprensa corresponde a uma garantia menos geral que a "liberdade de expressão", que se aplica a todas as formas de comunicação (por exemplo, nas artes).

Cada governo tem competências para legislar em relação a esta matéria de forma a classificar os assuntos que devem ser do conhecimento público ou não, de acordo com os interesses governamentais (mesmo em sociedades democráticas, existe o segredo de Estado, por exemplo).

Liberdade de expressão é o direito de manifestar livremente opiniões, ideias e pensamentos. É um conceito basilar nas democracias modernas nas quais a censura não tem respaldo moral.

 

Democracia ("demo+kratos") é um regime de governo em que o poder de tomar importantes decisões políticas está com os cidadãos (povo), direta ou indiretamente, por meio de representantes eleitos — forma mais usual. Uma democracia pode existir num sistema presidencialista ou parlamentarista, republicano ou monárquico.

As Democracias podem ser divididas em diferentes tipos, baseado em um número de distinções. A distinção mais importante acontece entre democracia direta (algumas vezes chamada "democracia pura"), onde o povo expressa a sua vontade por voto direto em cada assunto particular, e a democracia representativa (algumas vezes chamada "democracia indireta"), onde o povo expressa sua vontade através da eleição de representantes que tomam decisões em nome daqueles que os elegeram.

Outros itens importantes na democracia incluem exatamente quem é "o Povo", isto é, quem terá direito ao voto; como proteger os direitos de minorias contra a "tirania da maioria" e qual sistema deve ser usado para a eleição de representantes ou outros executivos.

 

No Brasil, desde a Constituição do Império havia a garantia da liberdade de expressão, o que foi preservado até a Constituição de 1937. Já no período conhecido como Estado Novo durante o governo do presidente Vargas, o princípio constitucional da liberdade de pensamento desapareceu. Foi adotada a censura como meio de impedir a publicação ou a reprodução de determinadas informações. A censura nasceu reprimindo a liberdade de expressão. Com o período da redemocratização, a Constituição de 1946 foi responsável por colocar e assegurar, no novo ordenamento jurídico, a manifestação do pensamento. O texto constitucional dispunha a livre manifestação do pensamento, sem dependências da censura, salvo quanto a espetáculos e diversões públicas, respondendo cada um, por abusos cometidos, conforme disposição legal.

Quando Getulio Vargas ocupou o poder novamente, ele se preocupou em editar a lei da imprensa (Lei 2083 de 1953) com a devida regulamentação dos crimes de imprensa. Em seu bojo, a lei trouxe vários defeitos, como a exacerbada repressão a liberdade de imprensa.

 

Todos os anos, a organização Repórteres Sem Fronteiras estabelece uma classificação de países em termos de liberdade de imprensa. O Índice de Liberdade de Imprensa é baseado nas respostas aos relatórios enviados aos jornalistas que são membros das organizações parceiras do RSF, assim como especialistas afins, tais como pesquisadores, juristas e ativistas dos direitos humanos. A pesquisa faz perguntas sobre os ataques diretos aos jornalistas e meios de comunicação, bem como outras fontes indiretas de pressão contra a imprensa livre, como a pressão sobre os jornalistas ou organizações não-governamentais. A RSF é cuidadosa ao observar que o índice classifica apenas a liberdade de imprensa e não mede a qualidade do jornalismo em cada país.

Em 2009, os países onde a imprensa foi mais livre foram a Islândia, Noruega, Finlândia, Dinamarca e Suécia ficaram com as melhores posições, enquanto Coreia do Norte, Turcomenistão, Myanmar (Birmânia), Líbia, Eritreia, com as piores posições.

 

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Research and Photo Attached obtained via the Internet

 

June 7th we Celebrate the Day of Press Freedom, Brazil

 

Press freedom is one of the principles by which a democratic state guarantees freedom of expression to its citizens and their associations, especially with respect to any content that they can put into circulation.

Generally refers to written material, but according to some authors, the term "press" can sometimes extend to other media. Anyway, press freedom corresponds to a less general assurance that "freedom of expression", which applies to all forms of communication (eg the arts).

Each government has powers to legislate on this matter in order to sort the issues that should be public knowledge or not, according to government interests (even in democratic societies, there is a state secret, for example).

Freedom of expression is the right to freely express opinions, ideas and thoughts. It is a basic concept in modern democracies where censorship has no moral support.

 

Democracy ("demo + kratos") is a system of government in which power to make important policy decisions is with the public (the people), directly or indirectly through elected representatives - the most ordinary way. A democracy can exist in a presidential system or parliamentary, republican or monarchical.

Democracies can be divided into different types, based on a number of distinctions. The most important distinction is between direct democracy (sometimes called "pure democracy"), where the people express their will by direct vote in each particular subject, and representative democracy (sometimes called "indirect democracy"), where the people express their will by electing representatives who make decisions on behalf of those who elected them.

Other important items include democracy exactly who is "the people", that is, who will be entitled to vote, how to protect the rights of minorities against the "tyranny of the majority" and which system should be used for electing representatives or other executives .

 

In Brazil, since the Constitution of the Empire had the guarantee of freedom of expression, which was preserved until the 1937 Constitution. In the period known as New State during the administration of President Vargas, the constitutional principle of freedom of thought disappeared. Was adopted censorship as a means to prevent the publication or reproduction of certain information. Censorship was born repressing freedom of expression. With the period of democratization, the Constitution of 1946 was responsible for making and ensure the new law, the expression of thought. The Constitution provided the free expression of thought, no dependencies of censorship, except for the shows and public diversions, answering each one, for the abuses, according to legal provisions.

When Getulio Vargas took power again, he bothered to edit the press law (Law 2083 of 1953) with the proper regulation of press offenses. In its wake, the law has brought many defects, such as heightened crackdown on press freedom.

 

Every year, the organization Reporters Without Borders provides a classification of countries in terms of press freedom. The Press Freedom Index is based on responses to the reports sent to journalists who are members of RSF's partner organizations, as well as related specialists such as researchers, jurists and human rights activists. The survey asks questions about direct attacks on journalists and media as well as other indirect sources of pressure against the free press, such as pressure on journalists and nongovernmental organizations. RWB is careful to note that the index only ranks press freedom and does not measure the quality of journalism in each country.

In 2009, the countries where the press was freer were Iceland, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden were the best positions, while North Korea, Turkmenistan, Myanmar (Burma), Libya, Eritrea, the worst positions.

 

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Recherche et Photo ci-jointe obtenus via l'Internet

 

7th Juin, nous Célébrons la Journée de la liberté de la presse, le Brésil

 

liberté de la presse est l'un des principes par lesquels un Etat démocratique qui garantit la liberté d'expression de ses citoyens et leurs associations, en particulier à l'égard de tout contenu qu'ils peuvent mettre en circulation.

Fait généralement référence à des documents écrits, mais selon certains auteurs, le terme «presse» peut parfois s'étendre à d'autres médias. Quoi qu'il en soit, liberté de la presse correspond à une assurance moins générale que «la liberté d'expression", qui s'applique à toutes les formes de communication (par exemple les arts).

Chaque gouvernement a le pouvoir de légiférer sur cette question afin de trier les questions qui devraient être du domaine public ou non, selon les intérêts du gouvernement (même dans les sociétés démocratiques, il ya un secret d'État, par exemple).

La liberté d'expression est le droit d'exprimer librement des opinions, des idées et des pensées. Il s'agit d'un concept de base dans les démocraties modernes où la censure n'a pas de soutien moral.

 

La démocratie ("demo + kratos») est un système de gouvernement où le pouvoir de prendre des décisions politiques importantes est avec le public (le peuple), directement ou indirectement par l'intermédiaire des représentants élus - le moyen le plus ordinaire. Une démocratie ne peut exister dans un système présidentiel ou parlementaire, républicain ou monarchique.

Les démocraties peuvent être divisées en différents types, basés sur un certain nombre de distinctions. La distinction la plus importante se situe entre la démocratie directe (parfois appelé la «démocratie pure»), où les gens expriment leur volonté par un vote direct dans chaque sujet particulier, et la démocratie représentative (parfois appelée «la démocratie indirecte"), où les gens expriment leur volonté en élisant des représentants qui prennent des décisions au nom de ceux qui les ont élus.

Autres points importants comprennent la démocratie exactement qui est «le peuple», qui est, qui seront habilités à voter, comment protéger les droits des minorités contre la «tyrannie de la majorité» et quel système doit être utilisé pour l'élection des représentants ou d'autres cadres .

 

Au Brésil, depuis la Constitution de l'Empire avait la garantie de la liberté d'expression, qui a été conservé jusqu'à ce que la Constitution de 1937. Dans la période connue sous le nom New État pendant l'administration du président Vargas, le principe constitutionnel de la liberté de pensée disparu. A été adoptée la censure comme moyen d'empêcher la publication ou la reproduction de certaines informations. La censure est né réprimant la liberté d'expression. Avec la période de démocratisation, la Constitution de 1946 a été chargé de prendre et de veiller à la nouvelle loi, l'expression de la pensée. La Constitution prévoit la libre expression de la pensée, pas de dépendances de la censure, sauf pour les spectacles et divertissements publics, répondre à chacun, pour les abus, conformément aux dispositions légales.

Lorsque Getulio Vargas a pris le pouvoir à nouveau, il pris la peine de modifier la loi sur la presse (loi 2083 de 1953) avec une bonne régulation des délits de presse. Dans son sillage, la loi a apporté beaucoup de défauts, tels que la répression accrue sur la liberté de la presse.

 

Chaque année, l'organisation Reporters sans frontières propose une classification des pays en termes de liberté de la presse. La liberté de la presse est basée sur les réponses aux rapports envoyés à des journalistes qui sont membres des organisations partenaires de RSF, ainsi que des spécialistes tels que des chercheurs, des juristes et des militants des droits humains. L'enquête pose des questions sur les attaques directes contre des journalistes et des médias ainsi que d'autres sources indirectes de pression contre la presse libre, tels que la pression sur les journalistes et les organisations non gouvernementales. RSF prend soin de noter que l'indice ne se classe qu'au liberté de la presse et ne mesure pas la qualité du journalisme dans chaque pays.

En 2009, les pays où la presse était plus libre étaient l'Islande, la Norvège, la Finlande, le Danemark et la Suède ont été les meilleures positions, alors que la Corée du Nord, le Turkménistan, au Myanmar (Birmanie), la Libye, l'Erythrée, le pire des positions.

    

see the other photos from the set

 

thanks to Woong for helping me find the location...

 

the last coal mine in Gangwon province (the northeast part of South Korea) went silent in 2004.

 

when the mine closed, the Korean government promised to give the city 100 billion won ($100 million), but the city eventually received only 20% ($20 million) of that money. still, when you visit Jeongseon, you will a city whose population has been decimated by job loss, but whose roads, sidewalks, and hospitals remain top notch.

 

also of note: from april 21-24, 1980; Dongwon mine went on strike after refusing a 20% raise increase (the union wanted a 42.75% raise). 160 police and workers were injured, 81 workers were arrested, and one policeman died. the miners and their families (5,000 strong) basically took over the town by overrunning the police.

 

a very important moment in the democratization movement in korea; however, it is often overshadowed by the events in busan-masan and the gwangju massacre, which occurred on the other side of the peninsula one month later. this protest, and all the other unrest in 1979-1980, helped set the stage for a turbulent 80's and an eventual end to the military dictatorship.

 

Bios

Eva Arce

Human rights activist and mother of Silvia Arce who disappeared in Juarez on March 11, 1998. Eva Arce's daughter vanished in March 1998 along with a friend, Griselda Mares. The Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States has accepted her case.

 

Cynthia Bejarano

Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, and activist. She spearheaded the “Justice for Women” Symposium in Las Cruces in March 2006. Her research interests include youth and justice; U.S. border studies and violence; and race, class, and gender issues within the criminal justice system. Professor Bejarano was involved with community-based groups in the metropolitan Phoenix area and hopes to build strong community advocacy in the New Mexico, Texas, and Chihuahua tri-state area. She is also co-founder of Amigos de las Mujeres de Juárez, a non-profit organization working to end the violence against women in Chihuahua, Mexico and the borderlands. She is currently working on an anthology with colleague Rosa-Linda Fregoso focusing on feminicides and sexual assaults against women throughout Latin America, with the tentative title Gender Terrorism: Feminicides in the Américas.

 

Ilder Andrés Betancourt

Ilder Betancourt will graduate with a Masters in Psychology this June from Stanford University. His research has focused on Latino gangs, specifically in Los Angeles and El Salvador. He has the unusual distinction of having written two honors theses. For his first honors thesis, entitled “Relative Deprivation Mediating Street Gang Appeal,” he constructed and conducted the experimental paradigm used with Latino youth subjects in the Pico Union area of Los Angeles, looking for gang association that occurs at the local level. For his second thesis, “From LA to El Salvador: Displaying Street Performance for the Self,” he conducted field research in El Salvador where he interviewed deported ex-gang members. He is currently teaching for the third year in a row a student-initiated course on Latino gangs in the Chicana/o Studies Program, CCSRE.

 

Lawrence D. Bobo

Lawrence D. Bobo is the Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial Professor at Stanford University. He is in the Sociology Department and also serves as Director of both CCSRE and the Program in African and African American Studies. Professor Bobo is an elected member of the National Academy of Science, a former Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and former Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. His interests include race, ethnicity, politics, and social inequality. He is currently conducting research for the “Race, Crime, and Public Opinion” project.

 

Lydia Cacho

Journalist and writer, Lydia Cacho has published over 400 articles in Mexico, Spain, the United States and Canada. She is also the director of a crisis center for women and children who have been sexually abused in Cancun, Mexico. She recently received the 2007 Ginetta Sagan Award for Women’s and Children's Rights from Amnesty International for her work exposing a net of pederasts and child pornographers linked to powerful politicians and business people, as well as for her high-security shelter for victims of trafficking and violence in Cancun, Mexico. After her book Los demonios del Edén (The demons of Eden) was published, she received death threats and was kidnapped and incarcerated by the Mexican police. For 15 years she has researched, lectured, and published articles on violence against women in the State of Chihuahua and other parts of Mexico. She is an expert on issues concerning the corruption and impunity of the Mexican government. The Ginetta Sagan Award is given once a year to one woman in the world who stands out for her work on behalf of women’s and children’s rights. Lydia Cacho is the first Mexican to receive this prestigious award. She is also the author of the novel Muérdele el corazón (Bite his heart) based on the diary of a Mexican woman who dies of AIDS and is currently working on the book Trata y tráfico de mujeres en México (Trafficking in Persons: Women in Mexico).

 

Adriana Carmona

Human rights lawyer from the Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (Center for Women's Human Rights) in Chihuahua City, Mexico. She has argued cases before the International Commission of Human Rights. She collaborates in the writing of reports for CEDAW and the United Nations in the area of human rights and feminicide. She is also a legislative advisor for the Congress of the State of Chihuahua and works with Justicia para Nuestras Hijas (Justice for Our Daughters), a non- government organization formed by relatives on behalf of the women who have disappeared or have been murdered in Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico.

 

Carlos Castresana Fernández

Project Coordinator of the United Nations’ Office on Drugs & Crime, Mexican Regional Office. He is also Visiting Professor and Director of International Human Rights Programs at the University of San Francisco Center for Law and Global Justice. In 2003, he visited Ciudad Juarez as a UN Independent Commission Expert to participate in the review of the murder cases in the State of Chihuahua. In 2005, he was appointed Prosecutor of the Spanish Supreme Court. Professor Castresana authored the formal complaint and subsequent reports in the Argentina Case and the Pinochet Case before the Spanish Audiencia Nacional. Professor Castresana serves as an expert in international legal cooperation and other issues in Europe and Latin America. He received the National Human Rights Award in Spain in 1997, and was awarded an Honorary Doctoral Degree from Guadalajara University, Mexico in 2003. He received his law degree from the Complutense University, Madrid, Spain.

 

Lucha Castro

Human rights lawyer from the Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (Center for Women’s Human Rights) in Chihuahua City, Mexico. She is also a legal advocate for Justicia para Nuestras Hijas (Justice for Our Daughters). She represents families of murdered women in the State of Chihuahua and also files the cases with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington DC, a commission that accused the Mexican government of violating the rights of victims and their families.

 

Norma Cruz

Norma Cruz is an activist for women’s human rights in Guatemala. She began her struggle for justice in 1999 as the result of her own personal experience in the case of her daughter Claudia María who was a victim of sexual violence. Deeply upsetting Guatemalan society, she and her supporters refused to keep silent and made public a reality that affects thousands of Guatemalan female children. Alter a long and dehumanizing legal process, a conviction was achieved in July of 2002, shattering with it the wall of impunity. During this legal process, Norma Cruz and her daughter established the Fundación Sobrevivientes (Survivors Foundation) and began to support hundreds of women who endure violence and seek justice. In July 2006, the Foundation opened the Centro de Atención, providing legal and psychological aid for these women. The Center’s shelter offers protection for women who are victims of intra-family violence and sexual violence, and provides support for families of women who are murdered. Their struggle is directed at bringing impunity to a halt and ending feminicide in Guatemala. In June of 2005, Norma Cruz was officially nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the campaign “A Thousand Women for a Nobel Peace Prize.” In Killer’s Paradise, a new Canadian documentary focusing on feminicide in Guatemala, she analyzes the links between the murders of women and the civil war in Guatemala.

 

Paula Flores

An activist in the community of Lomas de Poleo in Ciudad Juarez, she is the mother of María Sagrario González Flores, who disappeared on March 11, 1998 in Juarez and was murdered in April, 1998. Her daughter is one of over 400 women who have been disappeared and slain in Juarez over the past 13 years. Paula Flores runs the María Sagrario Foundation, an organization that established the kindergarten Jardín de Niños Ma. Sagrario González Flores in Juarez.

 

Rosa-Linda Fregoso

Professor and Chair of Latin American and Latino Studies, and Feminist Studies, at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Rosa-Linda Fregoso received the second annual MLA Prize in United States Latina and Latino and Chicana and Chicano Literary and Cultural Studies for her book MeXicana Encounters: The Making of Social Identities on the Borderlands. Her interests include human rights, visual culture and and transnational feminist studies. Among her publications on feminicide is the recent article “’We Want Them Alive!’: The Politics and Culture of Human Rights.” Along with Cynthia Bejarano, she is co-editing a book tentatively entitled, Gender Terrorism: Feminicides in the Américas.

 

Judith Galarza

Mexican activist Judith Galarza Campos joined the struggle for human rights as a result of the forced disappearance of her sister Leticia Galarza Campos in 1978. From 1982 to 1996, she was President of the Independent Committee for Human Rights in Juarez. She was also President of the Association of Relatives of Missing Detainees (AFADM) from 1996 to 2000. Currently she is the Executive Secretary of the Latin American Federation of Associations of Relatives of Missing Detainees (FEDEFAM), headquartered in Venezuela. FEDEFAM provides assistance to families of “disappeared people” in all of Latin America. She has been a promoter of several family groups, among them the Association of Missing Children in Mexico in the 1980s. She is currently completing the degree of licenciatura in Education in Venezuela. On July 24th, she will be awarded the Theodor Häcker Prize in Esslingen, Germany. Häcker worked as a writer and translator during the Nazi period and was part of the Catholic resistance. First awarded in 1995, this prize is dedicated to persons who defend human rights "honorably, with special political valor.”

 

Marcela Lagarde

Maria Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos is a Professor in the Graduate Program in Anthropology and Sociology as well as in the Degree Program in Gender and Development at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). She is also advisor to the Graduate Program in Gender Studies of the Guatemala Foundation and to the Program on Feminist Research at UNAM. She is the coordinator of the Casandra Workshops on feminist anthropology and advisor to the Gender Program of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research of UNAM. She is also the Secretary for the College of University Academics at UNAM, of which she became a member in 2002.

 

Marcela Lagarde is a major figure in Latin American feminism. She is the author of over one hundred articles and ten books. Her doctoral thesis, Los cautiverios de las mujeres: madresposas, monjas, putas, presas y locas (The captivities of women: mother-wives, nuns, prostitutes, prisoners and lunatics), has been reprinted a total of five times between 1990 and 2003. Her books examine topics such as the relationship between gender identity, feminism, human development and democracy; the relationship between ethnicity, gender and feminism; the theme of women’s power and autonomy; and feminist perspectives on love, self-concept, and the eve of the millennium.

 

Marcela Lagarde collaborates with feminist groups and women’s centers and institutes in Mexico, Latin America and Spain. She also works with organizations of international cooperation, labor unions and political parties focusing on women’s issues. She is a member of the Network of Researchers for the Life and Liberty of Women and other feminist networks. She is also a member of many editorial boards: of Hypatia, a collection of the Andalusian Institute for Women in Spain; of the journal Cuadernos Feministas, of the Editorial Series Diversidades Feministas published by the Center for Interdisciplinary Research at UNAM; and of the journal Pensamiento Iberoamericano, in Spain.

 

As to the topic that concerns us at this conference, it is Marcela Lagarde who coined the term “feminicide” to describe the situation in Juarez, Mexico. She has developed an analysis of what she calls “the politics of gender extermination” to examine the proliferation of violence in Mexico. Through her ideas, writings and activism, she wishes to leave an indelible mark on public policies.

 

Marcela Lagarde was a federal representative for the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) in the LIX Congress (2003-2006) and served as President of the Special Commission on Feminicide in the Republic of Mexico. It was the work of this Commission that disclosed that feminicide was not exclusive to Ciudad Juarez. Marcela Lagarde also promoted legislation establishing feminicide as a crime in the Federal Penal Code and helped pass the law Access to a Life Free of Violence for Women, which was established on February 2.

 

Marcela Lagarde is a member of the Mexican Academy on Human Rights (2006); of El Consejo Asesor del Centro de Formación Política Mujer y Ciudad, of the Diputación de Barcelona, España (2006); and of the Council to Prevent and Eradicate Discrimination in Mexico City (2006).

 

Among the many distinctions and honors Marcela Lagarde has received are the Maus Prize for the best doctoral thesis, the Medal of University Merit for 25 years of teaching at UNAM, and the Presea Águila Canacintra al Mérito Legislativo, awarded by the Cámara Nacional de la Industria de la Transformación in 2005. She also received the Omecíhuatl Medal in 2006. The Omecíhuatl Medal is awarded by the Women’s Institute of Mexico City to women who have distinguished themselves for their commitment, struggle and creativity and the defense of democracy. Also in 2006, she received the Hermila Galindo Prize from Mexico City’s Commission on Human Rights, for the defense of women’s human rights.

 

Miguel Méndez

Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law at Stanford University. After a litigation career in public interest law that included work for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and California Rural Legal Assistance, Miguel Méndez entered academia and has become a foremost expert, scholar, and teacher in the field of evidence law. An author of leading works on the laws of evidence in California, he writes about reforms in the federal and California evidence codes and on emerging issues in state substantive criminal law. He is a consultant to the California Law Revision Commission, a board member at Public Advocates, Inc., and an elected member of the American Law Institute.

