1.
Nantou County
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Nantou County is the second largest county of Taiwan. It is also the only landlocked county in Taiwan and its name derives from the Hoanya Taiwanese aboriginal word Ramtau. Nantou County is officially administered as a county of Taiwan Province and its mountainous area makes it a tourist destination, Sun Moon Lake is located in this county. Other well-known areas of the county are Hehuanshan and Sitou, notable cities in Nantou are Nantou City and Puli Town. Nantou County butterfly is Broad-tailed swallowtail butterfly, nantous tung-ting tea is one of the most famous and high-quality oolong teas grown in Taiwan. Before the arrival of Han Chinese to Nantou, the Atayal, Bunun and Tsou tribes were distributed throughout the northern and these groups pioneered the early development of mountain regions in Nantou. In 1677, Lin Yi, a general under the command of Koxinga, the Han Chinese began to enter Nantou via two main routes, the Zhuoshui River and Maoluo River. In 1901, during Japanese rule, Nanto Chō was one of twenty local administrative offices established, in 1909, part of Toroku Chō was merged into Nanto Cho. A major reorganization occurred in 1920, in which the area was administered under Taichū Prefecture together with modern-day Changhua County and Taichung City. After the handover of Taiwan from Japan to the Republic of China on 25 October 1945, on 16 August 1950, Nantou County was established by its separation from Taichung County, and Nantou Township was designed as the county seat. On 1 July 1957, the Zhongxing New Village in Nantou Township was designed to be the capital of Taiwan Province from the former Taipei City, in 1981, the county seat was upgraded from Nantou Township to Nantou City. Nantou County has an area of 4,106.436 km2 with a width of 72 km and it is the second largest county in Taiwan after Hualien County. There are 41 mountains with peaks over 3,000 meters high, with Mount Yu in Xinyi Township is the highest peak in Nantou County, around 83% of Nantou County area is covered by hills and mountains. Rain that falls into the area converge into the Dadu River. There are inland ponds and lakes throughout the mountains in the county, such as the Sun Moon Lake, Bi Pond, Liyu Pond, the annual average temperature in Nantou County is 23 °C on level ground and 20 °C on mountains. The annual average rainfall is less than 1,750 mm on level ground and 2,800 mm on mountains, the rainy season lasts from April to September and the summer lasts from October to March. Nantou County consists of 1 city,4 urban townships,6 rural townships,2 mountain indigenous townships,128 villages and 133 neighborhoods, Nantou City is the seat of the county which houses the Nantou County Government and Nantou County Council. The incumbent Magistrate of Nantou County is Lin Ming-chen of the Kuomintang, Nantou County has a population of 517,037 people as of January 2014
2.
Taiwan
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Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is a state in East Asia. Neighbours include China to the west, Japan to the northeast, Taiwan is the most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations, and the one with the largest economy. The island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, was inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before the 17th century. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China 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 ROCs loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, 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 universal suffrage, 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, health care, public education, economic freedom, 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, 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. There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, the former name Formosa dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means beautiful island. The name Formosa eventually replaced all others in European literature and was in use in English in the early 20th century. This name was adopted into the Chinese vernacular as the name of the sandbar. The modern word Taiwan is derived from this usage, which is seen in forms in Chinese historical records. Use of the current Chinese name 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. The official name of the state is the Republic of China and it was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when it lost its seat to the Peoples Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become known as Taiwan. In some contexts, especially ones from the ROC government
3.
Taiwanese aborigines
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Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, who number more than 530,000 and constitute nearly 2. 3% of the islands population. Recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on Taiwan for approximately 8,000 years in isolation before a major Han immigration began in the 17th century. The issue of an ethnic identity unconnected to the Asian mainland has become one thread in the discourse regarding the status of Taiwan. For centuries, Taiwans aboriginal inhabitants experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of colonizing newcomers, for example, of the approximately 26 known languages of the Taiwanese aborigines, at least ten are now extinct, five are moribund, and several are to some degree endangered. These languages are of historical significance, since most historical linguists consider Taiwan to be the original homeland of the Austronesian language family. Taiwans Austronesian speakers were distributed over much of the islands rugged central mountain range and were concentrated in villages along the alluvial plains. The bulk of contemporary Taiwanese aborigines now live in the mountains, the indigenous peoples of Taiwan face economic and social barriers, including a high unemployment rate and substandard education. Since the early 1980s, many groups have been actively seeking a higher degree of political self-determination. The revival of pride is expressed in many ways by aborigines. Efforts are under way in indigenous communities to revive traditional cultural practices, the Austronesian Cultural Festival in Taitung City is one means by which tribe members promote aboriginal culture. For most of their history, Taiwanese aborigines have been defined by the agents of different Confucian, Christian. Taxonomies imposed by colonizing forces divided the aborigines into named subgroups and these divisions did not always correspond to distinctions drawn by the aborigines themselves. This designation reflected the idea that anyone could be civilized/tamed by adopting Confucian social norms. During Japanese rule, anthropologists from Japan maintained the binary classification, the Musha incident of 1930 led to many changes in aboriginal policy, and the Japanese government began referring to them as Takasago-zoku. The latter group included the Atayal, Bunun, Tsou, Saisiat, Paiwan, Puyuma, the Yami and Rukai were added later, for a total of nine recognized tribes. The KMT later adopted the use of all the earlier Japanese groupings except Peipo, the current recognized aborigines are all regarded as Gaoshan, though the divisions are not and have never been based strictly on geographical location. The Amis, Saisiat, Tao and Kavalan are all traditionally Eastern Plains cultures, the distinction between Pingpu and Gaoshan people continues to affect Taiwans policies regarding indigenous peoples, and their ability to participate effectively in government. The earliest detailed records, dating from the Dutch arrival in 1624, between these villages there was frequent trade, intermarriage, warfare and alliances against common enemies
4.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
5.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
6.
