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President Tsai praises Taiwan’s wind power development

President Tsai Ing-wen said May 23 that wind power development in Taiwan is driving growth of...

Taiwan is renowned for its fascinating blend of traditional and modern culture. To showcase the nation’s history and cultural diversity, museums have been established across Taiwan, including National Palace Museum, National Taiwan Museum and National Museum of History. Traditional architecture abounds, not only in the country’s magnificent temples, but also in the many old structures that have been revitalized for use as community centers, cafes, stores and other public spaces. In fact, many aspects of traditional Chinese arts, crafts and customs are better preserved in Taiwan than anywhere else. For example, Taiwan is one of the few places still using traditional Chinese characters, and calligraphy competitions are always popular events.

While Taiwan may be described as a predominantly Han Chinese society, with more than 95 percent of the population claiming Han ancestry, its heritage is actually much more complex. The successive waves of Chinese immigrants that began arriving in the 17th century belonged to a variety of subgroups with mutually unintelligible languages and different customs.Today in Taiwan, however, distinctions between them have become blurred as a result of extensive intermarriage and the universal use of Mandarin. Taiwan has been a melting pot not only of diverse Han subgroups, but also of indigenous Malayo-Polynesian peoples and immigrants from all over the world. Recent years, for example, have seen an influx of new arrivals from China and Southeast Asia, mostly through marriage. Currently, the number of new immigrants is nearly 500,000.

Traditional Chinese characters are a treasured cultural legacy and product of thousands of years of linguistic evolution. In modern Taiwan, traditional Chinese characters are utilized as the written form of Mandarin, one of the nation’s official languages.