 

Miguel David Meza Argueta

Falsely accused on July 14, 2003 and held for the murder of Neyra Azucena Cervantes by the judicial authorities in the city of Chihuahua, Mexico. The falseness of this accusation and incarceration was established by reports from Amnesty International, news articles, and testimonies from relatives of the murdered woman, including her mother, Sra. Patti Cervantes, who is also David’s aunt. After proving that Mexican authorities tortured him, he was set free in June 2006.

 

Paula Moya

Associate Professor in the English Department at Stanford University, Paula Moya served for three years as Director of the Undergraduate Program in CCSRE and as Chair of its Comparative Studies major. Her interests are Chicana/o cultural studies and feminist theory, incorporating 19th and 20th century American literatures, post-colonial literature and literary and cultural theory. Her main theoretical concern centers on the relationship between a subject's social location and her identity, and seeks to interrogate the epistemic and political consequences of social identity. For the past five years, she has been actively involved with the Future of Minority Studies research project (FMS), facilitating discussions about the democratizing role of minority identity and participation in a multicultural society.

 

Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi

Professor of the French and Comparative Literature Departments and Director of the Program in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University. Her fields are 20th-century French literature and Francophone literature from Africa and the Caribbean. Her interests include cultural relations between Europe, Africa and the Caribbean; travel writing; history and memory in literature; literature, intellectuals and society; and women writers. She recently served on the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association, where she represented the field of French.

 

Marisela Ortiz

Marisela Ortiz is the Director of Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (Our Daughters on Their Way Back Home), a non-profit organization composed of mothers, family members and friends of murdered women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. A psychologist with a Masters degree in special education, she has taught at the Escuela Normal Superior de Chihuahua for the past 20 years, specializing in professional development. She continues to work with adolescents and also trains middle school teachers in her entire region.

 

David Palumbo-Liu

Professor of Comparative Literature, Director of the Undergraduate Program in CCSRE, and Chair of CCSRE’s Comparative Studies major at Stanford University. His fields of interest include social and cultural criticism; literary theory and criticism; and East Asian and Pacific Asian American studies. His current project addresses the role of contemporary humanistic literature with regard to the instruments and discourses of globalization, seeking to discover modes of affiliation and transnational ethical thinking. Professor Palumbo-Liu is most interested in issues regarding social theory, community, justice, globalization, and the specific role that literature and the humanities play in helping us address each of these areas.

 

Elena Poniatowska Amor

Journalist and novelist, Elena Poniatowska is one of Latin America's most distinguished and innovative living writers. Many of her works have been translated into English, including Querido Diego te abraza Quiela (Dear Diego), Hasta no verte, Jesús mío (Here's to You, Jesusa!); Nada, Nadie. Las voces del temblor (Nothing, Nobody: The Voices of the Mexican Earthquake); Tinísima; La noche de Tlatelolco. Testimonios de historia oral (Massacre in Mexico) and La piel del cielo (The Skin of the Sky). Translations of her work also exist in Polish, Danish, French, Dutch, Italian and German. Elena Poniatowska advocates for women and the poor in their struggle for social and economic justice, denounces the repression of that struggle, and blurs the boundaries between conventional literary forms.

 

Born in Paris, Elena Poniatowska is of Mexican and French descent. Her father was a Frenchman whose family was originally from Poland. She moved to Mexico in 1942 and began her work as a journalist at the newspaper Excelsior in 1953, where she published daily interviews during an entire year under the name "Hélene.'' She interviewed Diego Rivera, Octavio Paz, William Golding, Barry Goldwater, Dolores del Río, Cantinflas, María Félix, Juan Rulfo, and Linus Pauling, among others. From Excelsior she went to Novedades, where she drew an audience who followed her because of her unpredictable texts. She is a founder and a contributor of the leftist newspaper La Jornada, and continues to contribute to its pages.

 

In 1954 she published her first novel, Lilus Kikus. Chronicler of the 1985 earthquake and of the Chiapas conflict, she continues to meld her journalistic and literary work. She published Tinísima in 1992, a novel about the life of Tina Modotti, which was as successful as her novel Hasta no verte Jesús mío, about the life of a soldadera, or camp follower. Her next novel, La piel del cielo, won the Premio Alfaguara in 2001 and the prize for the best novel in Spanish awarded by the government of China. In 2004, Alfaguara published her novel El tren pasa primero, which brought to life the struggle of railroad workers and led to the reconstruction of railway stations in many parts of Mexico. During a 35-year period, she led a literary workshop that produced writers such as Silvia Molina, Guadalupe Loaeza y Rosa Nissan.

 

When Luis Echevarría, who had been Secretary of State during the massacre of 1968, was elected president, he awarded the Xavier Urrutia Literary Prize to Elena Poniatowska in 1971 for her book La noche de Tlatelolco. She rejected the prize asking who was going to award prizes to the dead.

 

She has been awarded many honorary doctoral degrees: by the University of Sinaloa, the University of Toluca, Columbia University and Manhattanville College in New York, Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, and the University of Pau in France. She is the only woman who has received the Mazatlán Prize in Literature on two occasions, and in 1979, she was the first woman to receive the National Prize for Journalism. In 1993, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and received the Gabriela Mistral Medal in Chile in 1997. She holds the rank of official in the French Legion of Honor, and in 2004 she received the Mary Moors Cabot Prize for Outstanding Work in Journalism. In 2006 the International Women’s Media Foundation awarded her the Courage in Journalism Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to these she has received many other prizes and awards.

 

Elena Poniatowska dedicates a good part of her life to writing novels, short stories, poems, articles, interviews, prologues, and book presentations. She was married to Dr. Guillermo Haro, the founder of modern astronomy in Mexico. She has three children, the oldest of whom is a scientist, and ten grandchildren. She lives in Chimalistac with 13 canaries and an unending line of visitors.

 

Lourdes Portillo

Lourdes Portillo was born in Chihuahua, Mexico and moved to the United States in 1960. Her films focus on the representation of Latina/o identity, human rights, social justice and Latin American realities. An equally important aspect of her filmmaking is experimenting with the documentary form. Her most recent film, Señorita Extraviada (Missing young woman), released in 2002, is a documentary about the disappearance and death of young women in Juarez and the search for truth and justice by their families and human rights groups. It received a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, the Best Documentary Prize at the Havana International Film Festival, and the Néstor Almendros Prize at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. It premiered on P.O.V. and received more than 20 prizes and awards around the world. The film inspired a number of governmental and non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International to conduct intensive investigations into the disappearances and murders of women in Juárez. Lourdes Portillo made her first film, a dramatic short called After the Earthquake, in 1979. Some of the other documentary, dramatic, experimental and performance films and videos she has made are the Academy Award-nominated Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (1986); La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead (1988); Vida (1989); Columbus on Trial (1992); Mirrors of the Heart for the PBS series “Americas” (1993); The Devil Never Sleeps (1994); Sometimes My Feet Go Numb; 13 Days, a multi-media piece for a nationally toured play by the San Francisco Mime Troupe (1997); and Corpus (1999), a documentary about the late Tejana singer Selena.

 

Kris Samuelson

Professor in the Art and Art History Department at Stanford, where she is Director of the Film and Media Studies Program and the Documentary Film and Video MFA Program. She has also been a Professor in the Department of Communication, where she served as Chair from 2000-2003. Kris Samuelson has been an independent producer for twenty-eight years and was nominated for an Academy Award for her film Arthur and Lillie. She has received artist's fellowships from the NEA and the California Arts Council and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. From 1999-2006, Samuelson served on the Board of the Independent Television Service. Samuelson recently completed .Point 25, a multimedia concert and co-production with colleagues in Stockholm.

 

Rita Laura Segato

Professor of Anthropology at the University of Brasilia in Brazil, Rita Segato directs the National Research Council of Brazil’s research group on anthropology and human rights. She is also the project director for the non-government organization AGENDE, Ações em Gênero, Cidadania e Desenvolvimento ((Measures in Gender, Citizenship and Development). As part of her work on human rights, she was the co-author of the first affirmative action proposal for the inclusion of students of African and indigenous background in Brazilian higher education.

 

Her study on ethno-psychology and the construction of gender in the Yoruba religious tradition in Recife, Brazil was published in the book Santos e Daimones. O politeísmo afro-brasileiro e a tradição arquetipal (Saints and demons. African-Brazilian polytheism and the archetypal tradition), a second edition of which came out in 2005. A chapter from this book was translated and published as "Inventing Nature: Family, Sex and Gender In the Xango Cult" in 1997. Her essay “Gender, Politics, and Hybridism in the Transnationalization of the Yorùbá Culture” is included in the volume Òrìsà Devotion as World Religion to be published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

 

She has also carried out a comparative study of emerging political identities and multiculturalism within the United States, Brazil and Argentina. This study led to the publication in 2007 of the volume La Nación y sus Otros. Raza, etnicidad y diversidad religiosa en tiempos de Políticas de la Identidad (The nation and its Others: race, ethnicity and religious diversity in times of Identity Politics). Two of the articles included in this volume were published in English as "The Color-Blind Subject of Myth; or, Where to find Africa in the Nation" in 1998 and "Frontiers and Margins: The Untold Story of the Afro-Brazilian Religious Expansion to Argentina and Uruguay" in 1996.

 

Rita Segato carried out an extensive investigation among inmates convicted for sexual crimes in the city in which she resides, and published a book on gender and violence entitled Las estructuras elementales de la violencia (The elemental structures of violence) in 2003. In 2006 the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana published her essay “La escritura en el cuerpo de las mujeres asesinadas en Ciudad Juárez. Territorio, soberanía y crímenes de Segundo Estado” (Writing on the body of the murdered women of Juarez: Territory, sovereignty and crimes of the Second State). Her understanding of prison reality is the subject of her article “El sistema penal como pedagogía de la irresponsabilidad y el proyecto ‘habla preso: el derecho humano a la palabra en la cárcel’” (The penal system as a pedagogy of irresponsibility and the project prisoner talk: the right to speech in jail), accessible on the website of the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas, Austin (http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/etext/llilas/cpa/spring03/culturaypaz/segato.pdf). Also part of this series of articles is “El color de la cárcel en América Latina. Apuntes sobre la colonialidad de la justicia en un continente en desconstrucción” (The color of jail in Latin America. Notes toward the coloniality of justice in a continent in the process of deconstruction).

 

Rita Segato is one of the most renowned experts on the subject of feminicide. Her most recent study is entitled “What is feminicide? Notes toward an Emerging Debate,” in which she argues that feminicide should be considered a special category of crimes against humanity in order to bring greater pressure on governments and international jurists to include it among the crimes prosecuted by the International Criminal Court of The Hague.

 

She has been an invited researcher at the Institute for Research in the Humanities of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in the Department of Anthropology at Rice University in Houston, and a Visiting Professor at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

 

Irene Simmons

Artist, university educator, activist and creator of the art installation “ReDressing Injustice.” The “Redressing Injustice” project brings public awareness to the hundreds of unsolved murders perpetrated against women living in Juarez, Mexico. The installation features over 400 dresses hanging on pink crosses that commemorate the victims of feminicide and protest the absence of justice in Juarez. Creatively transformed dresses are continually added to this collaborative endeavor by community members in the areas where the installation is shown. The installation has been featured at political rallies, social justice forums, and memorial events both nationally and internationally since 2003.

 

Guadalupe Valdés

Bonnie Katz Tenenbaum Professor in the School of Education and Professor in the Spanish and Portuguese Department at Stanford University. She works in the areas of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics. Much of Guadalupe Valdés’ work has focused on the English-Spanish bilingualism of Latinas and Latinos in the United States and on discovering and describing how two languages are developed, used, and maintained by individuals who become bilingual in immigrant communities. Her interests include language diversity; bilinguals and bilingualism; heritage languages among minority populations; and the teaching of Spanish to Hispanic bilinguals and monolingual speakers of English.

 

Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano

Professor in the Spanish and Portuguese Department and Chair of the Chicana/o Studies Program in CCSRE at Stanford University. Her interests include queer studies and feminist theories, and the confluence of race, gender and sexuality in cultural representations across a variety of media, especially with respect to imaginings of home, nation and family. Since 1994 she has been developing the digital archive Chicana Art, a database of images and information featuring women artists. She will offer a course on the films of Lourdes Portillo in Fall 2007.

 

Gwenda Yuzicappi

Standing Buffalo First Nation member and mother of 19-year-old missing Amber Redman, who disappeared in rural Saskatchewan, Canada on July 15, 2005. Her case was featured in "Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence against Indigenous Women in Canada," a report released by Amnesty International that addresses the disproportionate number of First Nations women who have been abducted, and how these severe felonies have not been deemed a priority by numerous police forces.

 

Copyright 2007, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, all rights reserved.

 

FEMINICIDE = SANCTIONED MURDER

ccsre.stanford.edu/feminicide/index.html

GUM (Russian: ГУМ, pronounced [gum], an abbreviation of Russian: Главный универсальный магазин, romanized: Glavnyy universalnyy magazin, lit. 'Main Universal Store') is the main department store in many cities of the former Soviet Union, known as State Department Store (Russian: Государственный универсальный магазин, romanized: Gosudarstvennyy universalnyy magazin) during the Soviet era (until 1991). Similarly named stores operated in some Soviet republics and in post-Soviet states.

 

The most famous GUM is the large store facing Red Square in the Kitai-gorod area – itself traditionally a mall of Moscow. Originally, and today again, the building functions as a shopping mall. During most of the Soviet period it was essentially a department store as there was one vendor: the Soviet State. Before the 1920s the location was known as the Upper Trading Rows (Russian: Верхние торговые ряды, romanized: Verkhniye Torgovyye Ryady).

 

As of 2021, GUM carries over 100 different brands,[1] and has cafes and restaurants inside the mall.

 

Moscow GUM

Design and structure

With the façade extending for 242 m (794 ft) along the eastern side of Red Square, the Upper Trading Rows were built between 1890 and 1893 by Alexander Pomerantsev (responsible for architecture) and Vladimir Shukhov (responsible for engineering). The trapezoidal building features a combination of elements of Russian medieval architecture and a steel framework and glass roof, a similar style to the great 19th-century railway stations of London. William Craft Brumfield described the GUM building as "a tribute both to Shukhov's design and to the technical proficiency of Russian architecture toward the end of the 19th century".

 

The glass-roofed design made the building unique at the time of construction. The roof, the diameter of which is 14 m (46 ft), looks light, but it is a firm construction made of more than 50,000 metal pods (about 743 t (819 short tons)), capable of supporting snowfall accumulation. Illumination is provided by huge arched skylights of iron and glass, each weighing some 740 t (820 short tons) and containing in excess of 20,000 panes of glass. The facade is divided into several horizontal tiers, lined with red Finnish granite, Tarusa marble, and limestone. Each arcade is on three levels, linked by walkways of reinforced concrete.

 

History

Catherine II of Russia commissioned Giacomo Quarenghi, a Neoclassical architect from Italy, to design a huge trade area along the east side of Red Square. However, that building was lost to the 1812 Fire of Moscow and replaced by trading rows designed by Joseph Bove. In turn, the current structure opened in 1894, replacing Bove's.

 

By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the building contained some 1,200 stores. After the Revolution, GUM was nationalized. During the NEP period (1921–28), however, GUM as a State Department Store operated as a model retail enterprise for consumers throughout Russia regardless of class, gender, and ethnicity. GUM's stores were used to further Bolshevik goals of rebuilding private enterprise along socialist lines and "democratizing consumption for workers and peasants nationwide". In the end, GUM's efforts to build communism through consumerism were unsuccessful and arguably "only succeeded in alienating consumers from state stores and instituting a culture of complaint and entitlement".

 

GUM continued to be used as a department store until Joseph Stalin converted it into office space in 1928 for the committee in charge of his first Five Year Plan.[4] After the suicide of Stalin's wife Nadezhda in 1932, the GUM was used briefly to display her body.

 

After reopening as a department store in 1953, GUM became one of the few stores in the Soviet Union that did not have shortages of consumer goods, and the queues of shoppers were long, often extending entirely across Red Square.

 

Several times during the 1960s and 1970s, the Second Secretary of the Communist Party Mikhail Suslov, who hated having a department store facing Lenin's Mausoleum, tried to convert GUM into an exhibition hall and museum showcasing the achievements of the Soviet Union and Communism, without the knowledge of General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. Each time, however, Brezhnev was tipped off and put a stop to such plans.

 

At the end of the Soviet era, GUM was partially, then fully, privatized, and it had a number of owners before it ended up being owned by the supermarket company Perekrestok. In May 2005, a 50.25% interest was sold to Bosco di Ciliegi, a Russian luxury goods distributor and boutique operator. As a private shopping mall, it was renamed in such a fashion that it could maintain its old acronym. The first word Gosudarstvennyi ("state") has been replaced with Glavnyi ("main"), so that GUM is now an abbreviation for "Main Universal Store".

 

Red Square (Russian: Красная площадь, romanized: Krasnaya ploshchad', IPA: [ˈkrasnəjə ˈploɕːɪtʲ]) is one of the oldest and largest squares in Moscow, the capital of Russia. It is located in Moscow's historic centre, in the eastern walls of the Kremlin. It is the city's most prominent landmark, with famous buildings such as Saint Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's Mausoleum and the GUM department store. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990. Red Square has been the scene of executions, demonstrations, riots, parades, and speeches. Almost 800,000 square feet (73,000 square metres), it lies directly east of the Kremlin and north of the Moskva River. A moat that separated the square from the Kremlin was paved over in 1812.

 

Moscow is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million residents within the city limits, over 18.8 million residents in the urban area, and over 21.5 million residents in the metropolitan area. The city covers an area of 2,511 square kilometers (970 sq mi), while the urban area covers 5,891 square kilometers (2,275 sq mi), and the metropolitan area covers over 26,000 square kilometers (10,000 sq mi). Moscow is among the world's largest cities, being the most populous city entirely in Europe, the largest urban and metropolitan area in Europe, and the largest city by land area on the European continent.

 

First documented in 1147, Moscow grew to become a prosperous and powerful city that served as the capital of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. When the Tsardom of Russia was proclaimed, Moscow remained the political and economic center for most of its history. Under the reign of Peter the Great, the Russian capital was moved to the newly founded city of Saint Petersburg in 1712, diminishing Moscow's influence. Following the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Russian SFSR, the capital was moved back to Moscow in 1918, where it later became the political center of the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Moscow remained the capital city of the newly established Russian Federation.

 

The northernmost and coldest megacity in the world, Moscow is governed as a federal city, where it serves as the political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe. As an alpha world city, Moscow has one of the world's largest urban economies. The city is one of the fastest-growing tourist destinations in the world, and is one of Europe's most visited cities. Moscow is home to the sixth-highest number of billionaires of any city in the world. The Moscow International Business Center is one of the largest financial centers in Europe and the world, and features the majority of Europe's tallest skyscrapers. Moscow was the host city of the 1980 Summer Olympics, and one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

 

As the historic core of Russia, Moscow serves as the home of numerous Russian artists, scientists, and sports figures due to the presence of its various museums, academic and political institutions, and theaters. The city is home to several UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is well known for its display of Russian architecture, particularly its historic Red Square, and buildings such as the Saint Basil's Cathedral and the Moscow Kremlin, of which the latter serves as the seat of power of the Government of Russia. Moscow is home to many Russian companies in numerous industries and is served by a comprehensive transit network, which includes four international airports, ten railway terminals, a tram system, a monorail system, and most notably the Moscow Metro, the busiest metro system in Europe, and one of the largest rapid transit systems in the world. The city has over 40 percent of its territory covered by greenery, making it one of the greenest cities in the world.

 

Russia (Russian: Россия, romanized: Rossiya), or the Russian Federation,[b] is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the largest country in the world by area, extending across eleven time zones. It shares land boundaries with fourteen countries.[c] It is the world's ninth-most populous country and Europe's most populous country. The country's capital as well as its largest city is Moscow. Saint Petersburg is Russia's second-largest city and cultural capital. Other major urban areas in the country include Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, Krasnodar and Rostov-on-Don.

 

The East Slavs emerged as a recognised group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries CE. The first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus', arose in the 9th century, and in 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Rus' ultimately disintegrated, with the Grand Duchy of Moscow growing to become the Tsardom of Russia. By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers, developing into the Russian Empire, which remains the third-largest empire in history. However, with the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia's monarchic rule was abolished and eventually replaced by the Russian SFSR—the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Following the Russian Civil War, the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union with three other Soviet republics, within which it was the largest and principal constituent. At the expense of millions of lives, the Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialisation in the 1930s and later played a decisive role for the Allies in World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front. With the onset of the Cold War, it competed with the United States for global ideological influence. The Soviet era of the 20th century saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements, including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space.

 

In 1991, the Russian SFSR emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the independent Russian Federation. A new constitution was adopted, which established a federal semi-presidential system. Since the turn of the century, Russia's political system has been dominated by Vladimir Putin, under whom the country has experienced democratic backsliding and a shift towards authoritarianism. Russia has been militarily involved in a number of conflicts in former Soviet states and other countries, including its war with Georgia in 2008 and annexation of Crimea in 2014 from neighbouring Ukraine, followed by the further annexation of four other regions in 2022 during an ongoing invasion.

 

Internationally, Russia ranks among the lowest in measurements of democracy, human rights and freedom of the press; the country also has high levels of perceived corruption. The Russian economy ranks 11th by nominal GDP, relying heavily on its abundant natural resources, and 68th by GDP per capita. Its mineral and energy sources are the world's largest, and its figures for oil production and natural gas production rank highly globally. Russia possesses the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and has the third-highest military expenditure. The country is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council; a member state of the G20, SCO, BRICS, APEC, OSCE, and WTO; and the leading member state of post-Soviet organisations such as CIS, CSTO, and EAEU/EEU. Russia is home to 30 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

СССР (Союз Советских Социалистических Республик ) is a Russian (Cyrillic) abbreviation for the Soviet Union.

 

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik) abbreviated to USSR (Russian: СССР, tr. SSSR) or the Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), was a constitutionally communist state that existed between 1922 and 1991, ruled as a single-party state by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital. A union of multiple subnational Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized.

 

The Soviet Union had its roots in the Russian Revolution of 1917, which deposed the imperial autocracy. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, then overthrew the Provisional Government. The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic was established and the Russian Civil War began. The Red Army entered several territories of the former Russian Empire and helped local communists seize power. In 1922, the Bolsheviks were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian republics. Following Lenin's death in 1924, a troika collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism and initiated a centrally planned economy. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialisation and collectivisation which laid the basis for its later war effort and dominance after World War II. However, Stalin repressed both Communist Party members and elements of the population through his authoritarian rule.

