Linda Arrigo, I think, was invited for her active involvement with Xindian cemetery among her other interests. Liu Family owns the largest private cemetery in northern Taiwan and Dr Liu currently accommodated some 100 abandoned tombstones until they are found a home.  Masami Kondo   近藤正己 leading the panel discussion on Dapinglin Shisizhang ( 十四張   ) and Liu family land reclamation and management process and influence. Sun Ta-chuan  孫大川 (Also known as  Paelabang Danapan  in the  Puyuma language) leading panelist of Taiwan-Old-Family presentations.  'Taiwan-Old-Family' refers to a private group I was invited to join in 2018. Members are descendants whose ancestors contributions to Taiwan, during Qing and Japanese rule, are documented in official written literature. A two-days conference on Dapinglin Liu Family  大坪林 劉氏家族   was held at Academia Sinica as the result of a pioneering collaboration between Old Family and leading academic institu...

Taihoku Higher School class magazine hand-drawn cover -  on the eve of World War II.  George H. Kerr taught in Taihoku Higher School in 1938-1940. Lee who taught in Yanping and Lim who studied in Yanping  several decades apart.   (Source Freddy Lim Facebook Page.) Speaking in fluent Japanese in 1994 to Ryōtarō Shiba ( 司馬遼太 郎 ) , a Japanese writer best known for his novel about historical event in Japan , President Lee Teng-hui ( 李登輝 ) said, “I was Japanese until I turned 22.” When Lee was 22, Tokyo’s surrender brought an end to World War II, and also to Japan’s fifty-year colonial rule over Taiwan. Lee’s passing on July 30, 2020 marks a closure for Taiwanese people's memories of Japanese rule. Lee took his Japanese name Iwasato Masao ( 岩里政男 ) in 1940, the year Japanese government announced a name-change ‘Japanization’ policy to eradicate identity of their colonial subjects. It was Lee’s father, however, who first brought the Japanese surname Iwasato into his fami...