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Displayed in meticulous detail inside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., Julia Child’s Kitchen is one of the most iconic and beloved museum installations dedicated to American culinary heritage. These photographs offer a vivid, immersive view into the very kitchen where Child filmed three of her acclaimed cooking shows between 2000 and 2001—including Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom—before donating the entire room, including its structure, tools, and appliances, to the Smithsonian Institution.
Originally installed in her Cambridge, Massachusetts home, the kitchen reflects Child’s philosophy that cooking should be joyful, personal, and accessible. It was custom-designed in the early 1960s by her husband Paul Child, who raised the counters to suit Julia’s 6-foot-2 height and helped build an environment that encouraged her intuitive approach to cooking and teaching.
These images reveal the kitchen from multiple vantage points: the familiar pegboards of copper pots and pans arranged precisely by Paul’s hand-painted outlines; walls lined with bookshelves holding Julia’s well-loved cookbooks and scripts; and mid-century appliances such as the Garland gas stove and vintage wall oven. The famous yellow Formica table is surrounded by mismatched chairs, and even the utensils appear to be mid-recipe, frozen in time.
Every item is authentic—from the mixing bowls and whisks to the timers, mixers, and notes taped to the fridge. The Smithsonian took great care in preserving the kitchen exactly as Julia last used it, reassembling it piece by piece to maintain its sense of vibrancy and lived-in creativity. The installation doesn’t just honor a legendary chef; it tells a story about mid-20th-century domestic life, media, and the democratization of food knowledge.
Julia Child wasn’t just a cook—she was a teacher, television pioneer, and cultural bridge between French culinary traditions and American home kitchens. This space stands as a monument to her legacy. Through these photographs, viewers can experience the intimacy of her creative environment, where camera crews once roamed, and where generations of viewers learned to be fearless in the kitchen.
Visually, these photos are warm, detailed, and filled with layered textures—from the golden glow of the lighting to the shadowplay of ladles and strainers, the tight focus on domestic tools, and the careful arrangement of the mise-en-place. The images evoke not just a physical space, but the personality and purpose that filled it.
Whether you're a food historian, a museum enthusiast, or a longtime admirer of Julia Child, these images serve as a portal into one of the most influential kitchens in American culture.
Any day now
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
I will be participating in:
BLOGS: An exhibition of photoblogs
NYC Exposition, Puerto Rico Sun, and East Harlem.
October 14 – November 26, 2005
Viewing: Tuesday – Saturday, 3PM – 7PM
The contributor's were asked to answer some questions......
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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.
Google posted the video of my talk from their “Solve for X” brainspa retreat. It’s a subject I first spoke about in 2010, and I was asked to introduce a global problem to brainstorm better solutions. My talk was dedicated to income inequality.
What if the nature of technology leads to an accelerating rich-poor gap that is not self-rectifying?
What if technology raises the bottom of the pyramid for all, and democratizes upward mobility, yet at the same time, transforms it from a pyramid to a conical spike — where an ever shrinking percentage of the population controls an even-growing percentage of an information-economy embedded with winner-take-all network effects and power laws?
In short, I ask if the ironic byproduct of erasing the digital divide is a further acceleration of the rich-poor gap?
What happens to peoples who opt out of the vector of progress, as the sea change of destiny becomes the drumbeat of decades, instead of centuries? What is the nature of work in the future? And how can our culture and the very fabric of society co-evolve with our technologies during the transition?
Glenn Yago
Senior Fellow and Founder, Financial Innovations Labs, Milken Institute; Senior Director, Milken Innovation Center, Jerusalem Institute
Irene Arias Hofman
CEO, IDB Lab
Julie Becker
CEO, Luxembourg Stock Exchange
Yaniv Tepper
Managing Partner and Co-Founder, Angeleno Group
Simon Winter
Executive Director, Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture
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]
++++ 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.
Here's the Full Letter and WSJ summary.
We kicked off the brainstorming with a gathering at DFJ, and it occurred to me then that 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 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.
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
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
_______________________________________________
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 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
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
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
The following is a summary from Commander of the Faithful: The Life and Times of Emir Abdelkader, 1808-1883 by John Kiser.
Practicing its own brand of gunboat diplomacy, France occupied Algiers in 1830 with a force of 30,000 soldiers. Greeted at first as liberators by Arabs unhappy with decadent Turkish rule, the ignorance, arrogance, and broken promises by the French occupiers soon alienated the population. Two years later, tribes in the province of Oran elected Abdelkader’s aged and reluctant marabout father, Muhi al-Din, to lead a jihad against the intruders. His first act was to abdicate in favor of his twenty-four year old son.
By 1832, Abdelkader’s bravery in battle, intellectual mettle and religious piety had demonstrated that he was prepared for the role his father unexpectedly cast upon him. As a youth, Abdelkader excelled at everything he did. Muhi al-Din believed his son was a prodigy with a divine destiny that required a thorough grounding in Islamic law, as well as in mathematics, philosophy, rhetoric and medicine. Horsemanship and hunting were essential for building character, especially courage and patience. To expose Abdelkader to the world’s diversity and complexity, Muhi al-Din took him on a two-year pilgrimage, stopping in Alexandria, Cairo, Mecca, Damascus and Baghdad. Abdelkader’s first loves were prayer and study, yet he was also prepared for military combat.
A resilient and divinely inspired Abdelkader won the begrudging respect of his French adversaries and the admiration of English onlookers during his fifteen-year struggle. His best weapons were his diplomatic astuteness, his desert-hardened horses and his Jewish intelligence network that kept him aware of political attitudes in France toward its poorly conceived African adventure.
General Lamoricière
Faced with French determination and scorched earth tactics against tribes supporting him, Abdelkader decided further resistance would cause only futile suffering. In December 1847, he negotiated a truce with veteran General Lamoricière. The terms: the general’s written word, confirmed by the governor general of Algeria (King Louis-Philippe’s son), agreeing to send him into Middle Eastern exile in return for his promise to never return to Algeria.
The Second Republic, born two months after Abdelkader’s surrender, disowned the agreement of the monarchy. The new government tried to save face by bribing him to release France from its word. Unmoved by offers of luxury living in France, he insisted on holding France to the word of its generals. Twenty-five members of the emir’s entourage died in clammy royal prisons from disease and despair — victims of French politics in which popular opinion distrusted the emir’s word, and wea governments lacked the courage to honor its predecessors’ commitments.
In 1852, Abdelkader was liberated thanks to an admiring President Louis Napoleon and a lobby of Catholic clerics, intellectuals, military officers and former prisoners whom the emir had treated with unexpected humanity. Abdelkader was sent to Bursa in Turkey on a generous French pension where he lived for two years; then to Damascus where he was enthusiastically received by the Arabs and joined the mixed Jewish, Christian, and Muslim intellectual stratum of the city.
Emir Abdelkader’s Prayer Rug
On July the ninth, 1860, his life of prayer, study and teaching was shattered. Angered by rebellious Christian minorities who refused to pay their taxes, Turkish authorities instigated reprisals that became a virtual pogrom. The emir used his palatial residence as a sanctuary for the European diplomatic community whose embassies were the first targets of the violence. Then, he and his Algerians plunged into the nearby Christian neighborhood and brought thousands to the safety of his home. Soon, an angry mob at his door demanded he turn over the Christians. Abdelkader refused, saying it was against the teachings of Islam to kill innocents. The crowd melted away in the face of his determination to defend those under his protection.
After the riots, Abdelkader was credited with saving 10,000 lives, including those of the American, British, French and Russian consuls. Hailed throughout Europe, Russia and America as a great humanitarian, he received the French Legion of Honor, gifts from Pope Leo IX, President Lincoln, Queen Victoria, and other heads of state. His most valued accolade, however, was a letter from Chechen Emir Shamil, who praised him for his courage to do what his faith required–to protect the innocent.
During the last twenty years of his life, the emir became a spiritual bridge between the European and Muslim worlds, epitomized by the role he played garnering Arab support for the Suez Canal project. Defying the skeptics, Abdelkader remained true to his word and never returned to Algeria. Upon his death in 1883, the New York Times hailed him as “ one of the few great men of the century.”
WHY A BOOK ABOUT A 19TH CENTURY ISLAMIC WARRIOR SAINT IS IMPORTANT
Battle of Machta, 1835
History, according to the truism, is written by the victors. Yet, it was the French victors who paid homage to the moral, intellectual and spiritual qualities that made Abdelkader a widely recognized “ great man” of the mid 19th century. Emir Abdelkader inspired respect from Missouri to Moscow. His story is about many things, though ultimately it is about struggle: struggle against French invaders, struggle with Arabs who rejected his leadership, struggle with depression and despair in French prisons, struggle to live as a good Muslim.
