There will be an “International Conference on Culture and Environment” opening at 9:00 a.m. in room I 501, at Chueh-sheng Memorial Library Building on the 20th and 21st of this month. The organizers include TKU’s College of Liberal Arts, Department of Chinese, The Department of Environmental Studies of Nagasaki University, Japan, the Division of General Education and Core Curriculum of Hsing Wu College as well as TKU’s Center for China Studies. This conference is an attempt to research issues of culture and environment from both cultural and social perspectives as opposed to the usual scientific and technical approach.

The visiting professor, Lian Ching-ji at the Department of Chinese, Nagasaki University, stated that his university was the first to explore such issues from scientific, cultural and social aspects. He wishes to share this experience with TKU at this conference by examining culture and environment from various angles to strike a balance between science and culture. This balance is also reflected in the make-up of the participants ranging from faculty members from the College of Liberal Arts to those from Colleges of Sciences, Engineering and Business. The themes they will be exploring cover even wider ground. For example, Professor Pan Chao-yang from National Normal University will talk about “Dissecting Hakkanese’s folk theory of nature from their worship of God of Earth”; Professor Chou Yan-wen will deal with the “Cultural and environmental changes of the Tamsui area”; and Professor Takehiro Takemasa from Nagasaki Universtiy will discuss “The qualification of ISO14001 certificate of the environment management at Nagasaki University”.