 

During the first phase of World War II, Soviet Union used the opportunity to acquire territories in Eastern Europe adjacent to Nazi Germany, its satellites, and their occupied territories. Later in 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of war in history and violating an earlier non-aggression pact between the two countries. The Soviet Union suffered the largest loss of life in the war, but halted the Axis advance at intense battles such as that at Stalingrad, eventually driving through Eastern Europe and capturing Berlin in 1945. Having played a decisive role in the Allied victory in Europe, the Soviet Union established the Eastern Bloc in much of Central and Eastern Europe and emerged as one of the world's two superpowers after the war. Together with these new satellite states, through which the Soviet Union established economic and military pacts, it became involved in the Cold War, a prolonged ideological and political struggle against the Western Bloc, led by the other superpower, the United States.

 

A de-Stalinization period followed Stalin's death, reducing the harshest aspects of society. The Soviet Union then went on to initiate significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including launching the first ever satellite and world's first human spaceflight, which led it into the Space Race. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis marked a period of extreme tension between the two superpowers, considered the closest to a mutual nuclear confrontation. In the 1970s, a relaxation of relations followed, but tensions resumed with Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The occupation drained economic resources and dragged on without achieving meaningful political results.

 

In the late 1980s the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, also sought reforms in the Union, introducing the policies of glasnost and perestroika in an attempt to end the period of economic stagnation and democratize the government. However, this led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements. Central authorities initiated a referendum, boycotted by the Baltic republics and Georgia, which resulted in the majority of participating citizens voting in favour of preserving the Union as a renewed federation. In August 1991, a coup d'état was attempted by hardliners against Gorbachev, with the intention of reversing his moderate policies. The coup failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a high-profile role in facing down the coup but resulted in the restoration of the Baltic states. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the remaining 12 constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states. The Russian Federation, successor of the Russian SFSR, assumed the Soviet Union's rights and obligations and is recognised as its continued legal personality [Wikipedia.org]

The Chin tattooed women live in the Chin, Rakhine and Arakan states in northwestern Myanmar. The origin of facial tattoos in the region is unknown. Some believe that the practice began during the reigns of Kings long ago. The royalty used to come to the villages to capture young women. The men from the tribe may have tattooed their women to make them ugly, thereby saving them from a life of slavery. Interestingly, I heard a similar origin for body modification among the Mursi tribe in Ethiopia. As legend has it, the tribeswomen began wearing giant lip plates to make them uglier to would-be kidnappers. Now, the bigger the lip plate the higher the bride price.

For years, access to the tribal Mindat area was restricted by the burmese government. It was opened just two years ago. Only about 700 tourists visit per year. Most of them only visit the bucolic Mount Victoria by bus, never meeting the tattooed women who remain isolated, hours away by foot. Those who do wish to meet them better pack good walking shoes and be prepared to sleep in smoke-filled local houses complete with rats.

There are a few different face tattoo patterns. The spiderweb tattoo is popular in the Mrauk U region. It takes a three hour long tail boat ride to reach this remote area. This tattoo is usually accompanied by a circle in the center of the forehead which represents the sun or lines under the nose symbolizing tiger whiskers.

Another design, known as the bee pattern, is common in the Mindat area. It is composed of dots, lines and occasionally circles. It is worn by the Muun tribe who inhabit the hills of the Arakan state.

The Magan tribeswomen wear huge earrings made of beads and calabashes. They can also play the flute with their noses.

I ventured to Kanpelet village in search of the women from the U Pu tribe who have the incredibly rare whole face tattoo. This is one of the most impressive styles: the entire face is inked up. Rumors had it that only three women in this area had the tattoo. After hours of off roading, I arrive in the village only to learn that one died recently and another was very ill. I was lucky enough to meet Pa Late. At 85, she is nearly deaf but still works hard with her family in a small house on the top of a little hill.

Pa Late said that a completely black face had become a symbol of beauty in the past. The few women who refused to do it looked ugly to the men. The tattoo took three days but the pain lasted over a month.

There are two ways to make the tattoo needle. The first consists of tying three pieces of bamboo together and the second uses thorns. The ink is a mixture of cow bile, soot, plants, and pig fat. It usually took one day to complete the standard tattoo and a few more for the totally black one. The tattoo artist was a specialist or in some cases a parent. Infection was a common problem as the girls had blood all over their face.

Everything, including the eyelids, was tattooed. Many women say that the neck was the most sensitive area.

Ma Aung Seim shared her memories of the tattoo sessions : “I was 10 years old. The day before the tattoo ceremony, I only ate sugarcane and drank tea. It was forbidden to eat meat or peanuts. During the tattoo session, I cried a lot, but I could not move at all. After the session, my face bled for 3 days. It was very painful. My mother put fresh beans leaves on my face to alleviate the pain. I had no choice if i wanted to get married. Men wanted women with tattoos at this time. My mother told me that without a tattoo on my face, i would look like... a man! The web drawn on my face attracted the men like a spiderweb catches insects!”

Not all the tattooed women live in remote areas deep in the mountains. Some have integrated into modern society. Miss Heu, 67, lives in Kanpelet. Her grandmother forced her to get tattooed. She lives in a modern house and even has TV (when electricity is not out). Chin people have maintained their modesty and shyness: when a movie showspeople kissing or making love, most of them still fast forward the scene.

As a leader in the local community, Miss Heu had the chance to meet Aung San Suu Kyi when she came in the area for a meeting. She is very aware of the tattooed women and the ethnicities that are forgotten by the central government. She says she and Aung San Suu Kyi are friends now. Heu’s daughter has graduated and works in Singapore.

The Chin culture is threatened by the government as their teachers are usually not Chin. For a long time, they fought for independence, but since the country began to democratize, things have calmed down.

“I am old. Soon I will die” says to me a Chin woman from Pan Baung village, while she does the gesture of drying tears from her eyes. In her village, only 6 tattooed woman remain alive. Those women are the last of their kind…

 

© Eric Lafforgue

www.ericlafforgue.com

Cluny Museum - Temporary Exhibition: Glass, an inventive Middle Ages

From September 20, 2017 to January 8, 2018.

 

The glass is, in the Middle Ages, the object of a real fascination. The exhibition traces ten centuries of an unknown creative abundance.

If they draw their inspiration from Antiquity or Islamic productions, master glassmakers also develop virtuosic techniques, such as Venetians, famous for enamelled goblets or craftsmen in the north of France, who develop the first glasses to rod.

 

From architecture, where the stained glass testifies to the virtuosity of craftsmen, to the most prestigious tables, glass is a luxury product. Over the centuries, it gradually democratizes in the form of civilian glazing or tavern cups.

But glass is also the precision work of service: urinals enable physicians to diagnose, stills used by apothecaries, mirrors that help reading - just like the glasses, which make their appearance in the late 13 th century .

 

The exhibition "The Glass, an inventive Middle Ages" features some 230 works with illuminations, paintings and engravings, which help us understand the uses of glass throughout the medieval period.

 

www.musee-moyenage.fr/activites/expositions/expositions-e...

A dirty wind

Copyright 2005 Ron Diorio

 

Three shows: London and New York (2x)

 

October 7-30 I will be one of five artists in a group show.

 

Positive Focus Gallery: Soul Witness

(selections from Anytown)

111 Front Street

Gallery #215

DUMBO, Brooklyn

 

positivefocus.org/Shows/soul_witness/diorio/index.html

 

I will be at the Gallery Oct 14-16 and Oct 23 showing additional work as part of the Art under the bridge Festival and Open Studio weekends.

 

Extended through October 17th!

Anytown (Solo show)

The Economist Tower

26 St. James's Street

London SW1A 1HG

 

Download the Anytown PDF

www.rondiorio.com/anytown.pdf

 

I will be participating in:

BLOGS: An exhibition of photoblogs

NYC Exposition, Puerto Rico Sun, and East Harlem.

October 14 – November 26, 2005

nycexposition.blogspot.com/

Viewing: Tuesday – Saturday, 3PM – 7PM

 

The contributor's were asked to answer some questions......

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Tell me a little bit about you.

 

Ron Diorio (av_producer) in Manhattan for life.

 

Why do you enjoy photography?

 

My old Nikon FM collects dust on my dresser becuase the digital darkroom transformed what I had come to know as photography. It moved me from picture taking to image making. Now the only real "photographic" moment is the end stage of the manufacturing process when a Digital C-print is pulled. For me it has been important to have the "photographic" in the making of the object while disregarding the "photographic" in the image making process. So in a traditional sense, for me, there's not much photography to enjoy.

 

What I do enjoy is where image making intersects with storytelling - you frame the world - frame a point of view. In some ways "view finder" better describes what it is. The really emancipating thing has been to find/seek/uncover the authentic - the essence of the emotional connection in the image without the "view" being my truth or something close to me. I'm always chasing that both in my own work and when I'm looking at other's work.

 

What's your photo style, technique...?

 

When I first posted on Fotolog in June 2003, I called my page "A photographic imagination". I had just read Sontag's On Photography and I wanted to put a marker down that these images should not be viewed as documents - they were manipulated and as such the images were not representative but representational.

 

I was also beginning to undestand how pixel based display was a great democratizer - all these screen images were made of the same substance. A Picasso painting, a DaVinci drawing, a deep space image form the Hubble Telescope or an Ansel Adams photograph were certainly different objects in the real world but on the screen they were just a collection of pixels. The playing field was leveled, the image content would be judged on it's own aesthetic and against every other image that could be displayed. The eye would decide.

 

From the start I wanted to give people something to think about - but not as a message or a lesson or a meaning. I think I lacked the confidence to articulate that early on. But it is there like the manipulation is as part of my whole apporach. I want the viewer active to "look into the image" rather than just looking at the image.

  

What camera do you use?

 

I am not an equipment geek. If the device captures images without a flash, has a memory card I can read and a charged battery I'd probably use it. I don't need a perfect capture, I want to make a capture perfect.

 

Why do you share you photoblog on flickr?

 

I use Flickr to publish my images because Fotolog crapped out so many times it wasn't worth the aggravation anymore. Both Flickr and Fotolog are distribution points and provide a publication platform and an audience. I want an audience. Of course this serves two masters because I can move easliy from presenter to an audience to being part of the audience.

 

What about it do you like?

 

At the point where I was searching for a way of working - first Fotolog and then Flickr gave me a daily production and publishing structure and a format to see a body of work developing.

 

It allows me to be prolific without purpose and organically find threads in the work. The dark side is that there is such a need to get the next image - almost an obligation. I realize this is a product of my own need for immediate gratification. I tend to ration the published images to one per day. The sheer volume of images posted on both of these services is a stark reminder of how insignificant any single image can be. It is quite intimidating.

 

I am always surprised by what people connect to in an individual image, what they are moved by. I am starting to sense a bond. It is not just that I said something nice about their picture or made them a contact so they'll say something nice about mine. There is something we have in common, something they know and I know.

 

Why did you want to take part in the NYC Exposition?

 

I read Dylan's Chronicles earlier in the year and just saw Scorcese's "Don't look back" yesterday and "California Dreaming" earlier this week. Aside from their specific topics of Dylan and the Mammas and the Pappas they documented the NY Folk scene in the early 60's. The creativity and mutual influences that so many of those artists had on each other strikes a similar chord to those of us who have watched each other's work over the last two years on Fotolog and Flickr. I see this as a festival of those visual efforts and would feel I missed something important if I weren't participating. Also with some of my favorites already participating I feel fortunate to have the honor of our work sitting together.

 

Coming off three traditional exhibitions of my "Anytown" series, I look forward to presenting some work from a new collection in its original digital format.

 

Anymore about you that I didn't ask.

 

This essay was published recently about "Anytown" and may be of interest.

 

www.rondiorio.com/taylor.pdf

Photography democratizes the process of identity building. Through it, we cement and convey messages about how we perceive ourselves and how we expect to be perceived by others. These works are part of a project that involves the decontextualization of images found on Grindr and other gay dating apps. By eliminating everything but the body, I put the focus on the semiotics of self-objectification. My aim is to incite conversation around the dichotomies of hegemonic values: femininity and masculinity; private and public; gay and straight; real and virtual.

 

www.jaysonedwardcarter.com

It's good be investing in Naveen Rao and team again! I led the first investment in his last company, Nervana, which Intel soon acquired and promoted Naveen to run all AI teams at Intel. He left to help democratize corporate access to cutting edge machine learning across cost-effective cloud compute platforms.

 

His new company, MosaicML came out of stealth today: founder's blog & Forbes: "Given the increasing cost and environmental impact of AI computation, his timing may be perfect once again. Rao believes he and his team can spread a revolution in training AI models by offering model optimization as a service."

 

In short, Mosaic improves ML training efficiency algorithmically. By integrating the latest advances from academia and industry and testing on diverse hardware platforms, their mosaic of methods has already seen a 4x improvement in the price/performance of training. We expect Mosaic’s Law to continue for the near future, where learning/$ quadruples every year.

 

Mosaic’s first tools for the ML community are the open-source Composer and Efficiency Explorer to visualize the tradeoffs between cost, time, and quality in training neural nets. This will lead to training tools and optimizers that are cross-cloud and hardware agnostic.

 

Our group photo is from the all hands team meeting at SF office opening.

 

P.S. The improvement of algorithms outpacing Moore’s Law reminds me of conversations I had with Jesse Levinson, co-founder of Zoox, about computer chess: the improvements to Stockfish algorithms outpaced hardware improvements over 2014-2017. And 10 years earlier, in 2007, Geordie Rose, co-founder of D-Wave, gave a more stark comparison from the domain of factoring integers: the latest algorithm running on a 30-yr old Apple ][ would beat the 30-year old algorithm running on an IBM Blue Gene/L (the supercomputer of the day). And in quantum computing, algorithmics advances are so important, they carry the names of their inventors (Shor, Grover, etc.).

 

And from OpenAI last year: "We’re releasing an analysis showing that since 2012 the amount of compute needed to train a neural net to the same performance on ImageNet classification has been decreasing by a factor of 2 every 16 months. Compared to 2012, it now takes 44 times less compute to train a neural network to the level of AlexNet (by contrast, Moore’s Law would yield an 11x cost improvement over this period). Our results suggest that for AI tasks with high levels of recent investment, algorithmic progress has yielded more gains than classical hardware efficiency."

The plastic and tin cost more than the gold diamonds and rubies. Young people, just don’t. Aesthetics don’t matter. It’s like democratizing hip hop for white boys in Detroit. Your just never cool where you are.

Chenggong (chinesisch 成功鎮, Pinyin Chénggōng Zhèn) ist eine Stadtgemeinde im Landkreis Taitung auf Taiwan (Republik China).

Inhaltsverzeichnis

 

1 Name

2 Lage, Klima

3 Bevölkerung

4 Wirtschaft

5 Sehenswürdigkeiten

6 Weblinks

7 Einzelnachweise

 

Name

 

Am Ort des heutigen Chenggong befand sich ursprünglich eine Siedlung der Amis, eines der indigenen Völker Taiwans. Der Ami-Name der Ansiedlung wurde chinesisch 麻荖漏, Moalaulau transkribiert. Während der japanischen Herrschaft über Taiwan 1895 bis 1945 wurde ein Fischereihafen erbaut und die Siedlung erhielt den Namen 新港街 (Shinkō machi, „Neue Hafenstadt“).[1] Nach der Übergabe Taiwans an die Republik China 1945 hieß der Ort Xingang (新港, „Neuer Hafen“, die chinesische Aussprache bei identischen Schriftzeichen). Da es noch zwei weitere Orte dieses Namens auf Taiwan gab (Xingang im Landkreis Chiayi sowie Sinkang - heute als Sinshih ein Stadtdistrikt von Tainan), wurde die Gemeinde nach 1945 umbenannt. Sie erhielt zu Ehren des chinesischen Eroberers Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) den Namen Chenggong (成功). Wörtlich bedeutet dies „Erfolg“. Chenggong Zhèn (成功鎮) ist damit gewissermaßen die „Stadt des Erfolges“ oder die „Erfolgreiche Stadt“.

Lage, Klima

 

Die Gemeinde besteht aus einem langgestreckten Küstenstreifen, der zum Landesinneren hin durch das parallel zur Küste verlaufende Haian-Gebirge getrennt wird. Das Klima ist feucht-warm und wie das des ganzen übrigen Landkreises Taitung durch den Monsun geprägt. Die Regenzeit beginnt im Mai und endet im Oktober.[2]

ChenggongKlimadiagr

 

Nachbargemeinden sind Changbin im Norden, Fuli (Landkreis Hualien) im Westen, und Donghe im Südwesten und Süden. Chenggong ist in die folgenden acht Stadtteile unterteilt: Xinyi (信義里), Heping (和平里), Zhongren (忠仁里), Zhongzhi (忠智里), Sanmin (三民里), Sanxian (三仙里), Zhongxiao (忠孝里), Boai (博愛里).

Gliederung von Chenggong

 

Chenggong villages.svg

Boai

博愛里

Zhongxiao

忠孝里

Sanxian

三仙里

Sanmin

三民里

Zhongzhi

忠智里

Zhongren

忠仁里

Heping

和平里

Xinyi

信義里

Bevölkerung

 

Archäologische Funde weisen auf eine menschliche Besiedlung seit einigen Jahrtausenden hin. An einigen Orten finden sich Relikte der jungsteinzeitlichen Changbin-Kultur. Die Örtlichkeit Xiaoma gehört neben Baxiandong in der Nachbargemeinde Changbin zu den wichtigsten Fundstätten.[3][4] Die Mehrheit (etwa 50-60 %) der heutigen Bevölkerung gehört der Ethnie der Amis an. Die traditionelle Ami-Volkskunst und Folklore spielt dementsprechend eine bedeutende Rolle.[5] Die nach offiziellen Erhebungen in Chenggong im Jahr 2010 zu Hause gesprochenen Sprachen waren: 82 % Hochchinesisch, 55 % Hokkien, 42 % indigene Sprachen, 2 % Hakka und 2 % andere. Ein Großteil der Bevölkerung war mehrsprachig.[6] Die Bevölkerung nimmt seit mindestens den 1980er Jahren aufgrund von Abwanderung und Überalterung ab.[7]

Wirtschaft

 

Chenggong ist der bedeutendste Fischereihafen an der Ostküste Taiwans.[8] Hauptsächlich werden Echter Bonito, Schwertfisch, Goldmakrelen (Mahi mahi), Thunfische und Dorsche gefangen.[5] Durch langdauernde Überfischung sind die Fangerträge in der Vergangenheit kontinuierlich zurückgegangen. Landwirtschaftliche Produkte der Region sind Jackfrucht, Orangen, Pflaumen und Mandarinen.[9]

 

Die Hauptverkehrsader bildet die Provinz-Schnellstraße 11, die die Gemeinde in Nord-Süd-Richtung durchquert.

Sehenswürdigkeiten

 

In Chenggong gibt es unter anderen die folgenden Sehenswürdigkeiten:

 

Ami-Volk-Museum, ein Freilandmuseum zur Volkskultur der Amis[10] (Welt-Icon)

Chengguangao Mazu-Tempel, der älteste Mazu-Tempel des Landkreises[11] (Welt-Icon)

Taitung-Museum für Meeresbiologie mit Aquarium[12] (Welt-Icon)

Naturhistorisches Museum[13] (Welt-Icon)

Shiyusan (石雨傘), der „Steinerne Regenschirm“, eine Felsformation[14] (Welt-Icon)

Sanxiantai (三仙台), kleine vorgelagerte Felsinsel, die durch eine pittoreske Rundbogenbrücke vom Festland aus erreichbar ist[15] (Welt-Icon)

 

Chenggong Township (Chinese: 成功鎮; pinyin: Chénggōng Zhèn; Wade–Giles: Ch'eng2-kung1 Chen4; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Sêng-kong-tìn) is an urban township in Taitung County, Taiwan. It is a coastal town facing the Pacific Ocean. Fishery Harbor is just west of downtown.

 

History

 

Chenggong was originally an Amis settlement from which came the Hokkien name Moalaulau (Chinese: 麻荖漏; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Môa-láu-lāu).[1] During Japanese rule, it was renamed to Shinkō Town (Japanese: 新港街) of Taitō Prefecture. After 1945, to avoid confusion with Xingang Township of Chiayi County and to distinguish it from Tainan's Sinckan (now called Xinshi), it was changed to Chenggong, which commemorates Zheng Chenggong who expelled the Dutch.

Geography

 

The township has 14,943 inhabitants and its total area is 144.9938 km². The majority inhabitants of the township are the Amis people which makes up to 53% of the population.[2]

 

Taiwan (/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ (About this sound listen)), officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a state in East Asia. Its neighbors include the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the west, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taiwan is the most populous state and largest economy that is not a member of the United Nations.

 

The island of Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, was inhabited by aborigines before the 17th century, when Dutch and Spanish colonies opened the island to mass Han immigration. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty of China. The Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China (ROC) was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROC's loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. Although the ROC continued to claim to be the legitimate government of China, its effective jurisdiction had, since the loss of Hainan in 1950, been limited to Taiwan and its surrounding islands, with the main island making up 99% of its de facto territory. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, when the PRC assumed China's seat, causing the ROC to lose its UN membership.