Today, he would be dismissed by many in the West as a “fundamentalist” — a label signifying to the secularist a retrograde, narrow-minded, extremist. He was indeed a fundamentalist in this sense: To be rightly guided meant only one thing for him—to do God’s will according to the teaching of the Koran and the traditions of the Prophet. He was also a man of great intellectual curiosity, marked by Greek thought, who squared his faith with a deep humanity and a progressive belief in the value of knowledge to improve lives. For him there was no contradiction between faith and reason, or between a rigid orthodoxy and acknowledging the diversity of God’s ways. Nor was there a contradiction between being a puritanical, Law-abiding Muslim and a compassionate humanitarian who respected the accomplishments of European culture.
President Lincoln’s Gift to the Emir
Abdelkader’s story is part of a larger one of European arrogance and greed masquerading as a “civilizing” force. Abdelkader’s resistance to French imperialism and France’s belief in its own virtue and the superiority of its civilization has many parallels with America’s efforts to democratize the Arab world today. America failed once before to learn from France’s experience. Then it was Vietnam; today, the Arab world.
Tbilisi State University was founded in 1918 owing to the leadership and huge effort of a famous Georgian historian Ivane Javakhishvili and the group of his followers. It was the first and the only educational body of this type in Caucasus by that time.
Georgia has an ancient tradition of education, as evidenced by the functioning of the School of Philosophy and Rhetoric of Phazisi in Colchis (IV c.); as well as the setting up of cultural-enlightenment centers in Palestine (V c.), Syria (VI c.), Greece (X-XV cc.) and Bulgaria (XI c.); Gelati and Iqalto Academies in Georgia (XI-XII cc.); However, as a result of political-economic decrease and at last becoming the colony of Russia, there had been no national higher educational Institution in Georgia for the next few centuries.
Right after Georgia became independent and declared itself a national democratic state, one of the first achievements of Georgian people in the beginning of the 20th century was the foundation of Georgian National University in Tbilisi. Afterwards, through the Bolshevik and Communist period, in spite of the forced ideology and fierce censorship, Tbilisi State University managed to maintain national ardour, devotion to public ideals, raised the best representatives of Georgian intelligentsia, many famous scientific schools in mathematics, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, historiography were also established on the University basis. The foundation of Academy of Science of Georgia and many other higher educational institutions was also encouraged by the University.
A new era took start in the University after the collapse of the Soviet Union and re-establishment of independence of Georgia. Together with Christianity, the historical mission of the spiritual care and deepening of national self-consciousness of the country was set as the goals for the University. At the same time a particularly essential objective of the University is to support the development of a democratic society, culture and science, uninterruptible growth of the national level of civilization. That's why even today with adoration and great respect do Georgian people refer to it a Holy Temple of Science.
The University was solemnly opened on 26 January 1918, the day of remembrance of the Georgian King David the Builder. A church in the University garden, named after the King, has been functioning since 5 September 1995. In 1989 the University was named after its founder - Ivane Javakhishvili.
Petre Melikishvili, a well-known chemist, merited professor, was elected the first rector of the University. At its commencement, the University had only one faculty - that of philosophy. Ivane Javakhishvili, well-known Georgian historian, delivered the first lecture. At the beginning of 1918 the board of professors and lecturers numbered 18, the student body of the university counted 369 students and 89 free listeners.
Today the number of professors involved in tuition and training amounts to 3275, including 55 academicians and corresponding member of the academy, 595 professors and doctors, 1246 assistant professors and candidates of sciences.
Over 35 thousand students are studying at the University and its 8 regional branches. The very important rearrangements at the University began on 25 April 1994, when the scientific council of the University adopted "The Concepts of University Education", according to which since the year 1994 the University has entirely transferred to the two-stage form of study (the step-by-step rearrangements were launched in 1992) and moved forward to the integration in the European educational environment.
At the end of the I stage of the reform implemented, in the beginning of the year 2005, the bodies functioning at TSU were: 22 faculties with 184 chairs, 8 branches with 46 faculties, 3 scientific-research and study-scientific institutes, 81 scientific-research laboratories and centers, 161 study laboratories and rooms, clinical hospitals and diagnostic centers, publishing and editorial houses, the library with 3640693 items, 5 dormitories. 95 educational programs were used at the bachelor's course, 194 - at master's studies and 16 - at the single-step tuition.
Numerous universally recognized scientific schools came into being at Tbilisi University: mathematics (Andria Razmadze, Nikoloz Muskhelishvili, Ilia Vekua, Viktor Kupradze, Andro Bitsadze and others), physics (Elepter Andronikashvili, MateMirianashvili, Vagan Mamasakhlisov, Givi Khutsishvili Albert Tavkhelidze and others), psychology (Dimitri Uznadze and others), physiology (Ivane Beritashvili and others). National scholarly schools of Georgian historiography (Ivane Javakhishvili and others), history of literature (Korneli Kekelidze and others), Georgian philosophy (Shalva Nutsubidze and others), study of art (Giorgi Chubinashvili and others), Georgian and Caucasian linguistics (Akaki Shanidze, Giorgi Akhvlediani, Arnold Chikobava and others), Oriental and Classic philology (Grigol Tsereteli, Simon Qaukhchishvili, Giorgi Tsereteli and others) are worth mentioning particularly. Thanks to their scientific activity Kartvelology (Kartvelian Studies) has turned into the international scholarly discipline.
The relevant chairs and scientific research departments serve for preparation of post-graduate students and scientific degree explorers. 26 qualification councils operate for conferring scientific degrees in almost all fields of science.
Medical education was restored at the university in 1994, the tradition of medical education was revived - originally the specialty of medicine was opened at the faculty of biology and medicine, and the faculty of medicine became an independent unit in 2000. The assembly of University clinics was founded, the educational bases of which are distinguished for their powerful material and technical equipment and highly qualified scientific-intellectual potential, the Center for the Management of Health Care and the Department for Continuous Medical Education were opened, the board of trustees of medicine and medical information service were founded. The University diagnostic center provides the health care of the professors and lecturers and collaborators of the University.
"The Caucasian Business School" was set up in 1999. It trains specialists in business administration within the framework of the Bachelor's and Master's courses, The school was founded by the Consortium whose membership includes the Technical University of Georgia, Tbilisi State Institute of International Economic Relations and the State University of Atlanta, Georgia (USA).
A printing press was set up at the University, in 1923 and a publishing-house in 1933. The University Archive was founded in 1933. The scientific edition "The Proceedings of Tbilisi University" has been publishing since 1919. The program "Textbooks for Students" has been functioning since 1996. The University publishes two weekly newspapers "Tbilisis Universiteti" (since 1927) and "Kartuli Universiteti" (since 1998).
The museums of History, Georgian Emigration, Mineralogy, Geology and Paleontology, Geography, Zoology and Botany are functioning at TSU.
The five dormitories of TSU can accommodate up to 2200 living rooms.
The University has eight branches in the country- in Sukhumi, Meskheti, Ozurgeti, Sighnaghi (kakheti), Zugdidi, Qvemo Qartli (Marneuli), Javakheti and Poti.
The university schools, namely the Ivane Javakhishvili school N53, the N. Muskhelishvili school N55, prof. T. Georgia physical-mathematical boarding school, Tbilisi lyceum, Rustavi gymnasium, Gurjaani college and Khobi school function successfully.
Basic and applied research is successfully conducted at Tbilisi University. Ilia Vekua Institute of Applied Mathematics at TSU performs the computer-based mathematical modeling and digital realization of the problems related to the natural events and social economic issues basing on the theoretical conclusions. The basic directions of the scientific-research performance of The High Energy Institute of Physics are the experimental research of interaction between the elementary particles and the nucleons and nucleus in field of high energy, making the new systems of processing the information on accelerators, theoretical investigations in high energy particle physics and quantum field theory and nuclear physics.
In addition to basic studies, some scientists have focused their attention on applied work over the recent period, achieving substantial progress. Many important projects have been drafted out, recommendations have been developed and concrete results have been obtained. Their implementation will doubtlessly contribute to the advance of Georgian science and scholarship and development of the national economy. Special attention is given to the study of natural resources of Georgia, searching for ways of environmental problems. Regional and national peculiarities, historic traditions and prospects are taken into account in the study of various problems.
Tbilisi State University is the well-known center for development of humanities. The deliveries of lectures by the University Kartvelologists at foreign centers of learning, participation in international symposia and publication of monographs and papers abroad have assumed systematic character. The scholarly journal Georgica (in German), published jointly by Tbilisi University and Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, has been issued annually since 1978. Georgica is is published in Constance (Germany) through the cooperation of four universities - those of Tbilisi, Jena, SaarbrЭcken and Constance since 1991. The international scholarly journal Phasisi has been published since 1999 by the Institute of Classical Philology, Byzantine and New Greek Studies, which was founded in 1997 through the support of the governments of Georgia and Greece, scientific-educational centers and intelligentsia.
