To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Maritime Museum, a special event was held at Maritime Museum on June 5, and more than 50 alumni and previous teachers of Dept. of Navigation and Dept. of Marine Engineering came back to school to take part in the reunion. All participates were glad to see their college classmates and teachers whom they haven’t met for ages, so they talked about the old days and current situation with exciting mood with each other. A donation ceremony was also held by Maritime Museum on that day to receive the artistic work, a dolphin model made of toothpick by the toothpick artist Tsai Cheng-chin.

The Maritime Museum used to be the Building of Merchant Marine, donated and built by Chang Yung-fa, the founder and Group Chairman of the Evergreen Group. It was the place where students of Dept. of Navigation and Dept. of Marine Engineering had classes and received practical training, and it cultivated many professional maritime talents who are distributed in different fields. Li Hsin-chuan, a former teacher of Dept. of Marine Engineering who is over 70 years old now, particularly came back to see his students. He indicated that he left TKU when the two departments stopped recruiting students in 1986, and he was really happy to return to school and had a reunion and casual conversation with his students.

Some of the alumni toured the school and shared the stories of their college life with their wifes and children. Liu Wei-ching, the sixth-year alumnus of Dept. of Marine Engineering, said, “It’s nice to visit the beautiful campus of TKU again with my family, and I’m really glad to have a chat about old times with classmates. It is very interesting.” Hsu Ta-chung, the first-year alumnus of Dept. of Navigation, indicated that although the two departments were shut down, turning the Building of Merchant Marine into Maritime Museum preserved the history of the two departments and precious memories for them. It addition, it also displayed TKU’s contribution to maritime education and witnessed the transformation of TKU. ( ~Shu-chun Yen )