 

In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system. Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, healthcare,[15] public education, economic freedom, and human development.[e][13][16] The country benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most highly educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree.[17][18]

 

The PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refuses diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC. Today, 20 countries maintain official ties with the ROC but many other states maintain unofficial ties through representative offices and institutions that function as de facto embassies and consulates. Although Taiwan is fully self-governing, most international organizations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or allow it to participate only as a non-state actor. Internally, the major division in politics is between the aspirations of eventual Chinese unification or Taiwanese independence, though both sides have moderated their positions to broaden their appeal. The PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible.[19]

 

Etymology

There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, derived from explorers or rulers by each particular period. The former name Formosa (福爾摩沙) dates from 1542,[verification needed] when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means "beautiful island".[21] The name "Formosa" eventually "replaced all others in European literature"[22] and was in common use in English in the early 20th century.[23]

 

In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company established a commercial post at Fort Zeelandia (modern-day Anping, Tainan) on a coastal sandbar called "Tayouan",[24] after their ethnonym for a nearby Taiwanese aboriginal tribe, possibly Taivoan people, written by the Dutch and Portuguese variously as Taiouwang, Tayowan, Teijoan, etc.[25] This name was also adopted into the Chinese vernacular (in particular, Hokkien, as Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tāi-oân/Tâi-oân) as the name of the sandbar and nearby area (Tainan). The modern word "Taiwan" is derived from this usage, which is seen in various forms (大員, 大圓, 大灣, 臺員, 臺圓 and 臺窩灣) in Chinese historical records. The area of modern-day Tainan was the first permanent settlement by Western colonists and Chinese immigrants, grew to be the most important trading centre, and served as the capital of the island until 1887. Use of the current Chinese name (臺灣) was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture. Through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as "Taiwan".[26][27][28][29]

 

In his Daoyi Zhilüe (1349), Wang Dayuan used "Liuqiu" as a name for the island of Taiwan, or the part of it near to Penghu.[30] Elsewhere, the name was used for the Ryukyu Islands in general or Okinawa, the largest of them; indeed the name Ryūkyū is the Japanese form of Liúqiú. The name also appears in the Book of Sui (636) and other early works, but scholars cannot agree on whether these references are to the Ryukyus, Taiwan or even Luzon.[31]

 

The official name of the state is the "Republic of China"; it has also been known under various names throughout its existence. Shortly after the ROC's establishment in 1912, while it was still located on the Chinese mainland, the government used the short form "China" Zhōngguó (中國), to refer to itself, which derives from zhōng ("central" or "middle") and guó ("state, nation-state"), [f] A term which also developed under the Zhou Dynasty in reference to its royal demesne[g] and the name was then applied to the area around Luoyi (present-day Luoyang) during the Eastern Zhou and then to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qingera .[33] During the 1950s and 1960s, after the government had fled to Taiwan due to losing the Chinese Civil War, it was commonly referred to as "Nationalist China" (or "Free China") to differentiate it from "Communist China" (or "Red China").[35] It was a member of the United Nations representing "China" until 1971, when it lost its seat to the People's Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become commonly known as "Taiwan", after the island that comprises 99% of the territory under its control. In some contexts, especially official ones from the ROC government, the name is written as "Republic of China (Taiwan)", "Republic of China/Taiwan", or sometimes "Taiwan (ROC)."[36] The Republic of China participates in most international forums and organizations under the name "Chinese Taipei" due to diplomatic pressure from the People's Republic of China. For instance, it is the name under which it has competed at the Olympic Games since 1984, and its name as an observer at the World Health Organization.[37]

  

Prehistoric Taiwan

  

Taiwan was joined to the mainland in the Late Pleistocene, until sea levels rose about 10,000 years ago. Fragmentary human remains dated 20,000 to 30,000 years ago have been found on the island, as well as later artefacts of a Paleolithic culture.[38][39][40]

 

Around 6,000 years ago, Taiwan was settled by farmers, most likely from mainland China.[41] They are believed to be the ancestors of today's Taiwanese aborigines, whose languages belong to the Austronesian language family, but show much greater diversity than the rest of the family, which spans a huge area from Maritime Southeast Asia west to Madagascar and east as far as New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island. This has led linguists to propose Taiwan as the urheimat of the family, from which seafaring peoples dispersed across Southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans.[42][43]

 

Han Chinese fishermen began settling in the Penghu islands in the 13th century.[44] Hostile tribes, and a lack of valuable trade products, meant that few outsiders visited the main island until the 16th century.[44] By the 1700's visits to the coast by fishermen from Fujian, as well as Chinese and Japanese pirates, became more frequent.[44]

Opening in the 17th century

Main articles: Dutch Formosa, Spanish Formosa, and Kingdom of Tungning

Fort Zeelandia, the Governor's residence in Dutch Formosa

 

The Dutch East India Company attempted to establish a trading outpost on the Penghu Islands (Pescadores) in 1622, but were militarily defeated and driven off by the Ming authorities.[45]

 

In 1624, the company established a stronghold called Fort Zeelandia on the coastal islet of Tayouan, which is now part of the main island at Anping, Tainan.[29] David Wright, a Scottish agent of the company who lived on the island in the 1650s, described the lowland areas of the island as being divided among 11 chiefdoms ranging in size from two settlements to 72. Some of these fell under Dutch control, while others remained independent.[29][46] The Company began to import labourers from Fujian and Penghu (Pescadores), many of whom settled.[45]

 

In 1626, the Spanish Empire landed on and occupied northern Taiwan, at the ports of Keelung and Tamsui, as a base to extend their trading. This colonial period lasted 16 years until 1642, when the last Spanish fortress fell to Dutch forces.

 

Following the fall of the Ming dynasty, Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), a self-styled Ming loyalist, arrived on the island and captured Fort Zeelandia in 1662, expelling the Dutch Empire and military from the island. Koxinga established the Kingdom of Tungning (1662–1683), with his capital at Tainan. He and his heirs, Zheng Jing, who ruled from 1662 to 1682, and Zheng Keshuang, who ruled less than a year, continued to launch raids on the southeast coast of mainland China well into the Qing dynasty era.[45]

Qing rule

  

In 1683, following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang of southern Fujian, the Qing dynasty formally annexed Taiwan, placing it under the jurisdiction of Fujian province. The Qing imperial government tried to reduce piracy and vagrancy in the area, issuing a series of edicts to manage immigration and respect aboriginal land rights. Immigrants mostly from southern Fujian continued to enter Taiwan. The border between taxpaying lands and "savage" lands shifted eastward, with some aborigines becoming sinicized while others retreated into the mountains. During this time, there were a number of conflicts between groups of Han Chinese from different regions of southern Fujian, particularly between those from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, and between southern Fujian Chinese and aborigines.

 

Northern Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were the scene of subsidiary campaigns in the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). The French occupied Keelung on 1 October 1884, but were repulsed from Tamsui a few days later. The French won some tactical victories but were unable to exploit them, and the Keelung Campaign ended in stalemate. The Pescadores Campaign, beginning on 31 March 1885, was a French victory, but had no long-term consequences. The French evacuated both Keelung and the Penghu archipelago after the end of the war.

 

In 1887, the Qing upgraded the island's administration from Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian to Fujian-Taiwan-Province (福建臺灣省), the twentieth in the empire, with its capital at Taipei. This was accompanied by a modernization drive that included building China's first railroad.[47]

Japanese rule

  

As the Qing dynasty was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Taiwan, along with Penghu and Liaodong Peninsula, were ceded in full sovereignty to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Inhabitants on Taiwan and Penghu wishing to remain Qing subjects were given a two-year grace period to sell their property and move to mainland China. Very few Taiwanese saw this as feasible.[48] On 25 May 1895, a group of pro-Qing high officials proclaimed the Republic of Formosa to resist impending Japanese rule. Japanese forces entered the capital at Tainan and quelled this resistance on 21 October 1895.[49] Guerrilla fighting continued periodically until about 1902 and ultimately took the lives of 14,000 Taiwanese, or 0.5% of the population.[50] Several subsequent rebellions against the Japanese (the Beipu uprising of 1907, the Tapani incident of 1915, and the Musha incident of 1930) were all unsuccessful but demonstrated opposition to Japanese colonial rule.

 

Japanese colonial rule was instrumental in the industrialization of the island, extending the railroads and other transportation networks, building an extensive sanitation system, and establishing a formal education system.[51] Japanese rule ended the practice of headhunting.[52] During this period the human and natural resources of Taiwan were used to aid the development of Japan and the production of cash crops such as rice and sugar greatly increased. By 1939, Taiwan was the seventh greatest sugar producer in the world.[53] Still, the Taiwanese and aborigines were classified as second- and third-class citizens. After suppressing Chinese guerrillas in the first decade of their rule, Japanese authorities engaged in a series of bloody campaigns against the mountain aboriginals, culminating in the Musha Incident of 1930.[54] Intellectuals and laborers who participated in left-wing movements within Taiwan were also arrested and massacred (e.g. Chiang Wei-shui (蔣渭水) and Masanosuke Watanabe (渡辺政之輔)).[55]

 

Around 1935, the Japanese began an island-wide assimilation project to bind the island more firmly to the Japanese Empire and people were taught to see themselves as Japanese under the Kominka Movement, during which time Taiwanese culture and religion were outlawed and the citizens were encouraged to adopt Japanese surnames.[56] The "South Strike Group" was based at the Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei. During World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military.[57] For example, former ROC President Lee Teng-hui's elder brother served in the Japanese navy and was killed in action in the Philippines in February 1945. The Imperial Japanese Navy operated heavily out of Taiwanese ports. In October 1944, the Formosa Air Battle was fought between American carriers and Japanese forces based in Taiwan. Important Japanese military bases and industrial centres throughout Taiwan, like Kaohsiung, were targets of heavy American bombings.[58] Also during this time, over 2,000 women were forced into sexual slavery for Imperial Japanese troops, now euphemistically called "comfort women."[59]

 

In 1938, there were 309,000 Japanese settlers in Taiwan.[60] After World War II, most of the Japanese were expelled and sent to Japan.[61]

Republic of China

 

On 25 October 1945, the US Navy ferried ROC troops to Taiwan in order to accept the formal surrender of Japanese military forces in Taipei on behalf of the Allied Powers, as part of General Order No. 1 for temporary military occupation. General Rikichi Andō, governor-general of Taiwan and commander-in-chief of all Japanese forces on the island, signed the receipt and handed it over to General Chen Yi of the ROC military to complete the official turnover. Chen Yi proclaimed that day to be "Taiwan Retrocession Day", but the Allies considered Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to be under military occupation and still under Japanese sovereignty until 1952, when the Treaty of San Francisco took effect.[62][63] Although the 1943 Cairo Declaration had envisaged returning these territories to China, in the Treaty of San Francisco and Treaty of Taipei Japan has renounced all claim to them without specifying to what country they were to be surrendered. This introduced the problem of the legal status of Taiwan.

 

The ROC administration of Taiwan under Chen Yi was strained by increasing tensions between Taiwanese-born people and newly arrived mainlanders, which were compounded by economic woes, such as hyperinflation. Furthermore, cultural and linguistic conflicts between the two groups quickly led to the loss of popular support for the new government, while the mass movement led by the working committee of the Communist Party also aimed to bring down the Kuomintang government.[64][65] The shooting of a civilian on 28 February 1947 triggered island-wide unrest, which was suppressed with military force in what is now called the February 28 Incident. Mainstream estimates of the number killed range from 18,000 to 30,000. Those killed were mainly members of the Taiwanese elite.[66][67]

The Nationalists' retreat to Taipei: after the Nationalists lost Nanjing (Nanking) they next moved to Guangzhou (Canton), then to Chongqing (Chungking), Chengdu (Chengtu) and Xichang (Sichang) before arriving in Taipei.

 

After the end of World War II, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang), led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Party of China, led by Mao Zedong. Throughout the months of 1949, a series of Chinese Communist offensives led to the capture of its capital Nanjing on 23 April and the subsequent defeat of the Nationalist army on the mainland, and the Communists founded the People's Republic of China on 1 October.[68]

 

On 7 December 1949, after the loss of four capitals, Chiang evacuated his Nationalist government to Taiwan and made Taipei the temporary capital of the ROC (also called the "wartime capital" by Chiang Kai-shek).[69] Some 2 million people, consisting mainly of soldiers, members of the ruling Kuomintang and intellectual and business elites, were evacuated from mainland China to Taiwan at that time, adding to the earlier population of approximately six million. In addition, the ROC government took to Taipei many national treasures and much of China's gold reserves and foreign currency reserves.[70][71][72]

 

After losing most of the mainland, the Kuomintang held remaining control of Tibet, the portions of Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Yunnan provinces along with the Hainan Island until 1951 before the Communists subsequently captured both territories. From this point onwards, the Kuomintang's territory was reduced to Taiwan, Penghu, the portions of the Fujian province (Kinmen and Matsu Islands), and two major islands of Dongsha Islands and Nansha Islands. The Kuomintang continued to claim sovereignty over all "China", which it defined to include mainland China, Taiwan, Outer Mongolia and other areas. On mainland China, the victorious Communists claimed they ruled the sole and only China (which they claimed included Taiwan) and that the Republic of China no longer existed.[73]

A Chinese man in military uniform, smiling and looking towards the left. He holds a sword in his left hand and has a medal in shape of a sun on his chest.

 

Chinese Nationalist one-party rule

 

Martial law, declared on Taiwan in May 1949,[74] continued to be in effect after the central government relocated to Taiwan. It was not repealed until 1987,[74] and was used as a way to suppress the political opposition in the intervening years.[75] During the White Terror, as the period is known, 140,000 people were imprisoned or executed for being perceived as anti-KMT or pro-Communist.[76] Many citizens were arrested, tortured, imprisoned and executed for their real or perceived link to the Communists. Since these people were mainly from the intellectual and social elite, an entire generation of political and social leaders was decimated. In 1998 law was passed to create the "Compensation Foundation for Improper Verdicts" which oversaw compensation to White Terror victims and families. President Ma Ying-jeou made an official apology in 2008, expressing hope that there will never be a tragedy similar to White Terror.[77]

 

Initially, the United States abandoned the KMT and expected that Taiwan would fall to the Communists. However, in 1950 the conflict between North Korea and South Korea, which had been ongoing since the Japanese withdrawal in 1945, escalated into full-blown war, and in the context of the Cold War, US President Harry S. Truman intervened again and dispatched the US Navy's 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent hostilities between Taiwan and mainland China.[78] In the Treaty of San Francisco and the Treaty of Taipei, which came into force respectively on 28 April 1952 and 5 August 1952, Japan formally renounced all right, claim and title to Taiwan and Penghu, and renounced all treaties signed with China before 1942. Neither treaty specified to whom sovereignty over the islands should be transferred, because the United States and the United Kingdom disagreed on whether the ROC or the PRC was the legitimate government of China.[79] Continuing conflict of the Chinese Civil War through the 1950s, and intervention by the United States notably resulted in legislation such as the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty and the Formosa Resolution of 1955.

With President Chiang Kai-shek, the US President Dwight D. Eisenhower waved to crowds during his visit to Taipei in June 1960.

 

As the Chinese Civil War continued without truce, the government built up military fortifications throughout Taiwan. Within this effort, KMT veterans built the now famous Central Cross-Island Highway through the Taroko Gorge in the 1950s. The two sides would continue to engage in sporadic military clashes with seldom publicized details well into the 1960s on the China coastal islands with an unknown number of night raids. During the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in September 1958, Taiwan's landscape saw Nike-Hercules missile batteries added, with the formation of the 1st Missile Battalion Chinese Army that would not be deactivated until 1997. Newer generations of missile batteries have since replaced the Nike Hercules systems throughout the island.

 

During the 1960s and 1970s, the ROC maintained an authoritarian, single-party government while its economy became industrialized and technology oriented. This rapid economic growth, known as the Taiwan Miracle, was the result of a fiscal regime independent from mainland China and backed up, among others, by the support of US funds and demand for Taiwanese products.[80][81] In the 1970s, Taiwan was economically the second fastest growing state in Asia after Japan.[82] Taiwan, along with Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore, became known as one of the Four Asian Tigers. Because of the Cold War, most Western nations and the United Nations regarded the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China until the 1970s. Later, especially after the termination of the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, most nations switched diplomatic recognition to the PRC (see United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758).

 

Up until the 1970s, the government was regarded by Western critics as undemocratic for upholding martial law, for severely repressing any political opposition and for controlling media. The KMT did not allow the creation of new parties and those that existed did not seriously compete with the KMT. Thus, competitive democratic elections did not exist.[83][84][85][86][87] From the late 1970s to the 1990s, however, Taiwan went through reforms and social changes that transformed it from an authoritarian state to a democracy. In 1979, a pro-democracy protest known as the Kaohsiung Incident took place in Kaohsiung to celebrate Human Rights Day. Although the protest was rapidly crushed by the authorities, it is today considered as the main event that united Taiwan's opposition.[88]

 

Democratization

  

Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's son and successor as the president, began to liberalize the political system in the mid-1980s. In 1984, the younger Chiang selected Lee Teng-hui, a Taiwanese-born, US-educated technocrat, to be his vice-president. In 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed and inaugurated as the first opposition party in the ROC to counter the KMT. A year later, Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law on the main island of Taiwan (martial law was lifted on Penghu in 1979, Matsu island in 1992 and Kinmen island in 1993). With the advent of democratization, the issue of the political status of Taiwan gradually resurfaced as a controversial issue where, previously, the discussion of anything other than unification under the ROC was taboo.

 

After the death of Chiang Ching-kuo in January 1988, Lee Teng-hui succeeded him as president. Lee continued to democratize the government and decrease the concentration of government authority in the hands of mainland Chinese. Under Lee, Taiwan underwent a process of localization in which Taiwanese culture and history were promoted over a pan-China viewpoint in contrast to earlier KMT policies which had promoted a Chinese identity. Lee's reforms included printing banknotes from the Central Bank rather than the Provincial Bank of Taiwan, and streamlining the Taiwan Provincial Government with most of its functions transferred to the Executive Yuan. Under Lee, the original members of the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly(a former supreme legislative body defunct in 2005）,[89] elected in 1947 to represent mainland Chinese constituencies and having held the seats without re-election for more than four decades, were forced to resign in 1991. The previously nominal representation in the Legislative Yuan was brought to an end, reflecting the reality that the ROC had no jurisdiction over mainland China, and vice versa. Restrictions on the use of Taiwanese Hokkien in the broadcast media and in schools were also lifted.[citation needed]

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Taiwan's special envoy to the APEC summit, Lien Chan, November 2011

 

Democratic reforms continued in the 1990s, with Lee Teng-hui re-elected in 1996, in the first direct presidential election in the history of the ROC.[90] During the later years of Lee's administration, he was involved in corruption controversies relating to government release of land and weapons purchase, although no legal proceedings commenced. In 1997,"To meet the requisites of the nation prior to national unification",[91] the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China was passed and then the former "constitution of five powers" turns to be more tripartite. In 2000, Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party was elected as the first non-Kuomintang (KMT) President and was re-elected to serve his second and last term since 2004. Polarized politics has emerged in Taiwan with the formation of the Pan-Blue Coalition of parties led by the KMT, favouring eventual Chinese reunification, and the Pan-Green Coalition of parties led by the DPP, favouring an eventual and official declaration of Taiwanese independence.[92][clarification needed] In early 2006, President Chen Shui-bian remarked: “The National Unification Council will cease to function. No budget will be ear-marked for it and its personnel must return to their original posts...The National Unification Guidelines will cease to apply."[93]

The ruling DPP has traditionally leaned in favour of Taiwan independence and rejects the "One-China policy".

 

On 30 September 2007, the ruling DPP approved a resolution asserting a separate identity from China and called for the enactment of a new constitution for a "normal country". It also called for general use of "Taiwan" as the country's name, without abolishing its formal name, the Republic of China.[94] The Chen administration also pushed for referendums on national defence and UN entry in the 2004 and 2008 elections, which failed due to voter turnout below the required legal threshold of 50% of all registered voters.[95] The Chen administration was dogged by public concerns over reduced economic growth, legislative gridlock due to a pan-blue, opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan and corruption involving the First Family as well as government officials.[96][97]

 

The KMT increased its majority in the Legislative Yuan in the January 2008 legislative elections, while its nominee Ma Ying-jeou went on to win the presidency in March of the same year, campaigning on a platform of increased economic growth and better ties with the PRC under a policy of "mutual nondenial".[95] Ma took office on 20 May 2008, the same day that President Chen Shui-bian stepped down and was notified by prosecutors of possible corruption charges. Part of the rationale for campaigning for closer economic ties with the PRC stems from the strong economic growth China attained since joining the World Trade Organization. However, some analysts say that despite the election of Ma Ying-jeou, the diplomatic and military tensions with the PRC have not been reduced.[98]

 

On 24 May 2017, the Constitutional Court ruled that current marriage laws have been violating the Constitution by denying Taiwanese same-sex couples the right to marry. The Court ruled that if the Legislative Yuan does not pass adequate amendments to Taiwanese marriage laws within two years, same-sex marriages will automatically become legitimate in Taiwan.[99]

Cluny Museum - Temporary Exhibition: Glass, an inventive Middle Ages

From September 20, 2017 to January 8, 2018.

 

The glass is, in the Middle Ages, the object of a real fascination. The exhibition traces ten centuries of an unknown creative abundance.

If they draw their inspiration from Antiquity or Islamic productions, master glassmakers also develop virtuosic techniques, such as Venetians, famous for enamelled goblets or craftsmen in the north of France, who develop the first glasses to rod.

 

From architecture, where the stained glass testifies to the virtuosity of craftsmen, to the most prestigious tables, glass is a luxury product. Over the centuries, it gradually democratizes in the form of civilian glazing or tavern cups.

But glass is also the precision work of service: urinals enable physicians to diagnose, stills used by apothecaries, mirrors that help reading - just like the glasses, which make their appearance in the late 13 th century .

 

The exhibition "The Glass, an inventive Middle Ages" features some 230 works with illuminations, paintings and engravings, which help us understand the uses of glass throughout the medieval period.

 

www.musee-moyenage.fr/activites/expositions/expositions-e...

inanimate devices

YouTuba

Instant gram

you name it ma'am

 

it certainly KILLS TIME

 

it helps us escape from FREEDOM- 'ERICH FROMM'

  

feeds our fantasies of " wanna bees"

makes us feel better about ourselves

or worse....

 

creates an illusion about the "OTHER"

creates fantasy friendships though we know nothing

real about those (others/friends??)

 

There are millions who are glued to that phone.

Freud might say its the UMBILICAL cord that provides

comfort and security.

Pragmatist- its our alter ego

 

Like Existentialists I think for many its like a tattoo, an escape from our own angst...an angst that is part of the human condition. It gives us . the freedom to make our own decisions in life as opposed to inanimate objects that do not

-JP SARTRE ....

 

we are temporarily not bored.

We have meaning.... We exist.......

  

Its also a rebellion for the youth who have ammo- "an app"

that weaponizes themselves with something that the old people dont care about or look down on.

 

People buy thousands of dollars of camera or music equipment thinking it will make them stars or better shooters.

More BS!!

 

Remember this: the greatest pieces of music and photographic art were created on equipment you would laugh at today........Not what you have.......... its how you use it........

 

There certainly is a DEMOCRATIZATION of MEDIOCRITY.

people get their 15 seconds of fame...... maybe!

 

"I have control over my world with this device.

my fake, invented little world of SOCIAL MEDIA . "

 

"I have 500000000 invisible followers/friends who really like me, find me interesting and every inane puerile banal cartoon or comment i make is given a heart a love a like i.e. someone out there pays attention to me, likes me and validates me as a person." more BS!!!

 

whereas in the past we had to actually go out and make friends, seduce lovers, make an effort....thats all over !!!!!

 

click a button and you have a friend! done!

click another one and you have a lover.

turn on PORNO and you dont need another person.

 

(The pornography industry generates $12 billion dollars in annual revenue - larger than the combined annual revenues of ABC, NBC, and CBS. Of that, the Internet pornography industry generates $2.5 billion dollars in annual revenue. )

  

Like smokes, caffeine, pot, alcohol, gambling, tv, sports, gallivanting, Heroine, SHOPPING you name it we are the biggest fish baited and HOOKED !!!!!!!!