Many international conferences and symposia have been held at Tbilisi University. The following are notable: International symposia of psychologists (1979, 1986), symposia on Georgian art (II-1977, IV- 1983, VI- 1989), international symposia on the teaching of the Russian language and literature (1980, 1984, 1988), problems of German literature (1983, 1989), Classical philology (1969, 1975, 1980,1990, 1995, 1996), religion and ethics (1907, international private law (1985), international symposia on Kartvelian Studies (I-1987, II-1988, III-1995).
Caucasian studies is one of the major trends of scholarly research, having inherited rich traditions. "Caucasica", an international scholarly journal, has been published since 1998.
Three international conferences have been held over the recent period on urgent issues such as, "Caucasus in the context of world history" (1996), "Peaceful Caucasus" (1998), "Caucasus at the turn of the millennia".
International conferences dedicated to major problems of the present day have been held at the University: "Caucasus, problems of democratization" (1995), "The law reform in Georgia" (1995), "The University reform in Georgia" (1995), "Hellenistic Studies over the centuries" (2000). Summer schools are regularly held for foreign scientists in Kartvelian studies (Kartvelologists).
Tbilisi University has close contacts with many foreign scientific and educational centres. These are: the University of Saarland and Jena (Germany), Emory University, Georgia State University, Bevard, Mount Holyoke and Williams College (USA), Saint Mary's University (Canada), Warsaw and Lodz Uiversities (Poland), Malaga and Salamanca Universities (Spain), Nantes, Paris 8, Paris 13, Grenoble and Toulon Universities (France), Bristol Polytechnical Institute, Brunel and London Universities (Great Britain), Budapest EЖtvЖs Lorand University (Hungary), Bilkent, Trabzon Black Sea and Ankara Universities (Turkey), Palermo, Rome and Sapienza, Piza and Venice Universities (Italy), Athens, Pirueus, Ioanina and Saloniki Universities (Greece), International Centre of Nuclear Physics, Aarhis University (denmark), Bucharest University (Romania), University of Vienna (Austria), Tehran and Gilan Universities (Ira), Cairo University (Egypt), Universities and scientific centers of the former Soviet Union, namely the Universities of Moscow, st.Petersburg, Kiev, Baku, etc., Association of European Universities, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and other international organizations; Various universities and scientific centers of former Soviet Union, namely, the universities of Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Kiev, Odessa, Yerevan, Baku, etc.
The University has the tradition of electing the foreign scientists and public figures for the honorary doctors of Tbilisi State University.
Students are widely involved in scientific researches at the University. Students' scientific conferences are held on an annual basis.
The University students actively participate in amateur performances. The chamber orchestra, the choir, the people's theatre, song companies of boys and girls, choreographic and modern dance companies, the theatre of one actor and pantomime, the theatre and studio "Mermisi" function at the University centre of culture and art. "Man-San-Kan", the club of the merry and the ready-witted, enjoys wide popularity among the youth.
The achievements of the University students in sports are notable. The students actively participate in various competitions both in Georgia and abroad, upholding the sporting honor of the country and the University; many champions of the world, Europe and Georgia, well-known sportsmen graduated from and are still studying at the University.
© All Rights Reserved - Please don't copy and/or use without authorization. Flickrmail is there for this kind of situation (I read it quite often), so is my e-mail, available at the profile
Sao Paulo, 24.oct.22 - Crowd attend the Act for Democracy, called by the Catholic University of São Paulo, in its seventh edition, this Monday (25). The candidate for the presidency of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attended together with his vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, his wife Janja, the candidate for the state government of SP, Fernando Haddad, as well as the former Minister of the Environment Marina Silva and his rival in the first round Simone Tebet, who was warmly applauded. One week before the second round of the most tense elections since the re-democratization of the country, Lula is still ahead in the polls and took the opportunity to criticize the latest scandal involving an ally of his rival Jair Bolsonaro: Roberto Jefferson, a supporter of the current president, received police officers who were serving an arrest warrant against him with rifle and grenade fire. Two policemen were wounded, one of them seriously
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.
© All Rights Reserved - Please don't copy and/or use without authorization. Flickrmail is there for this kind of situation (I read it quite often), so is my e-mail, available at the profile
Sao Paulo, 24.oct.22 - Crowd attend the Act for Democracy, called by the Catholic University of São Paulo, in its seventh edition, this Monday (25). The candidate for the presidency of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attended together with his vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, his wife Janja, the candidate for the state government of SP, Fernando Haddad, as well as the former Minister of the Environment Marina Silva and his rival in the first round Simone Tebet, who was warmly applauded. One week before the second round of the most tense elections since the re-democratization of the country, Lula is still ahead in the polls and took the opportunity to criticize the latest scandal involving an ally of his rival Jair Bolsonaro: Roberto Jefferson, a supporter of the current president, received police officers who were serving an arrest warrant against him with rifle and grenade fire. Two policemen were wounded, one of them seriously
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]
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
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#CyberPrivacy #Blockchain #PaulaKavanagh #PaulaJulianoKavanagh #AdvancedMedicine #DrButtar #IMeX #AdvancedMedicineMarketplace #AdvancedMedicine #BlockchainEcosystem #HealthcareExchange #InteractiveMedia #InteractiveMediaExchange
Figure one good going away picture from Paine Field against an overcast sky was worth posting... hope you enjoy and share my joy. The Boeing 727 was meant to democratize the skies and certainly succeeded.
Enjoy and PLEASE use with citation! You can read & see further coverage of the written word format in Warbirds News: www.warbirdsnews.com/aviation-museum-news/boeing-727-prot... and in KING 5 video at www.king5.com/story/tech/science/aerospace/2016/03/02/fir...
My photo album from the special day's events - as I develop them - is at www.flickr.com/photos/avgeekjoe/albums/72157664687906479
PHOTO CREDIT: Joe A. Kunzler Photo, AvgeekJoe Productions, growlernoise-AT-gmail-DOT-com
Pictured is a meeting in mid 1992 in the Presidents Palace, build as the vice kings palace in the 18th century.
At the head of the table sits President for Life Alexander Oskar Peren, dressed in the uniform of a Feldmarschall, delivering a speech to his cabinet.
The secondborn (legitimate) son of deceased President for Life Oskar August Peren he was selected by his father to suceed him due to the firstborn son, Leopold, being significantly less qualified, especially when it came to good ties to the military, an essential quality for any Norwistani head of state.
Before being build up as his father sucessor he served in the Norwistanische Nationalarmee, showing competence and earning the respect of his fellow officers. After becoming the designated sucessor he became first minister of defence then vice-president. During his time as vice president he made some vague statements interpreted as wanting to make the nation more democratic, but when the demon wars began he had other things to worry about, becoming the acting commander in chief due to his fathers age and tendency to delegete much of his responibilites to pursue his hobbies (cars and women).
When his father died in 1983 (rumor has it the cicumstances were similar to former french President Félix Faure) Alexander was "elected" President of Norwistan.
The years following him assuming office were shaped by the devestating demon wars that saw Norwistan lose much of the might it had gained after the Second Northern Emmerian War.
After the end of the demon wars he know focuses on rebuilding the coutnry and reforming the economy, if he ever had plans to democratize the country, he currently shows no signs of moving in this direction anytime soon.
Note: Chairs copied From Awe:
www.flickr.com/photos/thenotsogreat/49875177706/in/contacts/
Absolutely glamorous - especially as the 727 was meant to democratize air travel. Held a bit over 100 passengers and meant to serve many a runway shorter than an international airport's.
Enjoy and PLEASE use with citation! My photo album from the special day's events - as I develop them - is at www.flickr.com/photos/avgeekjoe/albums/72157664687906479
PHOTO CREDIT: Joe A. Kunzler Photo, AvgeekJoe Productions, growlernoise-AT-gmail-DOT-com
To Ted and all other Philipinos, I would like to express my sincere condolences on the death of Maria Corazon "Cory" Cojuangco Aquino who was a first female President of the Philippines, even in Asia, and she was called the mother of democratization of the Philippines. She has a lot of fans in Japan too, and most famouse and populer Philipino lady among Japanese. The Japanese newspapers also reported her death in top pages.
As for the detail about her, try to refer en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corazon_Aquino
Displayed in meticulous detail inside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., Julia Child’s Kitchen is one of the most iconic and beloved museum installations dedicated to American culinary heritage. These photographs offer a vivid, immersive view into the very kitchen where Child filmed three of her acclaimed cooking shows between 2000 and 2001—including Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom—before donating the entire room, including its structure, tools, and appliances, to the Smithsonian Institution.