Amusement park
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An amusement park or theme park is a group of entertainment attractions, rides, and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people. Theme parks, a type of amusement park, are usually much more intricately themed to a certain subject or group of subjects than normal amusement parks. Amusement parks evolved from European fairs and pleasure gardens, which were created for peoples recreation, Worlds fairs and expositions were another influence on the development of the amusement park industry. In common language, the theme park and amusement park are often synonymous. However, a park can be regarded as a distinct style of amusement park. A theme park has landscaping, buildings, and attractions that are based on one or more specific themes or stories. The amusement park evolved from three earlier traditions, the oldest being the periodic fair of the Middle Ages - one of the earliest was the Bartholomew Fair in England, the worlds oldest amusement park appeared in the Continent. Bakken at Klampenborg, north of Copenhagen, Denmark, opened in 1583, a wave of innovation in the 1860s and 1870s created mechanical rides, such as the steam-powered carousel, and its derivatives. This inaugurated the era of the modern funfair ride, as the classes were increasingly able to spend their surplus wages on entertainment. The second influence was the pleasure garden, one of the earliest gardens was the Vauxhall Gardens, founded in 1661 in London. By the late 18th century, the site had a fee for its many attractions. It regularly drew crowds, with its paths being noted for romantic assignations, tightrope walkers, hot air balloon ascents, concerts. Although the gardens were designed for the elites, they soon became places of great social diversity. Public firework displays were put on at Marylebone Gardens, and Cremorne Gardens offered music, dancing, prater in Vienna, Austria, was opened in 1766. The concept of a park for amusement was further developed with the beginning of the worlds fairs. The first World fair began in 1851 with the construction of the landmark Crystal Palace in London, the purpose of the exposition was to celebrate the industrial achievement of the nations of the world and it was designed to educate and entertain the visitors. American cities and business saw the worlds fair as a way of demonstrating economic. The Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, Illinois was an precursor to the modern amusement park
7.
Drop tower
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A drop tower or big drop is a type of amusement ride incorporating a central structure or tower. Drop towers vary in height, passenger capacity, lift type, many are custom-made, although there are some mass-produced designs. Riders experience free-fall initially, followed by rapid heavy deceleration, with most drop towers, a gondola carrying riders is lifted to the top of a large vertical structure, then released to free-fall down the tower. Brakes activate to slow the gondola as it approaches the bottom of the ride, some designs expand on this concept with features such as rotating gondolas, or several bounces before coming to rest. Certain drop towers propel the gondola down as they fall, accelerating the gondola faster than the riders, as of July 2014, the longest drop is at Zumanjaro, Drop of Doom at Six Flags Great Adventure, at 415 feet. * denotes that the tower is scheduled currently under construction. Scream. at Disney California Adventure Park Following the Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom incident, all the towers were closed, on February 24,2012, 14-year-old Gabriella Yukari Nichimura died in an accident at Hopi Hari, Vinhedo, São Paulo State, Brazil. She fell from the tower ride La Tour Eiffel suffering cranial trauma. Local police are investigating the accident, initial investigations suggest the possibility of mechanical failure in the restraint latch
8.
Bell tower
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A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Church bell towers often incorporate clocks, and secular towers usually do, the Italian term campanile, deriving from the word campana meaning bell, is synonymous with bell tower, though in English usage Campanile tends to be used to refer to a free standing bell tower. A bell tower may also in some traditions be called a belfry, though this term may refer specifically to the substructure that houses the bells. The tallest free-standing bell tower in the world, approximately 110 m high, is the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower, located at the University of Birmingham, bells are rung from a tower to enable them to be heard at a distance. Church bells can signify the time for worshippers to go to church for a communal service and they are also rung on special occasions such as a wedding, or a funeral service. In some religious traditions they are used within the liturgy of the service to signify to people that a particular part of the service has been reached. A bell tower may have a bell, or a collection of bells which are tuned to a common scale. They may be stationary and chimed, rung randomly by swinging through a small arc and they may house a carillon or chimes, in which the bells are sounded by hammers connected via cables to a keyboard. These can be found in churches and secular buildings in Europe and America including college. A variety of electronic devices exist to simulate the sound of bells, some churches have an exconjuratory in the bell tower, a space where ceremonies were conducted to ward off weather-related calamities, like storms and excessive rain. The main bell tower of the Cathedral of Murcia has four, in addition, most Christian denominations ring church bells to call the faithful to worship, signalling the start of a mass or service of worship. The Christian tradition of the ringing of bells from a belltower is analogous to Islamic tradition of the adhan from a minaret. In AD400, Paulinus of Nola introduced church bells into the Christian Church, by the 11th century, bells housed in belltowers became commonplace. Historic bell towers exist throughout Europe, the Irish round towers are thought to have functioned in part as bell towers. Famous medieval European examples include Bruges, Ypres, Ghent, perhaps the most famous European free-standing bell tower, however, is the so-called Leaning Tower of Pisa, which is the campanile of the Duomo di Pisa in Pisa, Italy. In 1999 thirty-two Belgian belfries were added to the UNESCOs list of World Heritage Sites, in 2005 this list was extended with one Belgian and twenty-three Northern French belfries and is since known as Belfries of Belgium and France. In the Middle Ages, cities sometimes kept their important documents in belfries, not all are on a large scale, the bell tower of Katúň, in Slovakia, is typical of the many more modest structures that were once common in country areas. Archaic wooden bell towers survive adjoining churches in Lithuania and as well as in parts of Poland