   

BATU CAVES

MALAYSIA

 

Photography’s new conscience

linktr.ee/GlennLosack

linktr.ee/GlennLosack

  

glosack.wixsite.com/tbws

  

MY DESIREE LIBERTAD.SURF® PRODUCTS WEB PAGE

4R © FRANK ROBERT MANI

 

about.me/libertadsurf

libertad.surf/en/about

 

by Bohdan Rodyuk Chekan von Miller aka CHERO®

The ● Hoax Art®

sidewalk.ttf Font Support by © Segments Design (aka Last Soundtrack)

segments-design.com/

R&C Font by © Jean Boyault

www.jeanboyault.fr/

Personal thanks from the Artist to the Font Meme site for finding fonts and their Creators

fontmeme.com/

Much TNX from the Artist to © Roman Ishkov for All 3D Merch, SPORT.ttf & sidewalk.ttf Lite

www.facebook.com/ishkov.rv

To Dmytro Lizenko for the Web Design

dl3d.xyz/

 

Inspired by ИN® in ИN® Honor ◬

 

“Order is heaven`s first law.

Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man: Epistle I

www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44899/an-essay-on-man-epis...

© 2021 Poetry Foundation

 

“Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that.

Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

www.masterandmargarita.eu/estore/pdf/eben001_mastermargar...

© 2007-2018 Jan Vanhelmont, B-3000 Leuven - RU-115008 Moscow. All rights reserved.

  

On Humanism and Morality

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Tor Wennerberg

chomsky.info/199811__-2/

Montreal Serai, Vol. 13, No. 3, Autumn 2000 [conducted in November, 1998]

Tor Wennerberg: One idea that I find extremely interesting and fascinating is the notion that just as our language capabilities are genetically determined, so is our capacity – as human beings – for moral judgement. What do you see as the implications of the idea that our moral capacity is innate?

 

Noam Chomsky: Well, for one thing, I don’t think it can really be much of a question. (That’s not to say we understand anything about it.) But, the fact of the matter is that we’re constantly making moral judgments in new situations, and over a substantial range we do it in a convergent fashion–we don’t differ randomly and wildly from one another. Furthermore, young children do it, very quickly, and they also converge.

 

Of course, there are cultural and social and historical effects, but even for those to operate, they must be operating on something. If you look at this range of phenomena, there are only two possibilities: one is, it’s a miracle, and the other is, it’s rooted in our nature. It’s rooted in our nature in the same sense in which language is, or for that matter, having arms and legs is. And it takes different forms depending on the circumstances, just as arms and legs depend on nutrition, and language depends on my not having heard Swedish when I was six months old and so on. But basically, it must be something that flows out of our nature, or otherwise we’d never use it in any systematic way, except just repeating what happened before. So, it’s got to be there.

 

What are the implications? One implication is, we ought to be interested in finding out what it is. We’d learn something important about ourselves. You can’t hope at this stage that we’re beginning to learn anything from biology. Biology doesn’t begin to reach that far. In principle it should, but right now it deals with much tinier problems. It has a hard time figuring out how bees function, let alone humans.

 

But I think we can learn things by history and experience. Take, say, the debate over big issues like slavery or women’s rights and so on. It wasn’t just people screaming at each other. There were arguments, in fact, interesting arguments on both sides. The pro-slavery side had very substantial arguments that are not easy to answer. But there was a kind of common moral ground in which a good bit of the debate took place, and as it resolved, which it essentially did, you see a consciousness emerging of what really is right, which must mean it reflects our built-in conception of what’s right. And that’s something that we learn more about over time, we get more insight into what’s coming out of our nature. The implications are very substantial, to the extent that we can understand them. It’s better to have a conscious understanding of what’s guiding you, to the extent you can, than just to react intuitively, without understanding. That’s true whether you’re a carpenter reacting to how to form wood artifacts or a moral human being reacting to how to decide between behaviors toward others.

 

One example that comes to mind is that even the most extreme neoliberals never defend income inequality in itself – it’s always supposed to benefit the poor.

 

That’s a kind of universal. Every proposal that’s made is made because it helps the poor people. Doesn’t matter what it is. Actually, that’s something that’s been noticed by mainstream economists, like Paul Krugman. He has a review article in a professional journal, International Affairs, in their 75th anniversary issue. They had reviews of various topics. He reviewed economic development. He pointed out that people have always had different ideas about economic development, and every time they’re completely certain that it’s right, and they’re completely certain it’s going to help everyone. But then it turns out, shortly afterwards, that it was all built on sand, and they switch to some other idea, with equal certainty that it’s also going to help everyone, including the poor, although it’s recognized in retrospect that the earlier one was a bad idea. He then adds that some people claim that bad ideas flourish because they’re beneficial to the people with power. Well, yes, that probably happens–perhaps a hundred percent of the time.

 

But you’re right, it’s always rationalized as being for the poor. No individual gets up and says, I’m going to take this because I want it. He’d say, I’m going to take it because it really belongs to me and it would be better for everyone if I had it. It’s true of children fighting over toys. And it’s true of governments going to war. Nobody is ever involved in an aggressive war; it’s always a defensive war–on both sides. Again, you have to present things in such a way that they will accord with people’s understanding of what’s right or wrong. Sometimes reaching ludicrous levels. Let’s take, say, the Nazis and Jews. That was presented to the population as a defensive action. The Germans were defending themselves against the Jewish attack.

 

If we just make the thought experiment that a whole generation of children were given the opportunity to grow up in a truly loving and respectful environment, through liberatory child-rearing, so that they would be able to fully develop their moral capacity, would it then, do you think, be impossible to uphold a social order based on vast inequality and elite rule?

 

I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but I would think it would generate very considerable resistance. Actually, it always generates resistance. And it would generate even more in that case. It’s a striking fact, if you look at the notion of equality, take our own history, from the Greeks to the present, it’s very striking that just about every leading figure has regarded equality as an obvious desideratum.

 

Take the earliest serious work on politics, Aristotle’s Politics. Well he points out that he’s not a great fan of democracy, it’s the best of a bunch of bad systems. But he said a democracy cannot function if there are extremes of wealth. Everyone has to be roughly equal– everyone has to be middle class, he said. And in fact, he called for a super welfare state. He said in any democratic society, public resources will have to be used in ways that he outlines, like communal meals, to ensure that the poor are relatively well off and that there are no big differences. Otherwise, it’s impossible to have a properly functioning democracy.

 

Or go on to, say, Adam Smith. His argument for markets was nuanced; it’s not as extreme as people claim. He argued that under conditions of perfect liberty, markets will lead to perfect equality. That’s basically the argument for them. Maybe the first real break with this, apart from pathological cases, is capitalist ideology. So after Ricardo, you start getting the conception that it’s better for the poor if I’m rich. As capitalist ideology becomes dominant, this conception that you’ll only hurt the poor by helping them, takes over. And then comes the idea that you have no intrinsic rights. The big intellectual revolution for capitalism, I think, was the principle that you human beings, have no rights other than what you can gain on the labor market. So Malthus and Ricardo and others said that if you can’t survive by what you can gain on the marketplace, go somewhere else. And any effort to try to help you will just harm you in the long run, because of market interference. This was a real intellectual revolution reflecting the economic emergence of capitalist relations of ownership and production. And people fought against it. The British army was putting down riots in the 1820s and 1830s, because people simply would not accept the fact that they had no right to live. And that goes way back to enclosure of the commons.

 

Look at what was called liberty in England, the first modern democratic revolution, in the 17th and 18th century. Liberty meant liberty for property, which meant taking away from people their traditional rights. Like their rights to the commons. And this was no small thing. The rights to the commons meant forests, and pasture lands, grazing lands, and so on. That’s what kept people alive, and it was considered communal property. With proprietary rights established, with liberty given to the owners, that land was taken away from everyone else. And thereafter you had formal liberty, but popular deprivation, which proletarianized the British working class. And, there was plenty of resistance to that. In fact, and the resistance goes on today. I think this is a deep sentiment, and an understandable one, and we all recognize, at some core of our being, that there’s something quite wrong with one person having superfluities and another person starving. You find that all the way through the tradition, in people’s actions, in literature.

 

And now, just looking at the latest Human Development Report, the figures on the combined wealth of the 250-something richest individuals in the world…

 

But you noticed that they criticized it. They don’t say, isn’t this wonderful? They say it’s something wrong. In fact everybody says there’s something wrong. The only arguments that support it are saying, really everybody benefits because it trickles down. The arguments are ludicrous, but it’s interesting that they have to give the arguments. The arguments for defensive war are often equally ludicrous. Take the latest U.S. bombing in the Sudan: it wasn’t an attack on a Sudanese factory, it was self-defense. Everything has to be self-defense.

 

If we consider the likelihood that we as humans have an instinct for creativity and a moral instinct, what is it in the way our system of education is functioning, that perverts or inhibits these instincts from fully developing themselves?

 

A good educational system ought to nurture and encourage these aspects of human life and allow them to flourish. But of course that has problems. For one thing it means that you will encourage challenge of authority and domination. It will encourage questioning of powerful institutions. The fact of the matter is that honesty, integrity, creativity, all these things we’re supposed to value, all run up dramatically against the hierarchic, authoritarian structure of the institutional framework in which we live. And since that structure is what sets the basic framework in which things happen, it becomes virtually contradictory to implement the values that you talk about in church on Sunday morning. So you put the values to the side, to the Sunday Service, and get on with existing the rest of the time. So Sunday is when you say, yeah, love and kindness and charity and equality and all that stuff are the soul of life. But the other six days of the week you’re working within institutions of authority and domination and control and self-enrichment and so on and you must comply or suffer even graver consequences for not complying.

 

And schools are like that. So the way schools actually function – of course it’s not 100 percent, because there is a contradiction, so all sorts of aspects show themselves depending on the teacher and so on – but, by and large, there’s a very strong tendency which works its way out in the long run and on average, for the schools to have a kind of filtering effect. They filter out independence of thought, creativity, imagination, and in their place foster obedience and subordination. I think everyone knows this from their own history. Like, how did I get to a good college myself? I was always very critical and dissident. But I got there by shutting up! I went through high school, thinking it was all really stupid and authoritarian and boring, but I was obedient, I was quiet, I wasn’t a behavior problem, I didn’t tell the teacher what I thought he was teaching was ludicrous when I thought it was. And I made it to a good college.

 

There are people who don’t accept, who aren’t obedient. They are weeded out, they’re driving taxi cabs, they’re behavior problems. The long-term effect of this is to reward and foster subordination; it begins in kindergarten and goes all the way through your professional or other career. If you challenge authority, you get in one or another kind of trouble. Again, it’s not 100 percent the case, and there are some areas of life were it’s dramatically not the case, but on average and overwhelmingly in the outcomes, it holds.

 

Yes, certainly there are counterforces at work but unfortunately, the major effect is disciplinary. This is a point that Orwell notes in works of his that aren’t read. Everyone has read Animal Farm, the satire about the Soviet Union. Not many people have read the introduction to Animal Farm, and one of the reasons they never read it is it wasn’t published. The introduction to Animal Farm was called “Literary Censorship in England.” It wasn’t published, it was found in his papers years later.

 

The point of the intended introduction is that, well, the book is about this totalitarian monster society, but I want to talk about England, a free society, to talk about how opinions are suppressed here, because they’re suppressed with remarkable efficiency. He doesn’t go into the reasons in any great depth, actually he has two sentences about the reasons. One of them is that the press is owned by wealthy men who have every reason not to want certain thoughts to be expressed. And the other reason is that as you go through a good education – Oxford, Cambridge, that sort of thing–you have instilled into you, you sort of internalize the fact that there are some things it just wouldn’t do to say. In fact, deeper: it wouldn’t do to think. And you become aware that people who do think those things – now, going beyond Orwell–people who do think those things and do say them tend to elicit a negative reaction, either to be weeded out of the system or to be marginalized or to be punished in some fashion. And the long-term effect is that success is to some considerable extent contingent on subordination to institutions of power, and that that kind of socialization–knowing what it wouldn’t do to say–is a good part of our education.

 

I just reread the chapter “Psychology and Ideology” in The Chomsky Reader, your critique of Skinner. Behaviorism is much less influential today, but I wonder-it is two or three decades ago that you wrote about thi-but what do you think has happened in the time since with the theory of human malleability in a broader sense?

 

Well, behaviorism was very popular among the managerial classes, for not surprising reasons. For one thing, it gave them a moral right to control and dominate people. If people have no nature, no intrinsic nature, then there is no moral barrier to control or manipulation of them – in their own interest, of course. Somehow “we,” the controllers, are immune from this human condition of infinite malleability, however. “We” have a nature and “we” understand what’s good, that’s kind of like a hidden premise. But for the rest of the slobs out there, they’re just passive objects, and we can control and manage and organize them using the latest behavioral techniques, and they’ll all be better off.

 

That’s a strain of thought that runs right through the whole intellectual, managerial culture, from priesthoods up to Leninist commissars and to contemporary liberal theorists. And behaviorism gave the perfect intellectual justification for it; it didn’t matter that the intellectual foundations were ridiculous. It served a function so it survived. And the parts of the society that need that, they still believe it–in fact, believe it more than ever.

 

So, instead of talking only about academics, we’re sort of minor folk, let’s go to the big institutions, like, say, the public relations industry. Now we’ve gone several orders of magnitude larger in power and significance. They were based from the beginning on the same idea. The idea that it is necessary to control the public mind. In fact, the modern public relations industry was in many ways an outgrowth of the increase in democracy–and consciously so. You read the manuals, they talk about it, in the 1920s and so on. With the extension of the franchise, with the bringing in of working people and others into the public arena, you can no longer ensure that the wealthy and the capable and the enlightened, us good folks, will run everything. So therefore it is necessary to use the techniques of propaganda. And right after the First World War this was very prominent because of the enormous success of Anglo-American propaganda during the war, which had real success in affecting people’s views, extremely so, and they were aware of it.

 

So in England for example–documents have now come out–the British Conservative party recognized that its traditional domination of English politics was threatened seriously by the extension of the franchise. And they therefore concluded that they must turn to the techniques of propaganda, drawing on the war-time experience, when the British Ministry of Information had set off, as they put it, to control the thought of the world–particularly the thought of the United States, because that’s what they cared about, that the United States come in and save them from this mess. The Conservative party organized itself around the theme of propaganda to overcome the threat of democracy. Something comparable happened here, but here it happened primarily in the rise of public relations, which became a huge industry devoted to “controlling the public mind.” The “intelligent minority” must “regiment the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers.”

 

I’m quoting from a manual written, incidentally, by a good New Deal liberal intellectual, for whom this was second nature–of course you have to regiment the public mind. He had come out of Woodrow Wilson’s wartime propaganda ministry, the first state propaganda ministry in American history, which was very successful. You have to remember, during the first World War, the population here was pacifist, the tradition was: don’t get involved in the European bloody nonsense, it’s not our business, we’re the New World. And somehow, Woodrow Wilson had to – he was elected in 1916 on a slogan of “Peace Without Victory”–and he had to quickly turn the country around to become raving jingoist fanatics, hating everything German. And they did it. With remarkable success. So they were impressed with their achievement. The British Conservative party was impressed, the business world was extremely impressed (then came the huge growth of the propaganda industry). Another person who was impressed, incidentally, was Adolf Hitler. He writes in Mein Kampf that Germany lost the war because of propaganda, and next time we’re going to have it too.

 

The idea that you can control people was supported by that experience. They didn’t read Watson or Skinner. You can control people, and you must control people – of course in their own interest, it’s always in their own interest. You can read it in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, by one of the founders of modern American political science, Harold Lasswell. In an article on propaganda, he says that we should not succumb to “democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests.” They’re not, they’re too “stupid,” they’re too “ignorant.” We’re the best judges of their interests, and although they have this official right to vote, we have to make sure they don’t make any use of it in an unreasonable way. We do that by controlling the public mind, by propaganda. This was before the Second World War. After the Second World War the term propaganda took on bad connotations and people did not want to use the word anymore. But that was pre-World War II, so you were allowed to use it.

 

And it continues. After the second world war, the business world, particularly in the United States but in fact worldwide, was appalled by the fact that most of the world, the industrial world, was being swept by radical democratic ideas–takeover of factories and all sorts of activities, including in the United States incidentally–and the business world was terrified. You can read it in their manuals and pronouncements. They say we have a few years to try to reverse this tide, we have to fight “the everlasting battle for the minds of men,” and “indoctrinate citizens with the capitalist story” until “they are able to play back the story with remarkable fidelity.” Huge campaigns took place, covering everything you can imagine. In factories you have a captive audience, so they ran what they called economics lectures on the principles of “free enterprise,” and Americanism lectures that went on radio and television. They aimed at churches and schools, even to sports leagues. There was a huge coordinated campaign, with many purposes. It demonized unions. It instilled the idea that the government can’t do anything for you–it’s not your government anyway, it’s some thing out there which takes money from you. The government isn’t anything that you have, and what it does is harmful, stealing your money and taxes and so on, and the only real kind of freedom is freedom to function in a market economy. You should be a consumer and not worry about anything else except maybe diversions, entertainment, sports and so on.

 

These are self-conscious campaigns, designed to control people and to make sure that the formal mechanisms of democracy really don’t function. In a third world country you can do what is essentially the same thing more simply: put in a military dictatorship and send out the death squads. In societies where people have won a degree of freedom from state coercion, you have to turn instead to the techniques of propaganda, control of the mind, of course all on the assumption that people are not only malleable but that they’re better off if they’re molded and you are the one who molds them. There is a very striking similarity between Leninist and Western liberal doctrine on this, they’re almost interchangeable. I’ve sometimes run paragraphs side by side, and if you change a few names you can hardly see the difference.

 

I think that helps account for the appeal of behaviorist doctrine. It gives a kind of moral basis for all this.

 

So it lives on outside of academia, outside of science?

 

As an intellectual claim about how people actually are, it’s pretty hard to take seriously in the sciences anymore.

 

With the global economic crisis growing deeper and deeper ever since last summer, several mainstream economists are finally saying that we’re about to see a replay of the Great Depression. Even Clinton and Blair produce rhetoric about the need to regulate markets and Business Week argues the case for capital controls. What is happening and what does this tell us about this past decade of capitalist triumphalism?

 

The triumphalism was an expression of the fact that a very small section of the population was becoming enriched. But this crisis happens to be now at a point where it’s hitting rich people, and that’s why it’s a crisis. But in fact the crisis has been going on for 25 years. There was a period after the second world war, sometimes called the Golden Age of capitalism, in which there were historically unprecedented growth rates over most of the industrialized world. There was also growth of the social contract, labor rights, workplace reforms, as well as growth of both the economy and productivity. That sort of continued into the late 1960s, more or less.

 

From the early 1970s, the industrial world has been in a long downturn. Since the early 1970s growth rates have slowed, both of the economy and of productivity, wages and incomes have basically stagnated for most of the population; for a period, corporate profits were lowered, but in the 1990s–and that’s the triumphalism–corporate profits shot up, sky-high. Read the business press in the United States, every year: “dazzling,” “stupendous,” they ran out of adjectives a long time ago. And that’s the triumphalism. For a small sector of the population, this long downturn happened to lead to extreme wealth mostly via redistribution upward. That is why inequality is so radically increased.

 

Take, say, the recovery in the United States, the latest stage of the business cycle in the United States, from about 1991 until now. In fact, it’s the slowest postwar recovery. And it’s the first one in American history in which most of the population has been left out. Wages and incomes are barely getting back to their 1989 level, let alone their level of the 1970s. One thing that is booming, however, is the stock market. When you read – this is pre-August, still triumphalist – the stories about “the fairy-tale economy,” about Americans being “smug and prosperous,” there is only one example that’s given: that’s the stock market. But close to 50 percent of the stocks are held by one percent of households; and most of the rest is held by the top ten percent so that roughly 90 percent of the stocks are held by ten percent of the population. And in fact if you look more closely, the richest one half percent holds about forty percent of the stock. And for that sector, the economy no doubt is a fairy-tale economy. But for maybe two thirds of the population or perhaps as much as 70 percent of working people, wages have either stagnated or declined, working conditions have gotten worse, working hours have gotten longer, and you have to have both husband and wife working just to keep food on the table. It’s been a long slowdown across the industrial world, and it has hit the underdeveloped world in much harsher ways.

 

You can roughly date when it happened, it’s from the early 1970s. And there was one crucial event that took place in the early 1970s, namely the Bretton Woods system was dismantled. The Bretton Woods system – the postwar economic system – was based on an effort to free trade from restraints (freedom of trade was considered something to work for), but to simultaneously regulate finance. So the Bretton Woods system was not solely a liberalization system – it called for liberalization of trade but regulation of finance and fixed exchange rates. Capital controls were permitted, and there was something like a gold standard except that it was a dollar standard, with the dollar pegged to gold. The IMF in its rules was to maintain stability of exchange rates and to cut back capital flight. For example the rules of the IMF prohibit giving credits to cover capital flight. The rules are not honored nowadays, but they’re there.

 

This system was dismantled from the early 1970s. The U.S. took the first steps to break it down, Britain went along, and gradually other financial powers went along as well, and so the rest of the world just had to do it too. Some parts held back, like South Korea, they maintained the system of controls through the late 1980s. And then they were more or less forced to give them up. That was a condition for entry into the OECD. And the United States put enormous pressure on them to overvalue their currency and to take more American imports and to deregulate their financial markets and so on, and they gave in. Next you had this huge market failure, which is largely what it is: the so-called Asian crisis. By now it’s fairly widely recognized.

 

First, the pundits were talking about crony capitalism and that sort of thing, as an explanation, which is nonsense – I mean, it’s there, of course, but it’s here too, it’s everywhere, and it was there during the growth period as well. What was different about the recent period of decline was that you had an almost classic failure of financial markets, a huge flow of capital, huge borrowing, private borrowing, private lending, and an extraordinary flow of herd-like behavior, and then pulling it all out in another irrational, herd-like action. And this is very familiar. Keynes warned about it 60 years ago, when he argued that finance ought to be closely regulated and controlled, as indeed it sort of is internally. So internally to the United States, the banks want to keep it controlled or otherwise everything blows up.

 

But during this neoliberal escapade of the rich after dismantling Bretton Woods, they were having a ball, and it was great for them, the super rich, while most of the population suffered. And they spread the conditions supporting this sort of triumph far and wide. And now the crisis is hitting home, hitting them too, so now it’s called a crisis.

 

Notice that there is nothing new about the volatility – since the early 1970s, markets have become much more volatile, contrary to the predictions of many famed economists. Milton Friedman predicted with confidence that, free the exchange rates, let the market rule, and everything will settle down, it will all be stable. It went exactly the other way. With capital restraints reduced, with limits on how capital could be moved about, markets became far more volatile, with very sharp ups and downs. The IMF recently released a report saying that of its roughly 180 members, about 20% had suffered severe financial crises, and about 60 percent, some number around that neighborhood, had suffered fairly serious ones, over this post World War Two triumphalist period (1980 to 1995). This is the way financial markets operate. There is no theory of financial markets. It’s mostly amateur psychology. When you read economists – Alan Greenspan and so on – talking about economic policy, it’s mostly, this is going to inspire confidence, or this will make people feel better, or something like that. You can sort of dress it up in formulas if you like, but it’s a kind of amateur psychology, no real theory applied.