Originally installed in her Cambridge, Massachusetts home, the kitchen reflects Child’s philosophy that cooking should be joyful, personal, and accessible. It was custom-designed in the early 1960s by her husband Paul Child, who raised the counters to suit Julia’s 6-foot-2 height and helped build an environment that encouraged her intuitive approach to cooking and teaching.
These images reveal the kitchen from multiple vantage points: the familiar pegboards of copper pots and pans arranged precisely by Paul’s hand-painted outlines; walls lined with bookshelves holding Julia’s well-loved cookbooks and scripts; and mid-century appliances such as the Garland gas stove and vintage wall oven. The famous yellow Formica table is surrounded by mismatched chairs, and even the utensils appear to be mid-recipe, frozen in time.
Every item is authentic—from the mixing bowls and whisks to the timers, mixers, and notes taped to the fridge. The Smithsonian took great care in preserving the kitchen exactly as Julia last used it, reassembling it piece by piece to maintain its sense of vibrancy and lived-in creativity. The installation doesn’t just honor a legendary chef; it tells a story about mid-20th-century domestic life, media, and the democratization of food knowledge.
Julia Child wasn’t just a cook—she was a teacher, television pioneer, and cultural bridge between French culinary traditions and American home kitchens. This space stands as a monument to her legacy. Through these photographs, viewers can experience the intimacy of her creative environment, where camera crews once roamed, and where generations of viewers learned to be fearless in the kitchen.
Visually, these photos are warm, detailed, and filled with layered textures—from the golden glow of the lighting to the shadowplay of ladles and strainers, the tight focus on domestic tools, and the careful arrangement of the mise-en-place. The images evoke not just a physical space, but the personality and purpose that filled it.
Whether you're a food historian, a museum enthusiast, or a longtime admirer of Julia Child, these images serve as a portal into one of the most influential kitchens in American culture.
A COUPLE OF PHOTOGRAPHERS ATTEMPTING TO PHOTOGRAPH THE ARREST OF A YOUNG MAN FROM THE CROWD.
Saturday 1 December 2012 was inauguration day for the newly elected President of United Mexican States (MEXICO). While a friend and I were walking near where the inauguration was taking place, a small riot broke out around us; my friend being smarter than me immediately returned to the hotel while I stayed to take picture. A lot of young people showed up with bandanas covering much of their faces. The protesters were upset by the election of Pena Nieto, and believed election fraud had taken place. Several of the “rioters” identified themselves as belonging to Yo Soy 132.
Yo Soy 132 is an ongoing Mexican protest movement centered around the democratization of the country and its media. It began as opposition to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate Enrique Peña Nieto and the Mexican media's allegedly biased coverage of the 2012 general election. The name Yo Soy 132, Spanish for "I Am 132", originated in an expression of solidarity with the protest's initiators.
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
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CrowdPoint Technologies is a Digital Platform Provider powered by the Blockchain. Our mission is to blur the lines between Big Data, AI Compaction and Blockchain Technology to defend Democratize and deliver Dividends to the Human Identity.
#CyberPrivacy #Blockchain #PaulaKavanagh #PaulaJulianoKavanagh #AdvancedMedicine #DrButtar #IMeX #AdvancedMedicineMarketplace #AdvancedMedicine #BlockchainEcosystem #HealthcareExchange #InteractiveMedia #InteractiveMediaExchange
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
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
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...
Glenn Yago
Senior Fellow and Founder, Financial Innovations Labs, Milken Institute; Senior Director, Milken Innovation Center, Jerusalem Institute
Irene Arias Hofman
CEO, IDB Lab
Julie Becker
CEO, Luxembourg Stock Exchange
Yaniv Tepper
Managing Partner and Co-Founder, Angeleno Group
Simon Winter
Executive Director, Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture
Tirana was founded in 1614 by the Ottomans, centered on the Old Mosque. The site has been inhabited since the Iron Age and was likely the core of the Illyrian Kingdom of the Taulantii. Following the Illyrian Wars, it was annexed by Rome. With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, most of Albania came under the control of the eastern Byzantine Empire. Tirana remained small and insignificant for a long time until it was designated the capital of Albania at the Congress of Lushnja in 1920. A place with just a few thousand inhabitants became the largest and most important city in the country. King Zogu had a palace built here and, with Italian help, ministries and a boulevard were constructed.
At the beginning of WWII Albania was occupied by the Italian fascists. In 1941 the Communist Party of Albania was established and under Enver Hoxha it became the center of the Albanian communists. The city was liberated in November 1944, after a heavy battle lasting several days between the partisans and the Wehrmacht, in which numerous historical buildings were destroyed. A few days later Hoxha proclaimed Albania's independence in Tirana.
During the communist rule the city was redesigned, with a number of buildings demolished. Tirana's former Old Bazaar and the Orthodox Cathedral were razed to the ground in order to build the Soviet-styled Palace of Culture. Because private car ownership was banned, mass transportation consisted mainly of bicycles, trucks and buses.
After democratization, Tirana slipped into a period of anarchy as necessary laws just did not exist at that time. Illegal buildings were built everywhere. From 1999 onwards, the illegal buildings in the city centre were demolished and the green spaces restored.
In the 21st century, Tirana experienced an economic boom. Numerous modern high-rise buildings were built.
The historic main cathedral of the Orthodox Church of Albania was demolished in the late 1950s. The new Albanian Orthodox Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ was opened in 2012. It is considered one of the largest Eastern Orthodox churches in the Balkans.
The construction of the main building is modelled on the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The complex of the cathedral includes the Chapel of the Nativity, seen in the forground.
I'm kind of aware of the fact that I don't post as frequently on Flickr as I used to. One of the reasons is that I had several albums, with dozens and dozens of photos, and I made the posting of those albums into projects that consumed a fair amount of time. I have several other albums, but there's only one that is both full of photos and full of photos of a high-quality and/or contains lots of photos with highly-interesting content. When the time comes to post that one album, I hope I remember to do it.
Meanwhile, here's a little morsel, an album I've had for a while. I don't, in fact, remember where I bought it, but it was pre-Iowa, which means either South Carolina, Florida, or the Missouri triangle as the source of purchase. For some reason, I have the state of Maryland attached to my memory of where these photos might have been taken, and where the school might be. Don't know why I have that memory, as there is no intrinsic evidence to support that association.
Most of these kids are smiling. This photographer had The Knack, and, to be honest, I worry about the kids who aren't smiling. My most haunting memory of going into the Arkansas Public Schools, K through 12 (I participated in a program called "Poets in the Schools," (though, of course, I was never a poet), until I got fired for being a bad boy (and my indiscretion does not even make for a very good story)), oh yeah, my most haunting memory, is how in kindergarten, just about all the kids, rich and poor, black and white, were boiling over with irrepressible enthusiasm, and by the time they were sophomores and juniors and seniors, they had been sorted out, and the kids who as kindergartners were no less able, no less inventive, no less alive, were now, after the democratizing socialization process, shunted aside, deemed lesser, slotted to change tires down at the Firestone store, or put on an apron and primp the lettuce at the local grocery. And that was before Wal-Mart had done the worst of its work. Even the teachers, at least some, if not most of them, participated in the process. They would point out the troublemakers for you, and speak sneeringly of them. The experience was uplifting, and terribly disheartening, which is how I feel about my wonderful, dastardly country.
Le château d'origine médiévale fut constamment habité. Il passa par héritage en 1821 à Augustine Marie Rosalie de Forges de Châteaubrun (1772-1853), épouse de Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard (1763-1845).
Issu d’une famille de la bourgeoisie rurale de la Marne, Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard devint avocat. Il participa aux évènements révolutionnaires. Proche des Girondins, il dut quitter Paris durant la Terreur.
En 1797, il devint membre du Conseil des Cinq-Cents pour le département de la Marne. Il en fut exclu suite au coup d’Etat du 18 fructidor en IV.
Partisan de la monarchie constitutionnelle, il entra au conseil secret du comte de Provence, futur Louis XVIII.
Après le coup d'État du 18 Brumaire, l'espoir d'un retour à la royauté disparaît et Royer-Collard se rapproche de l'Empire.
Professeur d’histoire de la philosophie moderne à la Sorbonne, il prit en 1815 la direction de la Commission de l'Instruction publique.
En 1816, il obtint l'instruction communale gratuite. La même année, il devint le porte-parole des "doctrinaires", qui voulaient un retour à une monarchie tempérée, contre les "ultras" qui voulaient une restauration pure et simple.
En 1820, suite a l'arrivée au pouvoir des "ultras",
Entré dans l’opposition, il se rapprocha de François Guizot avec lequel il créa la société "Aide toi, le ciel t’aidera".
En 1828, il revint au premier plan comme président de la Chambre des députés (il fut la même année élu à l’Académie française). C'est à ce titre que le 18 mars 1830 il présente l'adresse des 221 à Charles X, prélude à la Révolution de juillet 1830.
Sous Louis-Philippe, il siège encore à l'Assemblée nationale mais il s'éloigne de la vie politique. Il juge la démocratisation trop rapide et dangereuse.
Il passa les dernières années de sa vie à fréquenter assidument ses amis et voisins, en particulier Talleyrand.
Royer-Collard défendit le principe de la séparation de l’Église et de l’État, mais il le fit parce qu’il considérait que laisser le pouvoir temporel agir sur la religion était un rabaissement de cette dernière.
The medieval castle was constantly inhabited. He passed by inheritance in 1821 to Augustine Marie Rosalie Forges Chateaubrun (1772-1853), wife of Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard (1763-1845).
Coming from a family of rural bourgeoisie of the Marne, Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard became a lawyer. He participated in the revolutionary events. Close to the Girondins, he had to leave Paris during the Terror.
In 1797 he became a member of the Council of Five Hundred for the department of Marne. He was expelled following the coup of 18 Fructidor in IV.
Supporter of constitutional monarchy, he entered the secret counsel of the Count of Provence, the future Louis XVIII.
After the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire, the hope of a return to monarchy disappears and Royer-Collard approximates the Empire.
Professor of history of modern philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1815 he took the direction of the Commission of Public Instruction.
In 1816, he received instruction communal free. The same year, he became the spokesman for the "doctrinaire" who wanted a return to monarchy, against the "ultras" who wanted to restore pure and simple.
In 1820, following the rise to power has the "ultras"
Joined the opposition, he approached François Guizot, with whom he founded the company "Help yourself, heaven help you."
In 1828, he returned to the forefront as president of the Chamber of Deputies (the same year he was elected to the French Academy). It is for this reason that March 18, 1830 it has the address of 221 to Charles X, a prelude to the Revolution of July 1830.
Under Louis-Philippe, it still serves the National Assembly, but he distanced himself from politics. It considers democratization too fast and dangerous.
He spent the last years of his life to attend assiduously his friends and neighbors, especially Talleyrand.
Royer-Collard defended the principle of separation of church and state, but he did it because he felt that leaving the temporal power to act on religion was a lowering of the latter.
I couldn’t have asked for a nicer encounter to launch Round 7 of my project.
I saw him standing in line on King Street for a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). I saw an open friendliness in his face and liked his hat. As I walked up to him I felt his interest and curiosity rather than fear and anxiety. I gave my name and a brief explanation of my project followed by my request. He seemed bemused to have been asked and was glad to participate. We shook hands. Meet Wally.
While most of my encounters move to the photo at this point and are followed by the conversation, this one went in the reverse order. Wally was interested in the project and in getting acquainted so we went about getting to know one another which proved to be a positive experience for both of us.
Wally is 77 and lives in Alert Bay, British Columbia. He explained that Alert Bay is a village of 12-1500 residents on Cormorant Island which is a short ferryboat ride to Vancouver Island. For those not familiar with Canadian geography, Vancouver Island is off the west coast of British Columbia. Wally explained that more than half the residents of Alert Bay are First Nations people so I’m sure Wally’s retirement location is a very interesting place to live.
Wally explained that he has done many things in his 77 years (Including several years spent as a Jesuit) but his longest tenure was as an educator, with most of his career spent at Atkinson College. Atkinson is within Toronto’s York University and is best known as a home for the university’s programs for mature and part-time students. My impression is that it specializes in progressive education and Wally told me that he spent the final five years of his career in their distance learning program. “What subjects did you teach?” I asked. “Well, not to be picky but I prefer the term ‘educate’ to ‘teach.’ I’m not sure I taught anyone anything but I did try to enrich their learning experience. Most of my work was in the Social Sciences – mainly because my resume contained absolutely nothing in that area.” Ok. I knew right away that Wally was an interesting man.
He came to Toronto partly as a birthday present to his younger sister Sandra (who was making a coffee run) and he is also visiting his daughter who lives in Toronto. He was in line to get tickets to a Festival film. Our conversation touched on many subjects in the twenty minutes we spent together. Wally had a darkroom when he was in high school and did black and white photography. “Are you still involved in photography?” I asked. He smiled (his natural expression) and said “I married an artist and she took such great photo with her point and shoot that I gave up.”
When I asked Wally if he had a few words to describe himself for the project he said “I choose, therefore I am.” I asked him to explain. “I’m fascinated by choices. Life is a series of choices and each choice we make sets the stage for what choices will follow. I think a book should be written about this. You made a choice to return to photography in your retirement and you made a choice to do your 100 Strangers project. You made a choice to walk down this street and you made a choice to approach me. If any of the previous choices had been different, we would not have met.” Hmmm, Wally is a very thought-provoking guy. It was a great conversation.
“I bet if you had any idea how much fun retirement was going to be, you wouldn’t have worried about it beforehand. Am I right?” I don’t think I’d said anything to Wally about how I approached retirement but he hit the nail on the head.
“I love the project you’re doing, Jeff. Projects like yours, and documentary film-making is such a democratizing process. It takes the attention off the movie stars and famous musicians and places it on much more typical people. I think every politician running for office in Toronto should ride the Queen streetcar on a regular basis to find out what is important to the real people of the city.”
When I asked “What is the most interesting thing that’s happened to you on this visit to Toronto?” Wally thought for a moment and said “I don’t know about the most interesting thing but I’ll tell you the worst thing. I’ve been looking forward to visiting a couple I’ve known for ages and have discovered that her cancer has returned. I’m afraid the visit is going to wind up very negative.” I suggested that it might wind up very positive for her – having him visit and feeling his support. He replied “Actually, it might be more positive for her husband than for her.” “Well, then, equally important” I suggested.
The photos were almost a minor aspect of the encounter. I took them in a minute or two, on the street, a step or two from the lineup of festival-goers and this photo was an easy choice because it looks exactly like the bright, friendly, and interesting man I met today.
Wally’s sister Sandra returned with her coffee and we met. She seemed just as open and friendly as her brother and she was interested in the photo project that had taken place during her brief absence. I understood that she’s a social activist who has done volunteer work in the community.
The movie they are going to see is titled “Red Rose.” When I googled it, I was not surprised to see that it reflected progressive social and political themes:
“A politically complacent middle-aged man and a young pro-democracy activist debate about the future of their country while hiding from the police, in this fascinating drama that blends scripted scenes with on-the-ground footage from Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution.”
I felt we could have chatted for hours and both enjoyed it but Wally and his sister were nearing the front of the line-up and I was getting short on time so we wished each other well and said goodbye. Thank you Wally for participating in 100 Strangers and for exemplifying the best that the project has to offer – a rewarding street encounter that would never had happened but for the project. You are Stranger #601 to lead off Round 7 of my project. Happy Birthday to Sandra and I hope you both enjoy the movie.
Update: I received a very nice email from Wally telling me that he, Sandra, and his daughter all liked the photos and were pleased with how I had described our enjoyable meeting. He closed with good wishes for my retirement. Getting feedback like this always rounds out a project encounter with such a nice feeling. Thanks Wally. The pleasure was mine.
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by the other photographers in our group at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page.
Glenn Yago
Senior Fellow and Founder, Financial Innovations Labs, Milken Institute; Senior Director, Milken Innovation Center, Jerusalem Institute
Irene Arias Hofman
CEO, IDB Lab
Julie Becker
CEO, Luxembourg Stock Exchange
Yaniv Tepper
Managing Partner and Co-Founder, Angeleno Group
Simon Winter
Executive Director, Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture
[ The whole interview / Entrevista completa (english + spanish) ]
[ Original publication at Revolution 360 (english) ]
Fernando Prats is a renown photographer, artist, graphic designer and writer. He has extensive experience related to literature and research from photography, poetry, design, music, video and other disciplines. Born in Buenos Aires, he now resides in Barcelona. He is the Creative Director of Estudi Prats, and a contemporary culture magazine called YSE.
His achievements are long and impressive with numerous published poetry books and short stories. He has won numerous awards and held various photographic exhibitions around the world. His photography is a reflection of his surroundings and environment. Prats work unveils the heart of darkness through his hazardous journeys as he conquers new spaces, going beyond any limit.