 

It’s known descriptively that highly irrational behavior, even from the point of view of market doctrine, takes place all the time. So in a rational market, investors are supposed to look for economic fundamentals, they’re supposed to value solid manufacturing capacity and fiscal austerity and all that kind of stuff. They are not supposed to do what is called technical trading, to look for short-term patterns and see if you can make a tiny gain by playing this and that game over a period of weeks, or days, or even hours. But the latter is exactly what they do. About 80 percent of the capital in foreign exchange has a turnaround time of less than a week, much of it a day or less. And what this is, it’s smart guys, a lot of Ph.D.s in math who are working for Wall Street firms on sophisticated techniques to extrapolate little changes in currency fluctuations and so on, so that you can make a lot of money fast.

 

It finally hit home that this is a real crisis when one of the big hedge funds collapsed, which wasn’t supposed to happen, but that’s the game they’re playing. Not only does it not contribute to the economy, it harms it.

 

And now the tax payers are paying the bill.

 

In some manner the public bails it out, that’s the name of the game. Capitalism means, we don’t take the risks, the public takes the risks, we take the profits. As much as possible, risk and cost have to be socialized, profits privatized. It’s the basic principle. But the thing has become so serious that by now even the major establishments are worrying about it.

 

So what they’re now talking about in the G-7, and the finance ministers, and Business Week, and the Financial Times and so on, is what critics have been saying all along, that unless there is some regulation, careful regulation in fact, of financial flows, and some penalty for short-term speculation, you’re going to have serious problems. And in fact there have been problems, in blow-up after blow-up. Now they’re even willing to talk about things that were anathema to them until recently, like the Tobin tax.

 

The Tobin tax was proposed more than 20 years ago by a Nobel prize-winning economist, who pointed out that unless you do something to throw sand in the gears of short-term, speculative capital flows, it’s going to seriously harm the international economy. Well, nobody wanted to hear that, because that was challenging the orthodoxy that markets are wonderful, which was an orthodoxy precisely because it was benefiting rich people, not because there was any logic in it – the usual story. There was a major study done on the Tobin tax by a group of quite well-known international economists, about five years ago I guess. The UN Development Program wanted to distribute it, and they were apparently put under pressure by the Clinton administration not to so the book is known mostly to technical economists. Not all of the authors thought it was a great idea. It includes people like the chief economist of the IMF, who didn’t particularly like it. But it was a serious discussion of its possibility, and this type discussion was just not supposed to be on the agenda. In today’s newspapers, however, they’re talking about it. What’s the difference? Well, now the rich people are in trouble. So it’s a sudden crisis — a crisis for the wealthy and powerful whereas up until now, it was just a crisis for everybody else.

 

Given the risk that the world economy might spin out of control completely now, and considering that last time, in the 1930s, it took a world war to overcome the depression, how worried do you think we ought to be about the prospect of war?

 

The prospect of war is much less, but for other reasons. Europe is, in modern history at least, the most violent part of the world. One of the reasons why Europe conquered the world is that it created a culture of war, based on centuries of mutual massacre and slaughter – both a culture of war and a technology of war. But that largely came to an end in 1945, and for a very simple reason. Everybody could understand that the next time we play this game, we’re all dead. The techniques of destruction had reached such a point that war is simply not an option for rich and powerful countries. If they try it once more, that’s the end. Now, somebody may be irrational enough to do it anyway, but within anything remotely like the domain of rationality, where you can at least begin to talk about prediction, there isn’t going to be war among the powerful countries. And this is understood.

 

For example, right in the middle of the Gulf War, somebody at the Pentagon leaked to the press – which buried it — an interesting document. When any new administration comes in, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency and so on give them a kind of intelligence assessment of the world, a strategic analysis of the world. Someone leaked part of the Bush administration strategic analysis (this would have been from early 1989), and one part of it dealt with war. Here is approximately what it said: it said in case of a conflict with “much weaker enemies” (implication: that’s the only kind of conflict we’re ever going to get into), we must defeat them “decisively and rapidly,” because anything else will “undercut political support.” So no more bombing of South Vietnam for fifteen years, and certainly we don’t go to war with any major power.

 

This was well before the Gulf War. In fact at that time Saddam Hussein was a great friend, so he wasn’t contemplated as a target – but that’s what you can do. You can invade Panama, kidnap Noriega and get out in a couple of weeks, bomb the Sudan, bomb Libya, bomb Iraq from a distance, very fast, and don’t get involved in more than a few days of fighting. That kind of thing you can do with a much weaker enemy, rapidly and decisively, but nothing else. So as long as you’re within the domain of rationality, the chances of war involving major powers I think, are extremely slight, unless they’re fighting a much weaker enemy. And even that’s not so simple anymore.

 

But to return to your other point, what actually overcame the depression was not so much the war as the semi-command economies. The British economy started to pick up in the late 1930s, when it sort of deliberalized and became a kind of semi-command economy. The U.S. was barely at war, there was no fighting here. But the wartime economy not only overcame the depression, it flourished as industrial production tripled, and so on. But that was a semi-command economy, it was highly coordinated from Washington, run by corporate executives, with wage and price controls, industrial policy deciding what would be produced, and so on. And that worked like a charm. Just like it worked in England – England in fact out-produced Germany and came close to the United States.

 

So the mobilization of the economy did overcome the depression. The war was taking place and that was the justification for it, but the war was not what overcame the depression in itself. This was pretty well understood. The consensus among American economists and businessmen and others in the mid-forties was that with the government-coordinated economy declining, after the war, they were going to go right back to the depression due to market failures. And so there was an interesting discussion in the late forties, quite open. It’s in the business press, I’ve quoted parts of it at times, and it’s very interesting. There was recognition that we’ve got to do something to get the government to stimulate the economy again or else we’ll go back to the depression.

 

It was understood — you didn’t have to read Keynes to figure it out — that you could stimulate the economy in a lot of different ways. You could stimulate it with social spending, or you could stimulate it with military spending. There there was a perfectly sane discussion, in Business Week actually, of which to do. And the conclusion was: well, social spending is not a good idea, and military spending is a great idea. The reason is that social spending has a downside. Yes, it can pump the economy. But it also has a democratizing effect, because people are interested in social spending; they want to know where you’re going to build a hospital or a road or something, and they become involved. They have no opinions about what jet plane to build. Social spending also gives people more security and better conditions, better education, more means of communicating, more ability to withstand threats of unemployment. It makes people, workers, more powerful, that is, and thereby better able to win higher wages and better conditions.

 

So social spending has a democratizing effect, it has a redistributive effect, and it’s not a direct gift to corporations. Military spending, however, has none of those defects; it’s non-democratizing – on the contrary, people are frightened and they shelter under the umbrella of power. And while it aids corporations it doesn’t directly improve the lot of workers; it rather tends to reinforce workplace discipline. So it’s a direct gift to corporations. It redistributes upward. And it’s easy to sell if you terrify the public. So what emerges is a Pentagon-based industrial policy program, one which is now buckling a bit, due to the excessive liberalizing of capital movements, and thus, one which has to be repaired a bit, so that it once again benefits the rich, as intended.

CHOMSKY.INFO

 

“For the anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account.”

― Noam Chomsky, On Anarchism

 

“The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself.”

― Noam Chomsky

 

“... if we adopt the principle of universality: if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others -- more stringent ones, in fact -- plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evil”

― Noam Chomsky

 

“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, it’s unlikely you will step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume that there’s no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there’s a chance you may contribute to making a better world. The choice is yours.”

― Noam Chomsky

 

“If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world.”

― Noam Chomsky

 

“Thinking is a human feature. Will AI someday really think? That's like asking if submarines swim. If you call it swimming then robots will think, yes.”

― Noam Chomsky

 

Protector of the Universe, Quasar

And other Cosmic-recruits from Terra, plus another band bro

 

Wendell Vaughn gets the Legends treatment, and they go with another Walgreens exclusive... But they democratized it this time, putting it online!

Thank you Ryan Ting and team!

 

I don’t hate the older look for the character, but most of my exposure to this guy in comics comes from the early ‘90s where he’s much younger, so it is a foreign look to me.

Overall a great look for the figure, the paint apps are excellent, and they even went with a paint app for the inner cape. But could you imagine if the cape was made out of a similar material to Genis-Vell’s sparkly dark transparent plastic?!

Cape is cumbersome on head movement and a bit awkward at times, but his large floppy feet keep this figure balanced without the cape touching ground.

 

Very cool addition to the Cosmic shelf! Hopefully Walgreens keeps up the online release of new Legends

  

#Quasar #Hasbro #LegendsQuasar #Darkhawk #NovaForce #QuantumBands

#HasbroPulse #ACBA #LegendsNova #LegendsDarkhawk #CosmicLegends #CosmicLevelThreat #marvel #marvelComics #MarvelLegends #MarvelLegends2022 #MarvelCosmic #actionFigures #CounterEarth #marvelhasbro #HasbroLegends #figurecollection #MakeMineMarvel #PosingActionFigures #toyPhotography #PlasticPhotography #TrueBeliever #WendellVaughn

Cluny Museum - Temporary Exhibition: Glass, an inventive Middle Ages

From September 20, 2017 to January 8, 2018.

 

The glass is, in the Middle Ages, the object of a real fascination. The exhibition traces ten centuries of an unknown creative abundance.

If they draw their inspiration from Antiquity or Islamic productions, master glassmakers also develop virtuosic techniques, such as Venetians, famous for enamelled goblets or craftsmen in the north of France, who develop the first glasses to rod.

 

From architecture, where the stained glass testifies to the virtuosity of craftsmen, to the most prestigious tables, glass is a luxury product. Over the centuries, it gradually democratizes in the form of civilian glazing or tavern cups.

But glass is also the precision work of service: urinals enable physicians to diagnose, stills used by apothecaries, mirrors that help reading - just like the glasses, which make their appearance in the late 13 th century .

 

The exhibition "The Glass, an inventive Middle Ages" features some 230 works with illuminations, paintings and engravings, which help us understand the uses of glass throughout the medieval period.

 

www.musee-moyenage.fr/activites/expositions/expositions-e...

A model boat that originally carried eight sailors, four of whom are missing. The boat has no sail and the sailors were equipped with oars which were fixed in the holes made in their fists. The bow takes the shape of the head of a strange creature.

The democratization of funerary beliefs and customs in the First Intermediate Period inspired many less well off Egyptians to create representations of their own daily environment which they believed would continue in the afterlife. Unable to afford the scenes carved and painted on the tomb walls of wealthier Egyptians, poorer individuals purchased models representing various aspects of daily life and placed them in the tomb. The models included figures of household servants performing cooking tasks, farm labourers tending to animals and crops, and men involved in manufacturing processes. These models were believed, just like wall scenes, to magically sustain the dead in their afterlife within the tomb, providing the food, drink, clothing, and shelter which would be needed for continued existence.

Among the most important categories were model boats, as they were believed to provide transport along the River Nile, Egypt's main transportation route. They were found in tombs primarily in the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom, although examples are known both earlier and later. Two or more boats were usually included in the burial: at least one representing the crew sailing upstream with the prevailing winds and placed facing south, the other equipped for rowing north with the current of the river and placed with the bow facing north. The largest collection of boat models was found in the tomb of Djehuty-Nakht at Bersha which comprised fifty-five boats.

Some of the boat models had a religious significance. According to ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, Osiris's body was taken by a boat for burial at Abydos, his chief cult place. In their lifetime, many Egyptians either made a pilgrimage to Abydos or sent a votive stela or both. In death, they also wished to be buried there, or at least that their mummy should visit this sacred town. Usually, of course, not even this was possible, so a wooden model of the deceased's mummy on a boat or a representation of this journey on the tomb wall had to serve instead.

Wood

11th dynasty

BAAM 620

 

Antiquities Museum of Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Sans titre ni références.

À part "Paris" rien n'est vrai dans cette appellation ! Même Paris, disons plutôt France...

Tout est visiblement fait maison, jusqu'à la coupe de biais des photographies.

Ce qui pour la date de prise nous indique au moins la réelle démocratisation de la stéréo.

Juste avant la Grande Guerre.

Tous les personnages au même plan, la stéréo est très légère, en GIF cela ne bouge pas beaucoup entre les deux clichés.

Je ne connais de cette « collection » que ces sept stéréos, on peut imaginer que cela va jusqu'à 10 ou 12.

Nous avons affaire à des professionnels.

Je me suis déjà exprimé sur mon jurement non négatif des prostituées !

Pourquoi n'avoir pas laissé les seins à l'air de ces demoiselles plutôt que de coincer à chacune un téton pour être visible ? C’est le genre de stereoviews qui a dû plaire aux anticléricaux et aux érotomanes. Les premiers n’étant pas représentés le plus dans la couche aisée de la société française, démocratisation stéréoscopique et vente accessible à tous, plus ou moins.

Les gestes des faux curés (corbeaux ! ) sont sans élégances, souplesse et nous amènent sûrement avec ces stereoviews dans un univers beaucoup plus à caractère sexuel.

Je sais que cette stereoviews présentée ici par des voies mystérieuses pour moi va être bien diffusée…

Mais j'aime aussi quand certaines sur lesquels je n'aurai pas parié sur leurs sujets marche plus qu'honorablement.

 

No title or references.

Apart from "Paris" nothing is true in this appellation!

Even Paris say rather France... Everything is obviously homemade, until the bias cut of the photographs.

What for the date of taking tells us at least the true democratization of the stereo.

Just before the Great War.All the characters at the same level, the stereo is very light, in GIF it does not move much between the two clichés.I know of this «collection» only these seven stereos, We can imagine that it goes up to 10 or 12. We are dealing with professionals.

I have already expressed myself on my non-negative swearing of prostitutes!

Why didn’t you leave the breasts in the air of these ladies rather than having each one a nipple to be visible?

It is the kind of stereoviews that must have pleased anticlerical and erotic people.

The former are not represented the most in the easy layer of French society, stereoscopic democratization and sale accessible to all, more or less.

The gestures of the have to curer ( corbeau ! ) are say without elegance, flexibility and surely brings us with these stereoviews in a much more sexual universe.

I know that this stereoviews presented here in mysterious ways for me will be well broadcast...

But I also like when some of them that I won’t bet on because of their subject work more than honourably.

The Chin tattooed women live in the Chin, Rakhine and Arakan states in northwestern Myanmar. The origin of facial tattoos in the region is unknown. Some believe that the practice began during the reigns of Kings long ago. The royalty used to come to the villages to capture young women. The men from the tribe may have tattooed their women to make them ugly, thereby saving them from a life of slavery. Interestingly, I heard a similar origin for body modification among the Mursi tribe in Ethiopia. As legend has it, the tribeswomen began wearing giant lip plates to make them uglier to would-be kidnappers. Now, the bigger the lip plate the higher the bride price.

For years, access to the tribal Mindat area was restricted by the burmese government. It was opened just two years ago. Only about 700 tourists visit per year. Most of them only visit the bucolic Mount Victoria by bus, never meeting the tattooed women who remain isolated, hours away by foot. Those who do wish to meet them better pack good walking shoes and be prepared to sleep in smoke-filled local houses complete with rats.

There are a few different face tattoo patterns. The spiderweb tattoo is popular in the Mrauk U region. It takes a three hour long tail boat ride to reach this remote area. This tattoo is usually accompanied by a circle in the center of the forehead which represents the sun or lines under the nose symbolizing tiger whiskers.

Another design, known as the bee pattern, is common in the Mindat area. It is composed of dots, lines and occasionally circles. It is worn by the Muun tribe who inhabit the hills of the Arakan state.

The Magan tribeswomen wear huge earrings made of beads and calabashes. They can also play the flute with their noses.

I ventured to Kanpelet village in search of the women from the U Pu tribe who have the incredibly rare whole face tattoo. This is one of the most impressive styles: the entire face is inked up. Rumors had it that only three women in this area had the tattoo. After hours of off roading, I arrive in the village only to learn that one died recently and another was very ill. I was lucky enough to meet Pa Late. At 85, she is nearly deaf but still works hard with her family in a small house on the top of a little hill.

Pa Late said that a completely black face had become a symbol of beauty in the past. The few women who refused to do it looked ugly to the men. The tattoo took three days but the pain lasted over a month.

There are two ways to make the tattoo needle. The first consists of tying three pieces of bamboo together and the second uses thorns. The ink is a mixture of cow bile, soot, plants, and pig fat. It usually took one day to complete the standard tattoo and a few more for the totally black one. The tattoo artist was a specialist or in some cases a parent. Infection was a common problem as the girls had blood all over their face.

Everything, including the eyelids, was tattooed. Many women say that the neck was the most sensitive area.

Ma Aung Seim shared her memories of the tattoo sessions : “I was 10 years old. The day before the tattoo ceremony, I only ate sugarcane and drank tea. It was forbidden to eat meat or peanuts. During the tattoo session, I cried a lot, but I could not move at all. After the session, my face bled for 3 days. It was very painful. My mother put fresh beans leaves on my face to alleviate the pain. I had no choice if i wanted to get married. Men wanted women with tattoos at this time. My mother told me that without a tattoo on my face, i would look like... a man! The web drawn on my face attracted the men like a spiderweb catches insects!”

Not all the tattooed women live in remote areas deep in the mountains. Some have integrated into modern society. Miss Heu, 67, lives in Kanpelet. Her grandmother forced her to get tattooed. She lives in a modern house and even has TV (when electricity is not out). Chin people have maintained their modesty and shyness: when a movie showspeople kissing or making love, most of them still fast forward the scene.

As a leader in the local community, Miss Heu had the chance to meet Aung San Suu Kyi when she came in the area for a meeting. She is very aware of the tattooed women and the ethnicities that are forgotten by the central government. She says she and Aung San Suu Kyi are friends now. Heu’s daughter has graduated and works in Singapore.

The Chin culture is threatened by the government as their teachers are usually not Chin. For a long time, they fought for independence, but since the country began to democratize, things have calmed down.

“I am old. Soon I will die” says to me a Chin woman from Pan Baung village, while she does the gesture of drying tears from her eyes. In her village, only 6 tattooed woman remain alive. Those women are the last of their kind…

 

© Eric Lafforgue

www.ericlafforgue.com

Cluny Museum - Temporary Exhibition: Glass, an inventive Middle Ages

From September 20, 2017 to January 8, 2018.

 

The glass is, in the Middle Ages, the object of a real fascination. The exhibition traces ten centuries of an unknown creative abundance.

If they draw their inspiration from Antiquity or Islamic productions, master glassmakers also develop virtuosic techniques, such as Venetians, famous for enamelled goblets or craftsmen in the north of France, who develop the first glasses to rod.

 

From architecture, where the stained glass testifies to the virtuosity of craftsmen, to the most prestigious tables, glass is a luxury product. Over the centuries, it gradually democratizes in the form of civilian glazing or tavern cups.

But glass is also the precision work of service: urinals enable physicians to diagnose, stills used by apothecaries, mirrors that help reading - just like the glasses, which make their appearance in the late 13 th century .

 

The exhibition "The Glass, an inventive Middle Ages" features some 230 works with illuminations, paintings and engravings, which help us understand the uses of glass throughout the medieval period.

 

www.musee-moyenage.fr/activites/expositions/expositions-e...

The Chin tattooed women live in the Chin, Rakhine and Arakan states in northwestern Myanmar. The origin of facial tattoos in the region is unknown. Some believe that the practice began during the reigns of Kings long ago. The royalty used to come to the villages to capture young women. The men from the tribe may have tattooed their women to make them ugly, thereby saving them from a life of slavery. Interestingly, I heard a similar origin for body modification among the Mursi tribe in Ethiopia. As legend has it, the tribeswomen began wearing giant lip plates to make them uglier to would-be kidnappers. Now, the bigger the lip plate the higher the bride price.

For years, access to the tribal Mindat area was restricted by the burmese government. It was opened just two years ago. Only about 700 tourists visit per year. Most of them only visit the bucolic Mount Victoria by bus, never meeting the tattooed women who remain isolated, hours away by foot. Those who do wish to meet them better pack good walking shoes and be prepared to sleep in smoke-filled local houses complete with rats.

There are a few different face tattoo patterns. The spiderweb tattoo is popular in the Mrauk U region. It takes a three hour long tail boat ride to reach this remote area. This tattoo is usually accompanied by a circle in the center of the forehead which represents the sun or lines under the nose symbolizing tiger whiskers.

Another design, known as the bee pattern, is common in the Mindat area. It is composed of dots, lines and occasionally circles. It is worn by the Muun tribe who inhabit the hills of the Arakan state.

The Magan tribeswomen wear huge earrings made of beads and calabashes. They can also play the flute with their noses.

I ventured to Kanpelet village in search of the women from the U Pu tribe who have the incredibly rare whole face tattoo. This is one of the most impressive styles: the entire face is inked up. Rumors had it that only three women in this area had the tattoo. After hours of off roading, I arrive in the village only to learn that one died recently and another was very ill. I was lucky enough to meet Pa Late. At 85, she is nearly deaf but still works hard with her family in a small house on the top of a little hill.

Pa Late said that a completely black face had become a symbol of beauty in the past. The few women who refused to do it looked ugly to the men. The tattoo took three days but the pain lasted over a month.

There are two ways to make the tattoo needle. The first consists of tying three pieces of bamboo together and the second uses thorns. The ink is a mixture of cow bile, soot, plants, and pig fat. It usually took one day to complete the standard tattoo and a few more for the totally black one. The tattoo artist was a specialist or in some cases a parent. Infection was a common problem as the girls had blood all over their face.

Everything, including the eyelids, was tattooed. Many women say that the neck was the most sensitive area.

Ma Aung Seim shared her memories of the tattoo sessions : “I was 10 years old. The day before the tattoo ceremony, I only ate sugarcane and drank tea. It was forbidden to eat meat or peanuts. During the tattoo session, I cried a lot, but I could not move at all. After the session, my face bled for 3 days. It was very painful. My mother put fresh beans leaves on my face to alleviate the pain. I had no choice if i wanted to get married. Men wanted women with tattoos at this time. My mother told me that without a tattoo on my face, i would look like... a man! The web drawn on my face attracted the men like a spiderweb catches insects!”

Not all the tattooed women live in remote areas deep in the mountains. Some have integrated into modern society. Miss Heu, 67, lives in Kanpelet. Her grandmother forced her to get tattooed. She lives in a modern house and even has TV (when electricity is not out). Chin people have maintained their modesty and shyness: when a movie showspeople kissing or making love, most of them still fast forward the scene.

As a leader in the local community, Miss Heu had the chance to meet Aung San Suu Kyi when she came in the area for a meeting. She is very aware of the tattooed women and the ethnicities that are forgotten by the central government. She says she and Aung San Suu Kyi are friends now. Heu’s daughter has graduated and works in Singapore.

The Chin culture is threatened by the government as their teachers are usually not Chin. For a long time, they fought for independence, but since the country began to democratize, things have calmed down.