In 2011 Prats published a photographic book titled "Immadencity", an intimate view of his native Buenos Aires and its urban structures. He has received several awards and recognition for his photographic work, including competitions such as the III Edition of the Photographic Contest by Enjoy magazine (2011), with his photo Dou ble you, Perspectivas 3 (2010), (Obras, media specialized in information architecture, interior design, and construction of Group Expansion), with his series Arquitecturanimal, and the first photography contest of Lulu.com and Foto DNG (2009), with his book Formas y formas.
In 2012, his iphoneographies have been published by the prestigious iPhoneography.com, Life in LoFi, iphoneographyCentral. He has been selected iPhoneArtist of the day by iPhoneArt.com and was part of the recent exhibitions MINA (Mobile Visual Arts Showcase) @ Fringe Festival 2012 (Wellington, New Zealand), Depixtions (Orlando, USA), IX Colourgenics (Toronto, Canada) and most recently Ubiquography in Barcelona.
R - Your images generally depict the bones of living in large urban cities. They tell us about their environment, the shapes and forms that make up their personality. What is it about architecture that attracts your visual attention?
I am mainly attracted by the treatment of the shapes, the figures, the ubiquitous subtleties in the metropolis, whether they are works of authorship or insignificant and unnoticed presences, as a possible starting point to subvert and create new landscapes, abstract or not, around a particular concept. In that process I am especially focused on the composition of my images, the urban geometry provides endless opportunities if seen from a strictly aesthetic point of view. This multiplicity of the real may well manifest itself in the ultra-angular framing or in practically unintelligible detail close-ups. The subject of the study is incidental to this search, maybe that’s why I try to play with subjectification of objects and vice-versa.
R - In 2011 you took a series of photographs in Buenos Aires, your native home. The title of your work was 'Immadencity', it is a collection of photographs that transport the viewer on a journey that most people don't often see. How would your describe the personality of Buenos Aires?
"Immadencity" is a compressed neologism of "immanence", "density" and "city". Buenos Aires is particularly a city with an overwhelming personality. How to describe that? I do not know. "Immadencity" aims to show edges avoiding a simplistic cartoon, and is simply an interpretation in which the beautiful and sordid can be melted into hysterical hugs, a city of cities portrayed without subjects, in which one can trace the eclecticism and desolation as they leave their mark between chaos and poetry.
R - You now reside in the über cool avant-garde Barcelona, a city filled with iconic artists and renown architects. What's your perspective on this Gothic city?
Twelve years ago I arrived in Europe for the first time, a week in Rome would become a month-and-a-half initiation journey based in Paris, and a self-imposed trip back to Barcelona. Literally with pockets full of dreams and no budget at all, I decided to move here as soon as possible and to solve whatever was necessary to be able to stay. It took me two years to achieve that. I feel a huge empathy with the idiosyncrasies of this city, its size, design, the management of public spaces and its multicultural offer. Here I can enjoy Gaudi, Miro, Tàpies, Picasso and Brossa in-situ, wander among Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron or Domènech i Montaner, and walk aimlessly while switching from Gothic or Art Nouveau to the contemporary style. Its strategic geographical location, the proximity of the sea and mountains, and the climate are remarkable, Barcelona is a city full of tiny precious things that I personally appreciate. (I think I might ask the city council for a commission(!)
R - What is your current state of mind of where photography is today?
The advent of smartphones and tablets with better and better cameras has democratized and put a question mark to a state of things that had been comfortable for some time, lounging on the leather sofa of established paradigms. The same old debate goes forever, these same antinomies once raised when black and white photography was facing color, or with the obsolescence of analog reel to digital memories, are now being put on the table as if it were something new: is any way of obtaining something, say, photography, truer than any other art expression? The conservative and reductionist paradigm seems to state that a hyper-apped snapshot with one-click instant filters published in Instagram is not as valid as another captured by a latest generation DSLR. Is it about equipment? Is it about technique? Or is it, in some cases, about a concept? Social networks have already altered the so-called know-how by placing it on the bench of the clichés of some common sense. Anyone can post and say anything about anything and that’s fine, but how can the indiscriminate access to information be arranged hierarchically?
Personally, I want to create provocative works that incite the imagination and thinking, whether it's with images or anything else. I am not moved at all by a proper HDR landscape photography or a filtered express snapshot of a ristretto. Cameras and devices don’t make better or worse pictures, they are only tools.
But you know, the history of mentalities is the (hi)story of slowness. And we’re in a time of transition, too close to get some distance and too far away to notice the profound implications of a cognitive gap. Just today I've discussed some points of view about it on Flickr, Facebook and iPhoneArt platforms.
R - What are the biggest lessons you've learned so far in your photographic career?
FP. That to learn, to study what has been done and the ever-expanding possibilities of the new tools is as important as to experiment, to produce and to publish as much as possible. Neither image processing nor any other discipline are, nor could be, tight compartments, therefore, the more dilated the pupils, the better, even at the risk of ending up like Kubrick’s or Burgess’ Alex ... who knows if that includes a chapter 21.
Last but not Least...
R. What's on the horizon for Fernando Prats?
Some of my most important forthcoming adventures are: a photography book called "New York Old", the iphoneography one "Barcelona d'esquena", a sort of narrative video clip titled "Ballad for potential mismatchess" and an online store with a selection of paintings/pictures by Prats/Ruibal collaboration. Towards the end of this year I'm also planning to have a real life exhibition with Miguel Ruibal tentatively called "Despojados", finish the final version of "Monda Lironda", a book of poems, and a photo feature about London, plus I'll be busy with composing of the music for a new EP.
To contact Fernando Prats:
http://fernandoprats.com/es
***
[EN ESPAÑOL]
R. Tus imágenes generalmente representan la estructura medular de los que viven en las grandes ciudades urbanas. Nos hablan acerca de su entorno, de las formas y figuras que conforman su personalidad. ¿Qué es lo que tiene la arquitectura que atrae tu atención visual?
FP. Me atrae el tratamiento de las formas, de las figuras, de las sutilezas omnipresentes en las metrópolis, sean obras de autor o presencias insignificantes e inadvertidas, como un punto de partida posible para subvertirlas y crear nuevos paisajes, abstractos o no, alrededor de un concepto determinado. Uno de mis principales intereses es la composición y desde un punto de vista estrictamente estético, la geometría urbana proporciona un sinfín de oportunidades para ver y mirar. Dicho esto, esta multiplicidad de recortes de lo real bien puede manifestarse en encuadres ultra-angulares o en planos-detalle prácticamente ininteligibles. Creo que el sujeto de estudio es accesorio en esta búsqueda y tal vez por ello suela intentar la objetivación de los sujetos y la subjetivación de los objetos.
R. En 2011 tomaste una serie de fotografías en Buenos Aires, tu hogar natal. El título de tu trabajo fue: Immadencity. Una colección de fotografías que transportan al espectador a un viaje que la mayoría de la gente no suele ver. ¿Cómo describirías la personalidad de Buenos Aires?
FP. "Immadencity" juega a ser neologismo comprimiendo "Immanencia", "densidad" y "ciudad". Buenos Aires en particular es una ciudad con una personalidad arrolladora. ¿Cómo describir eso? No lo sé. Immadencity pretende mostrar extremos evitando la caricatura facilista y es simplemente una lectura en la que lo bello y lo sórdido pueden fundirse en abrazos histéricos, una urbe de urbes retratada sin sujetos, en la que es posible rastrear el eclecticismo y la desolación dejando su impronta entre caos y poesía.
R. Actualmente resides en la über cool avant-garde ciudad de Barcelona. Una ciudad llena de artistas emblemáticos y arquitectos de renombre. ¿Cuál es tu perspectiva sobre esta Ciudad Gótica?
FP. Hace unos doce años vine a Europa por primera vez, una semana en Roma que se convertiría en periplo iniciático de mes y medio con base en París, y una auto-impuesta vuelta desde Barcelona. Con ilusión y literalmente sin presupuesto alguno, decidí venir a vivir aquí tan pronto como fuera posible y solucionara lo que fuera necesario. Me llevó dos años lograrlo. Me identifico con la idiosincracia de esta ciudad, sus dimensiones, el diseño y la gestión del espacio público, su oferta multicultural, disfrutar de Gaudi, Miró, Tàpies, Picasso o Brossa in-situ, caminar sin rumbo entre Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron o Domènech i Montaner, saltar del gótico al modernismo y de ahí a lo contemporáneo, su estratégica ubicación geográfica, el mar y la montaña a 20´, el clima, etc. Es una ciudad plena de pequeñas cosas al abasto de quien quiera apreciarlas. Creo que pediré una subvención al Ayuntamiento (!)
R. ¿En qué punto consideras que se encuentra la fotografía hoy en día?
FP. El advenimiento de los smartphones y tablets con cámaras cada vez mejores ha democratizado y puesto en tela de juicio un estado de cosas que desde hacía tiempo se encontraba cómodo y apoltronado en el sofá de cuero de los paradigmas establecidos. El mismo viejo debate de siempre. Las mismas antinomias planteadas ante el paso de la fotografía en blanco y negro al color o ante la obsolescencia del carrete analógico a lo digital son las que hoy están puestas sobre el tapete como si se tratara de algo novedoso: ¿Es más verdadera una manera de obtener algo, digamos, por caso, una fotografía, que cualquier otra? El paradigma conservador y reduccionista pareciera afirmar que una instantánea hyper-apped con filtros de un sólo clic publicada en Instagram no es tan válida como otra captada por una cámara DSLR de última generación. ¿Se trata acaso de equipamiento? ¿Acaso de técnica? ¿Se trata, en algún caso, de concepto? Las redes sociales han alterado de una estocada el supuesto know-how, colocándolo en el banquillo de los clisés de cierto sentido común. Cualquiera puede publicar y opinar cualquier cosa sobre lo que sea y está muy bien. Ahora... ¿Cómo jerarquizamos el acceso indiscriminado de información?
En lo personal, me interesa la creación de obras provocativas, que inciten a la imaginación y a la duda, sean imágenes o cualquier otra cosa. No me conmueve en lo más mínimo ni una correcta fotografía HDR ni una hipereditada instantánea de una taza de café. Las cámaras y los dispositivos no hacen mejores o peores fotografías.
Pero se sabe, la historia de las mentalidades es la historia de la lentitud de la Historia. Y estamos en un momento de transición, demasiado cerca como para tomar distancia, demasiado lejos como para advertir las implicancias de un profundo hiato cognitivo. Precisamente hoy discutíamos algunos puntos de vista al respecto en Flickr, Facebook e iPhoneArt.
R. ¿Cuáles son las lecciones más importantes que has aprendido hasta ahora en lo que atañe a tu carrera fotográfica?
FP. Que es tan importante formarse, estudiar lo que se ha hecho y las posibilidades en constante expansión de las nuevas herramientas, como experimentar, producir y publicar tanto como se pueda. Ni el tratamiento de la imagen ni ninguna otra disciplina son ni podrían ser compartimentos estancos, por lo tanto, cuanto más dilatadas las pupilas mejor, incluso a riesgo de terminar como el Alex de Kubrick o el de Burguess, vaya uno a saber.
Por último pero no menos importante...
R. ¿Cuáles son los próximos proyectos de Fernando Prats?
FP. Las inminentes aventuras son el libro de fotografías "New York Old", el de iphoneografías "Barcelona d'esquena", un videoclop con cierto ímpetu narrativo llamado "Ballad for potential mismatchess" y una tienda online de pintura-fotografía con una selección de trabajos de Prats/Ruibal. Hacia finales de año, tal vez una exposición física con Miguel Ruibal, la versión final del libro de poesías "Monda Lironda", un reportaje en imágenes sobre Londres y la grabación de un EP con música nueva.
[ The whole interview / Entrevista completa (english + spanish) ]
[ Original publication at Revolution 360 (english) ]
*Thanks to Alicia Pallas and Brancolina for their help translating the tone of the interview.
First, it's "Streetcar Sunday" so here you go (sigh). Have to get this out of the way...
Second, very recently I made a trip down to Tacoma to support a friend and attend a City Club of Tacoma luncheon regarding Sound Transit 3 (ST3) and transit democratization. TVW kindly recorded the luncheon and at 55:40 of the link some Joe asked a question: goo.gl/VxFQCR . So enjoy this transit photo...
PHOTO CREDIT: Joe A. Kunzler Photo, AvgeekJoe Productions, growlernoise-AT-gmail-DOT-com
Dark earlier
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
I will be participating in:
BLOGS: An exhibition of photoblogs
NYC Exposition, Puerto Rico Sun, and East Harlem.
October 14 – November 26, 2005
Viewing: Tuesday – Saturday, 3PM – 7PM
The contributor's were asked to answer some questions......
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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.
We debated the top 10 tech trends last night. Each of us came up with two that were meant to be non-obvious and potentially explosively important over the next five years (this is really hard, and a bit stressful, as I have learned trying to come up with two ones each year).
After each of us defends our trend, the VC panelist hold up a paddle, either green for agreement or red for disagreement, and hash it out. Then the audience votes by phone. Trends and results and more photos below.
It was a great group this year with fun repartee. You can read the recap by Forbes or watch a video of the whole event (I revisit my 2012 predictions at minute 4:43, present trend 3 on machine learning at 29:15 and trend 8 on the rich-poor gap at 1:20:14).
Here are the trends, with the audience vote in brackets. The panelists split two red and two green on every trend except the last one.
1. EyePhones Replace iPhones [David Cowan, 60% disagree]
"Terminator Vision" enables new classes of applications that drive mobile computers closer to our cognitive pathways. Eyewear computers log our lives for robust searching, sharing and diagnostics.
2. The "Right Now" Economy [Venky Ganesan, 54% disagree]
Proliferation of an ubiquitous user device ("mobile"), presence of consumer web services ("cloud"), and emergence of significant analytic abilities ("big data") moves today’s consumers from a "plan ahead" economy to a "Right Now" economy.
3. Deus Ex Machina: Machine Learning Innervates the Tech Frontier [Steve Jurvetson, 75% agree]
Machine learning is the technology under the covers that powers many of the exciting new products that leverage big data to appear nearly magical. Imagine a Google Research approach to everything.
4 .The Individual Revolution [Alfred Lin, 66% disagree on obviousness]
Technology has given us indispensable tools to unlock our personal and professional potential, and enabled all of us to become global entrepreneurs. Welcome to the individual revolution.
5. US is the Supreme Cyber Security Force in the World and its Primary Force [George Zachary, 63% agree]
Horrific, unchecked physical terrorist incidents drive fear; citizens accept complete observation by the functions of a police state. A devastating electronic attack results in govt. militarization of major gateways and backbones of the Internet.
6. Cyber Warfare Becomes a Good Thing [David Cowan, 56% agree]
Cyber missions are instant, effective, relatively free, and non-lethal. Advantaged technologically, America starts dismantling conventional military forces, replacing them with cyber capabilities, completely disrupting the Defense Industry.
7. Certifications, Not Diplomas [Venky Ganesan, 50/50 split]
The emergence of MOOCs and other lifelong learning educational sites e.g., Coursera, Udacity, etc. on the Internet means that the future is defined less by where you went to school but more by what you know. The educational world becomes flat.
8. Erasing the Digital Divide Ironically Accelerates the Rich-Poor Gap [Steve Jurvetson, 70% agree]
Technology democratizes upward mobility and raises the bottom of the pyramid but stretches it into a conical spike—where an ever-shrinking percentage of people control the info economy embedded with winner-take-all network effects and power laws.
9. Personalized Medicine [Alfred Lin, 56% agree]
The ability to cheaply sequence genomes and analyze big data affects every aspect of medicine as we know it, from the treatment of cancer, to drug selection, to the engineering of food.
10. Wearable Computing is the Watch, Not the Glass [George Zachary, 59% disagree as well as the four panelists.]
The watch supplants the phone as primary display & interaction interface of the phone. Initially, it is focused on communications, messaging, social networks. The Swatch of the future is a S/W programmable watch. Health functions added over time.
(top photo by Ed Jay)
Maker: Charles Amand-Durand (1831-1905) from an engraving by Albrecht Durer
Born: France
Active: France
Medium: print back
Size: 6 1/2 in x 9 1/4 in
Location:
Object No: 2022.509b
Shelf: N-10
Publication:
Other Collections:
Notes: 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
Thank you for your views and comments; they are very much appreciated.
[This is one of 7 images—the main artwork plus 6 focused on details.] “Shipyard Society” (1916) is one of 5 paintings on this theme, depicting the shipbuilding industry in Maine. This impressive work is in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia. The oil on panel painting is vigorous, energetic, and alive with numerous vignettes of spectators and workers at the shipyard, a depiction of the warmth and vitality of the commonplace. Bellows shows a masterful contrast between the ordinary (people) and the extraordinary (the magnitude of the ship being built). There is time for gossip and flirting, of food and dogs and umbrellas. To me there is something essentially American about the painting.
George Wesley Bellows (1882-1925) born in Columbus, Ohio, is an important American realist painter. He studied with and was influenced by Robert Henri at the New York School of Art, who promoted a democratization of subject matter in art—anything “real” was worthy of being painted. He displayed his interest in the working man with many contributions to the socialist magazine The Masses, but he believed artistic freedom was more significant that ideology, a belief that sometimes put him at odds with the editors. He became interested in lithography and worked with Bolton Brown on over 100 prints. Bellows also illustrated books, several by H. H. Wells. His artwork was evolving at the time of his death with more focus on light and domestic matters. His work is on display in numerous art galleries. In 1999 Bill Gates paid over 27 million dollars for a 1910 Bellows painting, “Polo Crowd”. Belolows is best known, probably, for his works showing boxing scenes.