“I am old. Soon I will die” says to me a Chin woman from Pan Baung village, while she does the gesture of drying tears from her eyes. In her village, only 6 tattooed woman remain alive. Those women are the last of their kind…

 

© Eric Lafforgue

www.ericlafforgue.com

Photo Copyright 2012, dynamo.photography.

All rights reserved, no use without license

 

++++++++ from wikipedia.org ++++++++

 

The Alishan National Scenic Area is a mountain resort and natural preserve located in the mountains of Chiayi County in Taiwan.[citation needed]

 

Contents

 

1 Geography

2 Climate

3 Topography

4 Vegetation and wildlife

5 History

6 Attractions and landmarks

7 See also

8 References

9 Bibliography

10 External links

 

Geography

Alishan Forest Park.

Dawn view from Alishan.

 

Alishan is 415 square kilometres (41,500 ha) in area. Notable characteristics include mountain wilderness, four villages, waterfalls, high altitude tea plantations, the Alishan Forest Railway, and a number of hiking trails. The area is popular with tourists and mountain climbers. Alishan, or Mount Ali, itself has become one of the major landmarks associated with Taiwan. The area is famous for its production of high mountain tea and wasabi.[citation needed]

 

Alishan is well known for its sunrises, and on a suitable morning one can observe the sun come up on a sea of clouds in the area between Alishan and Yüshan. Alishan and Sun Moon Lake are two of the best known scenic spots in Asia. The indigenous people of the area, the Thao people, have only recently been recognized as a discrete ethnic group. They have long been confused with the Tsou people.

Climate

 

Alishan National Scenic Area spans a broad range in altitude. Lower elevations, such as in Leye Township, share the same subtropical and tropical climate as the rest of southern Taiwan, while the climate changes to temperate and alpine as the elevation increases. Snow sometimes falls at higher elevations in the winter.[citation needed]

 

Alishan National Scenic Area covers most, but not all, of Alishan Rural Township in Chiayi County, as well as parts of neighboring townships in Taiwan.[citation needed]

 

Average temperatures are moderate:[citation needed]

 

Low elevations: 24 °C in the summer, 16 °C in the winter.

Medium elevations: 19 °C in the summer, 12 °C in the winter.

High elevations: 14 °C in the summer, 5 °C in the winter.

 

Topography

 

Alishan is mountainous:[citation needed]

 

Number of peaks above 2000 meters: 25

Highest point: Da Ta Shan (大塔山), 2,663 meters.

Average height of Alishan Mountain Range: 2,500 meters.

 

Vegetation and wildlife

 

Important trees in the area include:[citation needed]

 

Taiwania cryptomerioides, a large coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae (the same family as the next three species)

Chamaecyparis formosensis, or Formosan Cypress

Chamaecyparis taiwanensis

Cunninghamia konishii

Pinus taiwanensis, or Taiwan Red Pine

Picea morrisonicola, or Yüshan Spruce

Pseudotsuga sinensis var. wilsoniana, or Taiwan Douglas-fir

Abies kawakamii, a species of conifer in the Pinaceae family, only found in Taiwan

Tsuga chinensis var. formosana, Taiwan or Chinese Hemlock

Ulmus uyematsui, a species of elm only found in the Alishan region

 

History

Longyin Temple of Chukou Village in Alishan National Scenic Area.

Boardwalk at Alishan National Scenic Area.

 

The Alishan area was originally settled by the Tsou tribe of the Taiwanese aborigines; the name derives from the aboriginal word Jarissang. Ethnic Han Chinese settlers first settled on the plains near modern-day Chiayi as early as the late Ming Dynasty (around the mid-17th century), but did not move into the mountains until the late 18th century, establishing the towns of Ruili (瑞里), Ruifeng (瑞峰), Xiding (隙頂), and Fenqihu (奮起湖). The resulting armed clashes between the settlers and the aborigines pushed the aborigines even further into the mountains.[citation needed]

 

Following the cession of Taiwan to Japan at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War, Japanese expeditions to the area found large quantities of cypress (檜木, or hinoki in Japanese). This led to the development of the logging industry in the area and the export of local cypress and Taiwania wood. A series of narrow-gauge railways were built in the area during this time to facilitate the transportation of lumber from the mountains to the plains below, part of which continues to operate as the Alishan Forest Railway. Several new villages also began to sprout up along the railway lines. It was also during this time that the first tourists began to visit the area. Plans were even drawn up to incorporate the area into the new Niitaka (New Highest) Arisan National Park (新高阿里山国立公園).[citation needed]

 

With the exhaustion of forest resources by the 1970s, domestic and international tourism overtook logging to become the primary economic activity in the area. The tourism industry continued to expand with the completion of the Alisan highway in the 1980s, displacing the railroad as the primary mode of transportation up the mountain. To combat the problems associated with the growing crowds of tourists and the expanding tea and wasabi plantations, the area was declared a national scenic area in 2001.[citation needed]

 

On 1 December 2014, fire broke out at Alishan spreading over more than 5 hectares of land. The area affected was located near Tapang No. 3 Bridge. The fire was believed to happen due to dry ground which was vulnerable to fire because of the absence of rain in the area for months.[1]

Attractions and landmarks

A Japanese-built train on the Alishan Forest Railway.

 

Fenqihu (奮起湖) is a small town of low wooden buildings built into the mountainside at 1,400 meters, midpoint of the Alishan Forest Railway. It is famous for natural rock formations, mountain streams, forests, and the ruins of a Shinto temple in the vicinity, as well as for its production of high altitude food products such as bamboo shoots and aiyu jelly (愛玉). The local box lunches (奮起湖便當, Fenqihu bento), which were once sold to passengers on the rail line, are also well known.[citation needed]

 

Taiwan (/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ (About this sound listen)), officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a state in East Asia. Its neighbors include China (officially the People's Republic of China, PRC) to the west, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taiwan is the most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations and the largest economy outside the UN.

 

The island of Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, was inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before the 17th century, when Dutch and Spanish colonies opened the island to mass Han immigration. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty of China. The Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China (ROC) was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROC's loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. Although the ROC continued to claim to be the legitimate government of China, its effective jurisdiction has since the loss of Hainan in 1950 been limited to Taiwan and its surrounding islands, with the main island making up 99% of its de facto territory. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, when the PRC assumed China's seat, causing the ROC to lose its UN membership.

 

In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system. Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, healthcare,[15] public education, economic freedom, and human development.[d][13][16] The country benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most highly educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree.[17][18]

 

The PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refused diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC. Today 20 countries recognize the ROC as the sole legal representative of China,[19] but many other states maintain unofficial ties through representative offices and institutions that function as de facto embassies and consulates. Although Taiwan is fully self-governing, most international organizations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or allow it to participate only as a non-state actor. Internally, the major division in politics is between the aspirations of eventual Chinese unification or Taiwanese independence, though both sides have moderated their positions to broaden their appeal. The PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible.[20]

 

Contents

 

1 Etymology

2 History

2.1 Prehistoric Taiwan

2.2 Opening in the 17th century

2.3 Qing rule

2.4 Japanese rule

2.5 After World War II

2.6 Chinese Nationalist one-party rule

2.7 Democratization

3 Geography

3.1 Climate

3.2 Geology

4 Political and legal status

4.1 Relations with the PRC

4.2 Foreign relations

4.3 Participation in international events and organizations

4.4 Opinions within Taiwan

5 Government and politics

5.1 Major camps

5.2 Current political issues

5.3 National identity

6 Military

7 Administrative divisions

8 Economy and industry

9 Transportation

10 Education, research, and academia

11 Demographics

11.1 Ethnic groups

11.2 Languages

11.3 Religion

11.4 Largest cities

12 Public health

13 Culture

13.1 Sports

13.2 Calendar

14 See also

15 Notes

16 References

16.1 Citations

16.2 Works cited

17 Further reading

18 External links

18.1 Overviews and data

18.2 Government agencies

 

Etymology

See also: Chinese Taipei, Formosa, and Names of China

Taiwan

Taiwan (Chinese characters).svg

"Taiwan" in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom) Chinese characters

Chinese name

Traditional Chinese 臺灣 or 台灣

Simplified Chinese 台湾

Transcriptions

Standard Mandarin

Hanyu Pinyin Táiwān

Bopomofo ㄊㄞˊ ㄨㄢ

Gwoyeu Romatzyh Tair'uan

Wade–Giles T'ai²-wan¹

Tongyong Pinyin Táiwan

IPA [tʰǎi.wán]

other Mandarin

Xiao'erjing تَاَىْوًا‎

Wu

Romanization The平-uae平

Xiang

IPA dwɛ13 ua44

Hakka

Romanization Thòi-vàn

Yue: Cantonese

Yale Romanization Tòiwāan

Jyutping Toi4waan1

Southern Min

Hokkien POJ Tâi-oân

Tâi-lô Tâi-uân

Eastern Min

Fuzhou BUC Dài-uăng

China

Traditional Chinese 中國

Simplified Chinese 中国

Literal meaning Middle or Central State[21]

Transcriptions

Standard Mandarin

Hanyu Pinyin Zhōngguó

Bopomofo ㄓㄨㄥ ㄍㄨㄛˊ

Gwoyeu Romatzyh Jong'gwo

Wade–Giles Chung1-kuo2

Tongyong Pinyin Jhongguó

MPS2 Jūng-guó

IPA [ʈʂʊ́ŋ.kwǒ]

other Mandarin

Xiao'erjing ﺟْﻮﻗُﻮَع

Sichuanese Pinyin Zong1 gwe2

Wu

Romanization Tson平-koh入

Gan

Romanization Tung-koe̍t

Xiang

IPA Tan33-kwɛ24/

Hakka

Romanization Dung24-gued2

Yue: Cantonese

Yale Romanization Jūnggwok

Jyutping Zung1gwok3

Southern Min

Hokkien POJ Tiong-kok

Eastern Min

Fuzhou BUC Dṳ̆ng-guók

Pu-Xian Min

Hinghwa BUC De̤ng-go̤h

Northern Min

Jian'ou Romanized Dô̤ng-gŏ

Republic of China

Traditional Chinese 中華民國

Simplified Chinese 中华民国

Postal Chunghwa Minkuo

Transcriptions

Standard Mandarin

Hanyu Pinyin Zhōnghuá Mínguó

Bopomofo ㄓㄨㄥ ㄏㄨㄚˊ ㄇㄧㄣˊ ㄍㄨㄛˊ

Gwoyeu Romatzyh Jonghwa Min'gwo

Wade–Giles Chung¹-hua² Min²-kuo²

Tongyong Pinyin Jhonghuá Mínguó

MPS2 Jūng-huá Mín-guó

IPA [ʈʂʊ́ŋxwǎ mǐnkwǒ]

other Mandarin

Xiao'erjing ﺟْﻮ ﺧُﻮَ مٍ ﻗُﻮَع

Wu

Romanization tson平 gho平 min平 koh入

Gan

Romanization tung1 fa4 min4 koet7

Hakka

Romanization Chûng-fà Mìn-koet

Yue: Cantonese

Yale Romanization Jūngwà màn'gwok

Jyutping Zung1waa4 man4gwok3

Southern Min

Hokkien POJ Tiong-hôa Bîn-kok

Tâi-lô Tiong-hûa Bîn-kok

Eastern Min

Fuzhou BUC Dṳ̆ng-huà Mìng-guók

Japanese name

Kanji 台湾

Kana たいわん

Kyūjitai 臺灣

Transcriptions

Romanization Taiwan

 

There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, derived from explorers or rulers by each particular period. The former name Formosa (福爾摩沙) dates from 1542,[verification needed] when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means "beautiful island".[22] The name "Formosa" eventually "replaced all others in European literature"[23] and was in common use in English in the early 20th century.[24]

 

In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company established a commercial post at Fort Zeelandia (modern-day Anping, Tainan) on a coastal sandbar called "Tayouan",[25] after their ethnonym for a nearby Taiwanese aboriginal tribe, written by the Dutch and Portuguese variously as Taiouwang, Tayowan, Teijoan, etc.[26] This name was also adopted into the Chinese vernacular (in particular, Hokkien, as Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tāi-oân/Tâi-oân) as the name of the sandbar and nearby area (Tainan). The modern word "Taiwan" is derived from this usage, which is seen in various forms (大員, 大圓, 大灣, 臺員, 臺圓 and 臺窩灣) in Chinese historical records. The area of modern-day Tainan was the first permanent settlement by Western colonists and Chinese immigrants, grew to be the most important trading centre, and served as the capital of the island until 1887. Use of the current Chinese name (臺灣) was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture. Through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as "Taiwan".[27][28][29][30]

 

In his Daoyi Zhilüe (1349), Wang Dayuan used "Liuqiu" as a name for the island of Taiwan, or the part of it near to Penghu.[31] Elsewhere, the name was used for the Ryukyu Islands in general or Okinawa, the largest of them; indeed the name Ryūkyū is the Japanese form of Liúqiú. The name also appears in the Book of Sui (636) and other early works, but scholars cannot agree on whether these references are to the Ryukyus, Taiwan or even Luzon.[32]

 

The official name of the state is the "Republic of China"; it has also been known under various names throughout its existence. Shortly after the ROC's establishment in 1912, while it was still located on the Chinese mainland, the government used the short form "China" Zhōngguó (中國), to refer to itself, which derives from zhōng ("central" or "middle") and guó ("state, nation-state"), [e] A term which also developed under the Zhou Dynasty in reference to its royal demesne[f] and the name was then applied to the area around Luoyi (present-day Luoyang) during the Eastern Zhou and then to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qingera .[34] During the 1950s and 1960s, after the government had fled to Taiwan due to losing the Chinese Civil War, it was commonly referred to as "Nationalist China" (or "Free China") to differentiate it from "Communist China" (or "Red China").[36] It was a member of the United Nations representing "China" until 1971, when it lost its seat to the People's Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become commonly known as "Taiwan", after the island that comprises 99% of the territory under its control. In some contexts, especially official ones from the ROC government, the name is written as "Republic of China (Taiwan)", "Republic of China/Taiwan", or sometimes "Taiwan (ROC)."[37] The Republic of China participates in most international forums and organizations under the name "Chinese Taipei" due to diplomatic pressure from the People's Republic of China. For instance, it is the name under which it has competed at the Olympic Games since 1984, and its name as an observer at the World Health Organization.[38]

History

Main articles: History of Taiwan and History of the Republic of China

See the History of China article for historical information in the Chinese Mainland before 1949.

Prehistoric Taiwan

Main article: Prehistory of Taiwan

A young Tsou man

 

Taiwan was joined to the mainland in the Late Pleistocene, until sea levels rose about 10,000 years ago. Fragmentary human remains dated 20,000 to 30,000 years ago have been found on the island, as well as later artefacts of a Paleolithic culture.[39][40][41]

 

Around 6,000 years ago, Taiwan was settled by farmers, most likely from mainland China.[42] They are believed to be the ancestors of today's Taiwanese aborigines, whose languages belong to the Austronesian language family, but show much greater diversity than the rest of the family, which spans a huge area from Maritime Southeast Asia west to Madagascar and east as far as New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island. This has led linguists to propose Taiwan as the urheimat of the family, from which seafaring peoples dispersed across Southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans.[43][44]

 

Han Chinese fishermen began settling in the Penghu islands in the 13th century, but Taiwan's hostile tribes and its lack of valuable trade products meant that few outsiders visited the island until the 16th century, when visits to the coast by fishermen from Fujian and Chinese and Japanese pirates became more frequent.[45]

Opening in the 17th century

Main articles: Dutch Formosa, Spanish Formosa, and Kingdom of Tungning

Fort Zeelandia, the Governor's residence in Dutch Formosa

 

The Dutch East India Company attempted to establish a trading outpost on the Penghu Islands (Pescadores) in 1622, but were militarily defeated and driven off by the Ming authorities.[46]

 

In 1624, the company established a stronghold called Fort Zeelandia on the coastal islet of Tayouan, which is now part of the main island at Anping, Tainan.[30] David Wright, a Scottish agent of the company who lived on the island in the 1650s, described the lowland areas of the island as being divided among 11 chiefdoms ranging in size from two settlements to 72. Some of these fell under Dutch control, while others remained independent.[30][47] The Company began to import labourers from Fujian and Penghu (Pescadores), many of whom settled.[46]

 

In 1626, the Spanish Empire landed on and occupied northern Taiwan, at the ports of Keelung and Tamsui, as a base to extend their trading. This colonial period lasted 16 years until 1642, when the last Spanish fortress fell to Dutch forces.

 

Following the fall of the Ming dynasty, Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), a self-styled Ming loyalist, arrived on the island and captured Fort Zeelandia in 1662, expelling the Dutch Empire and military from the island. Koxinga established the Kingdom of Tungning (1662–1683), with his capital at Tainan. He and his heirs, Zheng Jing, who ruled from 1662 to 1682, and Zheng Keshuang, who ruled less than a year, continued to launch raids on the southeast coast of mainland China well into the Qing dynasty era.[46]

Qing rule

Main article: Taiwan under Qing Dynasty rule

Hunting deer, painted in 1746

 

In 1683, following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang of southern Fujian, the Qing dynasty formally annexed Taiwan, placing it under the jurisdiction of Fujian province. The Qing imperial government tried to reduce piracy and vagrancy in the area, issuing a series of edicts to manage immigration and respect aboriginal land rights. Immigrants mostly from southern Fujian continued to enter Taiwan. The border between taxpaying lands and "savage" lands shifted eastward, with some aborigines becoming sinicized while others retreated into the mountains. During this time, there were a number of conflicts between groups of Han Chinese from different regions of southern Fujian, particularly between those from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, and between southern Fujian Chinese and aborigines.

 

Northern Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were the scene of subsidiary campaigns in the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). The French occupied Keelung on 1 October 1884, but were repulsed from Tamsui a few days later. The French won some tactical victories but were unable to exploit them, and the Keelung Campaign ended in stalemate. The Pescadores Campaign, beginning on 31 March 1885, was a French victory, but had no long-term consequences. The French evacuated both Keelung and the Penghu archipelago after the end of the war.

 

In 1887, the Qing upgraded the island's administration from Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian to Fujian-Taiwan-Province (福建臺灣省), the twentieth in the empire, with its capital at Taipei. This was accompanied by a modernization drive that included building China's first railroad.[48]

Japanese rule

Main articles: Taiwan under Japanese rule and Republic of Formosa

Japanese colonial soldiers march Taiwanese captured after the Tapani Incident from the Tainan jail to court, 1915.

 

As the Qing dynasty was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Taiwan, along with Penghu and Liaodong Peninsula, were ceded in full sovereignty to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Inhabitants on Taiwan and Penghu wishing to remain Qing subjects were given a two-year grace period to sell their property and move to mainland China. Very few Taiwanese saw this as feasible.[49] On 25 May 1895, a group of pro-Qing high officials proclaimed the Republic of Formosa to resist impending Japanese rule. Japanese forces entered the capital at Tainan and quelled this resistance on 21 October 1895.[50] Guerrilla fighting continued periodically until about 1902 and ultimately took the lives of 14,000 Taiwanese, or 0.5% of the population.[51] Several subsequent rebellions against the Japanese (the Beipu uprising of 1907, the Tapani incident of 1915, and the Musha incident of 1930) were all unsuccessful but demonstrated opposition to Japanese colonial rule.

 

Japanese colonial rule was instrumental in the industrialization of the island, extending the railroads and other transportation networks, building an extensive sanitation system, and establishing a formal education system.[52] Japanese rule ended the practice of headhunting.[53] During this period the human and natural resources of Taiwan were used to aid the development of Japan and the production of cash crops such as rice and sugar greatly increased. By 1939, Taiwan was the seventh greatest sugar producer in the world.[54] Still, the Taiwanese and aborigines were classified as second- and third-class citizens. After suppressing Chinese guerrillas in the first decade of their rule, Japanese authorities engaged in a series of bloody campaigns against the mountain aboriginals, culminating in the Musha Incident of 1930.[55] Also, those intellectual and labours who participated in left-wing movement of Taiwan were arrested and massacred (e.g. Tsiúnn Uī-Suí(蔣渭水), masanosuke watanabe(渡辺政之辅)).[56]

 

Around 1935, the Japanese began an island-wide assimilation project to bind the island more firmly to the Japanese Empire and people were taught to see themselves as Japanese under the Kominka Movement, during which time Taiwanese culture and religion were outlawed and the citizens were encouraged to adopt Japanese surnames.[57] The "South Strike Group" was based at the Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei. During World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military.[58] For example, former ROC President Lee Teng-hui's elder brother served in the Japanese navy and was killed in action in the Philippines in February 1945. The Imperial Japanese Navy operated heavily out of Taiwanese ports. In October 1944, the Formosa Air Battle was fought between American carriers and Japanese forces based in Taiwan. Important Japanese military bases and industrial centres throughout Taiwan, like Kaohsiung, were targets of heavy American bombings.[59] Also during this time, over 2,000 women were forced into sexual slavery for Imperial Japanese troops, now euphemistically called "comfort women."[60]

 

In 1938, there were 309,000 Japanese settlers in Taiwan.[61] After World War II, most of the Japanese were expelled and sent to Japan.[62]

After World War II

Main article: Taiwan after World War II

General Chen Yi (right) accepting the receipt of General Order No. 1 from Rikichi Andō (left), the last Japanese Governor-General of Taiwan, in Taipei City Hall

 

On 25 October 1945, the US Navy ferried ROC troops to Taiwan in order to accept the formal surrender of Japanese military forces in Taipei on behalf of the Allied Powers, as part of General Order No. 1 for temporary military occupation. General Rikichi Andō, governor-general of Taiwan and commander-in-chief of all Japanese forces on the island, signed the receipt and handed it over to General Chen Yi of the ROC military to complete the official turnover. Chen Yi proclaimed that day to be "Taiwan Retrocession Day", but the Allies considered Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to be under military occupation and still under Japanese sovereignty until 1952, when the Treaty of San Francisco took effect.[63][64] Although the 1943 Cairo Declaration had envisaged returning these territories to China, in the Treaty of San Francisco and Treaty of Taipei Japan has renounced all claim to them without specifying to what country they were to be surrendered. This introduced the problem of the legal status of Taiwan.

 

The ROC administration of Taiwan under Chen Yi was strained by increasing tensions between Taiwanese-born people and newly arrived mainlanders, which were compounded by economic woes, such as hyperinflation. Furthermore, cultural and linguistic conflicts between the two groups quickly led to the loss of popular support for the new government, while the mass movement led by the working committee of the communist also aimed to bring down the Kuomintang government.[65][66] The shooting of a civilian on 28 February 1947 triggered island-wide unrest, which was suppressed with military force in what is now called the February 28 Incident. Mainstream estimates of the number killed range from 18,000 to 30,000. Those killed were mainly members of the Taiwanese elite.[67][68]

Chinese Nationalist one-party rule

Main articles: Chinese Civil War, Chinese Communist Revolution, and History of the Republic of China § Republic of China on Taiwan (1949–present)

For the history of Republic of China before 1949, see Republic of China (1912–49).