Much of his work is online. A search of George Bellows on Flickr had over 730 returns.
203 paintings, with slideshow capabilities, is at www.georgewesleybellows.org/
221 paintings are found at www.the-athenaeum.org/art/list.php?m=a&s=du&aid=97
69 prints at can be viewed at www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/sets/72157604...
Sources:
(1) Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bellows
(2) biography plus thorough listing of awards and exhibitions www.sullivangoss.com/george_Bellows/
(3) biography plus 26 art works and quotes from Bellows on his craft
www.artinthepicture.com/artists/George_Bellows/Biography/
(4) assessment of an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art socialistworker.org/2012/08/15/painter-of-working-class-life
(5) slender volume issued in 1931 by Whitney Museum of Modern Art with b&w images and can be downloaded in .pdf format archive.org/details/georgebellows00egge
(6) museums online with works shown www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/bellows_george_wesley.html
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you use this image on your web site, you need to provide a link to this photo.
inviernosurveranonorte | ISBN 978-1-4457-9262-0
(ñ)
¿Si las redes sociales encarnan la huella del objeto actual, es el actual desencanto el desencanto de las redes sociales?
Un paisaje iconográfico como una reunión de ex-compañeros en presente continuo. ¿Qué le cuento a aquel que no conozco? ¿Qué comparto? ¿Para qué?
¿Pasa el reciclaje del encanto por la necesidad de no dejar huella o de dejar una otra huella aunque no sea la de nuestros zapatos?
Entre la inmediatez y el vértigo, el hastío y la redundancia, ¿ocupan tal vez las redes sociales una grieta de identidades que claman por ser, por ser algo, aunque más no sea una efemérides preocupantemente menos vacía? ¿Es la escandalosa carencia de memoria y de pasado una huída hacia el futuro? ¿Qué futuro? ¿El de los eventos que un software nos recuerda cada vez que iniciamos sesión, sin criterio ni jerarquías, en este club de amigos sin DNI ni ADN?
Nuestra ansia por la sonrisa y desesperación por el masaje ¿son una terapia de todo-a-cien, una ilusión fellinesca que se empeña en clamar por el megáfono: sí, tú también puedes ser protagonista?
¿Pueden nuestros reclamos reinvindicarse con la política del “Me gusta”? ¿Hasta dónde es válido lo que se valida?
¿Es la ilusión democratizadora del poder del ratón, o del mouse ya que estamos, un plato apetitoso en las fauces de los omnipresentes ingenieros de márketing?
¿Qué hay detrás, sobre, entre el ejercicio narcisista de publicar, publicar lo que sea? ¿Es el medio una alternativa?
Tomárselo con calma, como si fuera una bebida espirituosa, un sedante o una caja de Pandora que pide ser reencantada para seguir con el juego.
# # #
(e)
If social networks embody the trace of the current object, is the current disenchantment the disenchantment of social networks?
An iconographic landscape as an ex-classmate meet-up in present continuous. What do I tell those I don’t know? What do I share? What for?
Does the recycling of enchantment go through the need to not leave a trace or to leave some other trace even if it’s not that of our own shoes?
Between immediacy and vertigo, weariness and redundancy, do social networks perhaps fill a crack of identities claiming to be, to be something, even if it’s just an ephemeris worryingly less empty? Is the scandalous lack of memory and past an escape towards the future? What future? That of the events some software reminds us of each time we log in, without criteria or hierarchies, in this club of friends without ID or DNA?
Our craving for the smile and despair for massage, are they a dollar-store therapy, a fellinian illusion that insists in claiming on the megaphone: yes, you can also play the leading role?
Can our demands be claimed with the “I like” policy? To what extent what’s validated is valid?
The democratizing illusion of the power of the mouse, is it a mouthwatering dish on the jaws of the ubiquitous marketing engineers?
What’s behind, on, within the narcissist exercise to publish, publish whatever? Are the means an alternative?
Take it slowly, as if it was a spirituous drink, a sedative or a Pandora’s box asking to be reenchanted to keep up with the game.
# # #
(ç)
Les réseaux sociaux assimilent leurs acteurs, mais le désenchantement social engendre-t-il pour autant le désenchantement des réseaux sociaux ?
Tel des paysages iconographiques d’ex-camarades de classes qui se retrouvent désormais non-stop. Qu’y dire à ceux qu’on ne connait pas ? Qu’y partager ? Qu’y faire ?
Recycler l’enchantement passe-t-il par la nécessité de ne pas laisser de trace, ou de laisser d’autres traces qui ne seraient pas celles de nos propres pas ?
Entre l’immédiateté et le vertige, entre la fatigue et la redondance, les réseaux sociaux ne viennent-ils pas colmater les fissures d’identités auto-proclamées singulières, quand ce ne sont que d’affligeantes éphémérides moins vide ?
L’absence scandaleuse de mémoire et de passé est-elle une fuite en avant vers le futur ? Et quel futur ? Est-ce celui jalonné des événements que des logiciels nous annoncent à chaque login, sans critère ni hiérarchie, au sein de ces club d’amis sans identité ni ADN ?
Notre désir insatiable de sourire et notre besoin désespéré de message, sont-ils des thérapies de dollar-stores ? Une illusion felliniènne beuglant dans un mégaphone: “Oui, vous pouvez vous aussi jouer les premiers rôles ?”
Comment revendiquer une politique du “moi aussi” ? Ce qui est valable est-il vrai ? L’illusion démocratique du pouvoir de la souris, souris que nous sommes, n’est-elle qu’un plat savoureux dans la gueule des ingénieurs omnipotents du marketing ?
Que se cache-t-il derrière, ou sur, ou sous cet exercice narcissique de la publication ? En quoi cette médiatisation est-elle alternative ?
Pour peu que vous désiriez vous émerveiller de rester dans le jeu, allez-y tout doux ; comme d’un spiritueux, d’un sédatif ou d’une boîte de Pandore.
###
edit(ing), direct(ing) & complements
art direct(ing) & design(ing)
colacao & late-assistance
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front cover(ing) nino: manuel diumenjó
in-between outer demons & encoded: ezook
open(ing) identities: leonie polah
in-between nets: miguel ruibal
back(c)over(ing) i(mg): fernando prats
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After the thrill is gone
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
I will be participating in:
BLOGS: An exhibition of photoblogs
NYC Exposition, Puerto Rico Sun, and East Harlem.
October 14 – November 26, 2005
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.
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
"Stephen Wolfram Aims to Democratize His Software" by STEVE LOHR via NYT t.co/bjddCtFsuZ (via Twitter twitter.com/felipemassone/status/676402069822152704)
I'm kind of aware of the fact that I don't post as frequently on Flickr as I used to. One of the reasons is that I had several albums, with dozens and dozens of photos, and I made the posting of those albums into projects that consumed a fair amount of time. I have several other albums, but there's only one that is both full of photos and full of photos of a high-quality and/or contains lots of photos with highly-interesting content. When the time comes to post that one album, I hope I remember to do it.
Meanwhile, here's a little morsel, an album I've had for a while. I don't, in fact, remember where I bought it, but it was pre-Iowa, which means either South Carolina, Florida, or the Missouri triangle as the source of purchase. For some reason, I have the state of Maryland attached to my memory of where these photos might have been taken, and where the school might be. Don't know why I have that memory, as there is no intrinsic evidence to support that association.
Most of these kids are smiling. This photographer had The Knack, and, to be honest, I worry about the kids who aren't smiling. My most haunting memory of going into the Arkansas Public Schools, K through 12 (I participated in a program called "Poets in the Schools," (though, of course, I was never a poet), until I got fired for being a bad boy (and my indiscretion does not even make for a very good story), oh yeah, my most haunting memory, is how in kindergarten, just about all the kids, rich and poor, black and white, were boiling over with irrepressible enthusiasm, and by the time they were sophomores and juniors and seniors, they had been sorted out, and the kids who as kindergartners were no less able, no less inventive, no less alive, were now, after the democratizing socialization process, shunted aside, deemed lesser, slotted to change tires down at the Firestone store, or put on an apron and primp the lettuce at the local grocery. And that was before Wal-Mart had done the worst of its work. Even the teachers, at least some, if not most of them, participated in the process. They would point out the troublemakers for you, and speak sneeringly of them. The experience was uplifting, and terribly disheartening, which is how I feel about my wonderful, dastardly country.