The Nationalists' retreat to Taipei: after the Nationalists lost Nanjing (Nanking) they next moved to Guangzhou (Canton), then to Chongqing (Chungking), Chengdu (Chengtu) and Xichang (Sichang) before arriving in Taipei.

 

After the end of World War II, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang), led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Party of China, led by Mao Zedong. Throughout the months of 1949, a series of Chinese Communist offensives led to the capture of its capital Nanjing on 23 April and the subsequent defeat of the Nationalist army on the mainland, and the Communists founded the People's Republic of China on 1 October.[69]

 

On 7 December 1949, after the loss of four capitals, Chiang evacuated his Nationalist government to Taiwan and made Taipei the temporary capital of the ROC (also called the "wartime capital" by Chiang Kai-shek).[70] Some 2 million people, consisting mainly of soldiers, members of the ruling Kuomintang and intellectual and business elites, were evacuated from mainland China to Taiwan at that time, adding to the earlier population of approximately six million. In addition, the ROC government took to Taipei many national treasures and much of China's gold reserves and foreign currency reserves.[71][72][73]

 

After losing most of the mainland, the Kuomintang held remaining control of Tibet, the portions of Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Yunnan provinces along with the Hainan Island until 1951 before the Communists subsequently captured both territories. From this point onwards, the Kuomintang's territory was reduced to Taiwan, Penghu, the portions of the Fujian province (Kinmen and Matsu Islands), and two major islands of Dongsha Islands and Nansha Islands. The Kuomintang continued to claim sovereignty over all "China", which it defined to include mainland China, Taiwan, Outer Mongolia and other areas. On mainland China, the victorious Communists claimed they ruled the sole and only China (which they claimed included Taiwan) and that the Republic of China no longer existed.[74]

A Chinese man in military uniform, smiling and looking towards the left. He holds a sword in his left hand and has a medal in shape of a sun on his chest.

Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang from 1925 until his death in 1975

 

Martial law, declared on Taiwan in May 1949,[75] continued to be in effect after the central government relocated to Taiwan. It was not repealed until 1987,[75] and was used as a way to suppress the political opposition in the intervening years.[76] During the White Terror, as the period is known, 140,000 people were imprisoned or executed for being perceived as anti-KMT or pro-Communist.[77] Many citizens were arrested, tortured, imprisoned and executed for their real or perceived link to the Communists. Since these people were mainly from the intellectual and social elite, an entire generation of political and social leaders was decimated. In 1998 law was passed to create the "Compensation Foundation for Improper Verdicts" which oversaw compensation to White Terror victims and families. President Ma Ying-jeou made an official apology in 2008, expressing hope that there will never be a tragedy similar to White Terror.[78]

 

Initially, the United States abandoned the KMT and expected that Taiwan would fall to the Communists. However, in 1950 the conflict between North Korea and South Korea, which had been ongoing since the Japanese withdrawal in 1945, escalated into full-blown war, and in the context of the Cold War, US President Harry S. Truman intervened again and dispatched the US Navy's 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent hostilities between Taiwan and mainland China.[79] In the Treaty of San Francisco and the Treaty of Taipei, which came into force respectively on 28 April 1952 and 5 August 1952, Japan formally renounced all right, claim and title to Taiwan and Penghu, and renounced all treaties signed with China before 1942. Neither treaty specified to whom sovereignty over the islands should be transferred, because the United States and the United Kingdom disagreed on whether the ROC or the PRC was the legitimate government of China.[80] Continuing conflict of the Chinese Civil War through the 1950s, and intervention by the United States notably resulted in legislation such as the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty and the Formosa Resolution of 1955.

With President Chiang Kai-shek, the US President Dwight D. Eisenhower waved to crowds during his visit to Taipei in June 1960.

 

As the Chinese Civil War continued without truce, the government built up military fortifications throughout Taiwan. Within this effort, KMT veterans built the now famous Central Cross-Island Highway through the Taroko Gorge in the 1950s. The two sides would continue to engage in sporadic military clashes with seldom publicized details well into the 1960s on the China coastal islands with an unknown number of night raids. During the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in September 1958, Taiwan's landscape saw Nike-Hercules missile batteries added, with the formation of the 1st Missile Battalion Chinese Army that would not be deactivated until 1997. Newer generations of missile batteries have since replaced the Nike Hercules systems throughout the island.

 

During the 1960s and 1970s, the ROC maintained an authoritarian, single-party government while its economy became industrialized and technology oriented. This rapid economic growth, known as the Taiwan Miracle, was the result of a fiscal regime independent from mainland China and backed up, among others, by the support of US funds and demand for Taiwanese products.[81][82] In the 1970s, Taiwan was economically the second fastest growing state in Asia after Japan.[83] Taiwan, along with Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore, became known as one of the Four Asian Tigers. Because of the Cold War, most Western nations and the United Nations regarded the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China until the 1970s. Later, especially after the termination of the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, most nations switched diplomatic recognition to the PRC (see United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758).

 

Up until the 1970s, the government was regarded by Western critics as undemocratic for upholding martial law, for severely repressing any political opposition and for controlling media. The KMT did not allow the creation of new parties and those that existed did not seriously compete with the KMT. Thus, competitive democratic elections did not exist.[84][85][86][87][88] From the late 1970s to the 1990s, however, Taiwan went through reforms and social changes that transformed it from an authoritarian state to a democracy. In 1979, a pro-democracy protest known as the Kaohsiung Incident took place in Kaohsiung to celebrate Human Rights Day. Although the protest was rapidly crushed by the authorities, it is today considered as the main event that united Taiwan's opposition.[89]

Democratization

Main articles: Democratic reforms of Taiwan and Elections in Taiwan

 

Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's son and successor as the president, began to liberalize the political system in the mid-1980s. In 1984, the younger Chiang selected Lee Teng-hui, a Taiwanese-born, US-educated technocrat, to be his vice-president. In 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed and inaugurated as the first opposition party in the ROC to counter the KMT. A year later, Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law on the main island of Taiwan (martial law was lifted on Penghu in 1979, Matsu island in 1992 and Kinmen island in 1993). With the advent of democratization, the issue of the political status of Taiwan gradually resurfaced as a controversial issue where, previously, the discussion of anything other than unification under the ROC was taboo.

 

After the death of Chiang Ching-kuo in January 1988, Lee Teng-hui succeeded him as president. Lee continued to democratize the government and decrease the concentration of government authority in the hands of mainland Chinese. Under Lee, Taiwan underwent a process of localization in which Taiwanese culture and history were promoted over a pan-China viewpoint in contrast to earlier KMT policies which had promoted a Chinese identity. Lee's reforms included printing banknotes from the Central Bank rather than the Provincial Bank of Taiwan, and streamlining the Taiwan Provincial Government with most of its functions transferred to the Executive Yuan. Under Lee, the original members of the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly(a former supreme legislative body defunct in 2005）,[90] elected in 1947 to represent mainland Chinese constituencies and having held the seats without re-election for more than four decades, were forced to resign in 1991. The previously nominal representation in the Legislative Yuan was brought to an end, reflecting the reality that the ROC had no jurisdiction over mainland China, and vice versa. Restrictions on the use of Taiwanese Hokkien in the broadcast media and in schools were also lifted.[citation needed]

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Taiwan's special envoy to the APEC summit, Lien Chan, November 2011

 

Democratic reforms continued in the 1990s, with Lee Teng-hui re-elected in 1996, in the first direct presidential election in the history of the ROC.[91] During the later years of Lee's administration, he was involved in corruption controversies relating to government release of land and weapons purchase, although no legal proceedings commenced. In 1997,"To meet the requisites of the nation prior to national unification",[92] the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China was passed and then the former "constitution of five powers" turns to be more tripartite. In 2000, Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party was elected as the first non-Kuomintang (KMT) President and was re-elected to serve his second and last term since 2004. Polarized politics has emerged in Taiwan with the formation of the Pan-Blue Coalition of parties led by the KMT, favouring eventual Chinese reunification, and the Pan-Green Coalition of parties led by the DPP, favouring an eventual and official declaration of Taiwanese independence.[93][clarification needed] In early 2006, President Chen Shui-bian remarked: “The National Unification Council will cease to function. No budget will be ear-marked for it and its personnel must return to their original posts...The National Unification Guidelines will cease to apply."[94]

The ruling DPP has traditionally leaned in favour of Taiwan independence and rejects the so-called "One-China policy".

 

On 30 September 2007, the ruling DPP approved a resolution asserting a separate identity from China and called for the enactment of a new constitution for a "normal country". It also called for general use of "Taiwan" as the country's name, without abolishing its formal name, the Republic of China.[95] The Chen administration also pushed for referendums on national defence and UN entry in the 2004 and 2008 elections, which failed due to voter turnout below the required legal threshold of 50% of all registered voters.[96] The Chen administration was dogged by public concerns over reduced economic growth, legislative gridlock due to a pan-blue, opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan and corruption involving the First Family as well as government officials.[97][98]

 

The KMT increased its majority in the Legislative Yuan in the January 2008 legislative elections, while its nominee Ma Ying-jeou went on to win the presidency in March of the same year, campaigning on a platform of increased economic growth and better ties with the PRC under a policy of "mutual nondenial".[96] Ma took office on 20 May 2008, the same day that President Chen Shui-bian stepped down and was notified by prosecutors of possible corruption charges. Part of the rationale for campaigning for closer economic ties with the PRC stems from the strong economic growth China attained since joining the World Trade Organization. However, some analysts say that despite the election of Ma Ying-jeou, the diplomatic and military tensions with the PRC have not been reduced.[99]

“A fiend from hell or a human being? The weirdest masterpiece of all fiction . . . a man who could turn himself into a beast at will.”

 

Quick Readers are a fascinating slice of mid-century publishing history. Produced by Royce Publishers of Chicago (and occasionally Canada) between roughly 1943 and 1945, these pocket-sized paperbacks were part of a broader wartime trend: compact, affordable books designed for quick entertainment during paper shortages and long train rides—or even to be tucked into a soldier’s kit.

 

The series featured abridged versions of classic literature and popular stories, often condensed into 128 pages or fewer, with the promise that the “beauty of the story” remained intact. The format—roughly 3" x 4.5"—was ideal for portability, and the inclusion of color covers and black-and-white interior illustrations added a touch of charm and visual appeal

 

Royce published forty-eight Quick Reader titles. While they weren’t bestsellers in the traditional sense, they were part of a broader movement that democratized reading during the war years. Think of them as cousins to the Armed Services Editions—books made accessible, digestible, and portable. Their success was modest but meaningful, especially among readers looking for quick literary escapes. Trimmed-down formats, lightweight bindings, and condensed storytelling weren't just economical; they were deeply practical for men reading in barracks, on transports, or in foxholes with a flashlight tucked under a blanket.

 

Titles include works by Emile Zola, David Frome, H. Allen Smith, Ogden Nash, and Ring Lardner, among others. Some volumes were published in Canada, which hints at a broader North American distribution. Today, they’re quite collectible, especially in good condition with intact covers and illustrations. Their scarcity, wartime context, and charming design make them appealing to collectors of vintage paperbacks and WWII-era ephemera alike.

 

[Note: Although the artwork is uncredited, only two artists were used for these books, Axelrod and Cirkle.}

Hey, remember that Origin of the U.S. States thing I was doing? I need to get back to that. So this is Part 16 of 50 in an occasional series.

 

These state origin stories are meant to be short things I can write in an hour or two that an interested person might take five or ten minutes to read. I try to include the big picture bits of each state's history, but there's no way I can be comprehensive, so a lot of stuff gets simplified or left out. And one of the things I've been consistent about leaving out is the history of all those folks who were here before the Englishmen hopped off the boats and poured into the woods. But Tennessee's a good place for me to change that up and take a look at things from the other side. If you know anything about the history of white America's treatment of the people who got here first, you'll understand why.

 

Nobody's sure exactly who the first people were to get to Tennessee, though the anthropologists suggest people have been living someplace in the state for at least 12,000 years. The first ten millennia or so of that are little more than a misty cloud of things long forgotten, but about 2,000 years ago, the early Tennesseans decided to get in on one of the early mound-building crazes that had started sweeping through the Mississippi Valley and eventually would center on Cahokia in Illinois. By about 1000 AD, a network of walled towns built around mounds and surrounded by developed agriculture lined the river systems of the American Southeast, including Tennessee.

 

Cahokia died out around the year 1300, though, and the sprawl of Mississippian mound builders splintered into smaller groups. In Tennessee, the network linking all the little towns fell apart, and many of the villages were abandoned. Then the pendulum swung yet again, and by 1400 a group of descendants of the mound builders in eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia gathered together in a sort of mini-empire of linked city-states called the Chiefdom of Coosa. These were the people who were hanging around Tennessee when the first European ambled through in 1540, a Spanish conquistador named Hernando de Soto.

 

I'll talk more about Hernando de Soto when I do Mississippi's story, probably, but it pays to know that he was kind of a jerk. Fortunately, he hadn't yet hit on the idea of burning the native villages when he met the Coosa. Like every other Spanish conquistador, though, de Soto was only looking for two things, gold to steal and souls to save. He didn't find much of the former, but he sent word back to Spain that there were enough of the latter to justify sending in the priests. They spent about 30 years building forts and missions before the natives drove them off in 1569, and the Spanish forgot Tennessee was ever a thing.

 

Something happened to the Coosa between the moment the Spanish left and the next batch of Europeans arrived, and nobody's sure just what it was. I think it's likely that the Spaniards left that same stew of diseases that always seemed accompany the Europeans' first contact with native people, and that a mass die-off resulted in social upheaval and collapse, but the real explanation can't be known. The upshot is that by the start of the 18th century, what had been the Coosa Chiefdom had transformed into the collection of separate tribes whose names we know, people like the Muskogean-speaking Choctaw and Chickasaw in western and central Tennessee, and the Iroquoian and Cherokee people in the Appalachians. The separate groups of Appalachian Mountain people and Mississippi Plateau people grew to be enemies, with each group competing for territory at the Appalachian margins.

 

This competition grew all the more fierce as the European settlers expanded farther and farther into western Virginia and North Carolina. At the dawn of European settlement, the bulk of the Cherokee people had lived in the mountains of far western Virginia. As the Virginia plantation men grabbed more and more land to cover larger and larger debts, the Cherokee were pushed west across the mountains, and were forced to make incursions into the Muskogean-speaking territory. This only led to more conflict that strained the resources of both native groups, leaving them all weaker and less able to resist the rising tide. By 1750, the Cherokee were entrenched in the Smoky Mountains--the region all around the spot in Cades Cove where I took this picture--but their hold was tenuous, and they could be shaken off the land by anyone who wanted to try.

 

And of course, there were white folks who wanted to try. The Europeans were filling up the land east of the Appalachians, and though King George III tried keeping his gang on one side of the mountains with his Royal Proclamation of 1763, the gang wasn't having it. In the 1760s, farmers--including the people who gave me my name--started ignoring Colonial law and seeping through the mountains into the Nolichucky and French Broad River Valleys. The Crown's Colonial Powers-That-Were (for the moment) tried ordering the settlers out. The settlers responded by saying, "Screw you. Oh, and by the way, we're our own government, and we make our own rules." In 1772, they formed a sort of independent consortium they called the Watauga Association, named after another river in the region, and set about writing a code of legal conduct and establishing themselves as a political presence. Historians are conflicted over whether this actually translates to an early form of declared independence, but at the very least, it was a statement that British Crown rules held no more sway over the white men of Appalachia.

 

The Watauga Association turned out to be a short-lived affair--North Carolina annexed the Association into its territory as soon as the Declaration of Independence made the 1763 Proclamation moot--but it lasted long enough to focus on what a lot of new Tennesseans felt was their most important goal. They needed to get rid of all those Indians. Most importantly, they needed to get rid of the Cherokee still living around the mountains.

 

They started off nicely, negotiating a 10-year lease with one band of the Cherokee for a relatively small patch of land right around the Nolichucky and Watauga Valleys, territory just north of the modern Great Smoky Mountain National Park and east of the future city of Knoxville. In 1775, the Association went ahead and bought the land outright.

 

The British Crown said any kind of dealing with the Cherokee by independent colonists past the Proclamation Line was illegal, but to the Wataugans, that was just a bunch of nonbinding legalese. More significant to them was how the Cherokee felt about the whole thing, and the Cherokee were far from unified on the deal. One young chief named Dragging Canoe felt--correctly, it would turn out--that the whole thing was just a tactic to establish a beachhead, and that the Watauga and Nolichucky Rivers were just the beginning. When the American Revolution broke out in 1776, Dragging Canoe's band of Cherokee sided with the British against the Americans, and they all went to war. They staged fierce attacks against the Watauga settlers, raiding farms all across the mountains. But the Watagans fought back hard, costing the Cherokee as much as they gained.

 

But the Cherokee fought on, even after the British lost at Yorktown and vanished from Appalachia. They never gave the territory up for lost, and even managed to build alliances with their old enemies, the Choctaw and the Muskogee, that might have made some sort of difference, if the tide of white settlers hadn't been so overwhelming. But then Dragging Canoe died in 1792 while celebrating a particularly sweet victory, and Cherokee resistance fell apart. The tide rolled over them, and they were consumed.

 

The war won, the new Tennesseans focused on their grievances with their fellow Americans back across the mountains. They got into a fight with North Carolina over taxes to pay the war debt (of course), and for a while they declared themselves their own territory called the State of Franklin. Franklin didn't take, but once Vermont and Kentucky were given statehood, the Tennesseans figured out how to make things work. They wrote up their own constitution, and North Carolina washed their hands of the whole bunch. In 1796, Tennessee became the 16th state of the Union.

 

Meanwhile, the Cherokee tried to make peace with their new neighbors and began an initiative designed to democratize the tribe so that they could mesh with the growing American society. And this went okay for a while, but any time spent listening to country songs will tell you how good a Tennessean is at holding onto a grudge. They just had to wait for the right moment. That moment finally came when Tennessee's own Andrew Jackson was elected President of the United States in 1828. Like Hernando de Soto, Andrew Jackson was also a jerk, and he'd spent much of his extensive military career trying to kill off as many Indians as he could. In 1830, he pushed through the Indian Removal Act, giving himself the power to force eastern Indians off their land and onto reservations west of the Mississippi River.

 

He started with his old enemies, the Choctaw and Chicaksaw of Mississippi, and the Creek of Alabama. Some of the Cherokee in Georgia and Tennessee accepted relocation voluntarily. Most resisted. In the winter of 1838, those who remained in Tennessee, numbering about 13,000, were pushed off their ancestral lands at gunpoint and forced to march a thousand miles to the new reservation in Oklahoma. About 4,000 Cherokee would die along the road, which came to be called the Trail of Tears.

 

But none of this mattered to the typical Tennessean. Most were like Andrew Jackson, who by this time had retired to his plantation home northeast of Nashville. He could almost have watched the march from his window, but he probably didn't bother. He probably just kicked back with a bottle of whiskey and drank to the dawning of a new age for Tennessee.

Cluny Museum - Temporary Exhibition: Glass, an inventive Middle Ages

From September 20, 2017 to January 8, 2018.

 

The glass is, in the Middle Ages, the object of a real fascination. The exhibition traces ten centuries of an unknown creative abundance.

If they draw their inspiration from Antiquity or Islamic productions, master glassmakers also develop virtuosic techniques, such as Venetians, famous for enamelled goblets or craftsmen in the north of France, who develop the first glasses to rod.

 

From architecture, where the stained glass testifies to the virtuosity of craftsmen, to the most prestigious tables, glass is a luxury product. Over the centuries, it gradually democratizes in the form of civilian glazing or tavern cups.

But glass is also the precision work of service: urinals enable physicians to diagnose, stills used by apothecaries, mirrors that help reading - just like the glasses, which make their appearance in the late 13 th century .

 

The exhibition "The Glass, an inventive Middle Ages" features some 230 works with illuminations, paintings and engravings, which help us understand the uses of glass throughout the medieval period.

 

www.musee-moyenage.fr/activites/expositions/expositions-e...

Ctrl:N - Audrey Gaussiran

  

What happens to the choreographic piece if it is imagined and influenced by the audience?

 

The reversal of the traditional spectator role grants an ephemeral artist/creator status to the public and opens dialogue between the choreographer/dancer and citizens.

 

What needs to be articulated through art and movement?

 

The aim of this exchange is for the audience to feel more and more free and bold in their suggestions.

  

Ctrl:N integrates digital technologies to grow from ephemerality and audience members’ decisions.

 

The spectator, armed with their smartphone, transmits data to the dancer, influencing their movements, dynamics, emotions, etc.

 

Music is also an integral part of the piece and is constantly mutating in response to audience suggestions.

 

In mixed contemporary flamenca, Audrey Gaussiran is accompanied by Joannie Labelle on percussions and electro.

 

In this quest to democratize art, every sound, every movement is influenced by the audience’s artistic suggestions.

  

Dancer / Performer : Audrey Gaussiran

 

Coach/external eye/mentor : Frédérique-Annie Robitaille

 

Consultant technique: Mario Boucher

 

Music : Joanie Labelle

 

Musicians : Joanie Labelle

The jobs of scribes... at the future of work gathering that I hosted at work. (background below)

 

Opening: "Technology is driving an economic transformation. The effects on wealth and income are already significant, and emerging technologies promise greater effects in the coming decade. While the economic pie is bigger than ever, wages for the median worker in America and other advanced nations have stagnated, increasing inequality. Not everyone is participating in our economy’s bounty, and many of those left behind are becoming angry or disillusioned. With more powerful technologies available than ever before, the challenge before us is to create a better society than ever before."

 

Some comments, without attribution:

“We have an aging society. Mature people and societies want to get rid of risk. There are huge economic costs to decreasing risk.”

 

On the risk of AI: “If current trends continue, people are going to rise up before the machines.”

 

“When thinking about education for all, you want your competitors and the people you fight wars against to be educated. The alternative is ISIS.”

 

Something that occurred to me midway: many of the new jobs in the new economy (like Uber drivers and Mechanical Turkers) are at the edge of automation, and thus, are ever so ephemeral against the march of Moore’s Law.

 

We hope to pull a lot of it together into an open letter. On the whiteboard, we started with the 200-year endgame and pondered utopian and dystopian futures, long past the debates on transition times (e.g., robots can do anything physical better than a human by then). And we tried to come up with business/gov't/social movement ideas to address the path dependence of where we are today and were we hope we can go.

 

We explored democratizing vectors in the near term (education, broadband, fluidity (lifelong credentialing, immigration, etc.) and for the longer term, distribution vectors (basic wage, taxes) since, in the endgame, global democratization within an information economy will ironically further accelerate the rich-poor gap. Everyone will have access to the American Dream, writ large, but it will feel like the lottery. And, within many countries, like the U.S., the prior winners of the lottery run the lottery. This does not sound like a firm foundation for trust in the system.