Taiwan Today

Antverpia 2010 highlights not merely the beauty of Taiwan’s postage stamps, but also its commitment to wildlife protection.

Antwerp, a picturesque city in Belgium, which boasts a rich artistic legacy and modern urban infrastructure, will be abuzz with excitement this April, welcoming philatelists from around the world. For stamp lovers who enjoy the beauty of ancient works of art and are also interested in images of rare species of animals and birds, a visit to Taiwan’s booth at Antverpia 2010 is not to be missed.

Antverpia 2010 is an international stamp fair organized by the Royal Belgian Federation of Philatelic Associations, scheduled for April 9–12 at the Antwerp Expo exhibition center to celebrate the 120th anniversary of the founding of the group. Birdpex 6, a world-renowned philatelic exhibition centered on the theme of birds, which has been held every four years since 1990, is scheduled to coincide with Antverpia 2010 at the same venue. Altogether, more than 50 postal administrations and 100 stamp dealers from around the world will join in the gala, with some 2,000 frames of stamps displayed in four exhibition halls spread over 17,000 square meters. Taiwan has been invited to the event as a special guest and its state-run enterprise Chunghwa Post Co. Ltd. will set up a booth in Hall 2 of Antwerp Expo alongside the Birdpex exhibits to showcase the island’s postage stamps, especially stamps featuring birds.

“Europe has been in the vanguard of world philately trends and offers an active market for trading stamps. Therefore, the fair certainly affords a golden opportunity not only for us to better understand today’s world trends, but also enhance the visibility of Taiwan’s stamps, thereby making significant inroads into the European market,” says Chen Jen-chieh, director of Chunghwa Post’s Department of Philately.

However, Taiwan’s presence at this huge gathering is more than commercial. Over the years, the nation has been touted as a major contributor providing humanitarian assistance through its private sector and government resources. This time, Chunghwa Post will sponsor a charity sale of Taiwan’s postage stamps worth NT$500,000 (US$15,625). Proceeds will go to CliniClowns Belgium, a nonprofit organization whose main goal is to improve the quality of life for children in hospitals.

Since its establishment in 1994, CliniClowns Belgium has been devoted to sending professional clowns to visit sick and hospitalized children, in the hope of bringing the smiles back to their faces and easing their pain and suffering. The organization relies entirely on public donations to continue its philanthropic work.

Valerie Van Gastel, general coordinator of the organization, expressed her gratitude for the charity sale by Chunghwa Post in an email to the Taipei Representative Office in the European Union and Belgium. “This donation is of crucial importance to our organization. Sending two clowns into a hospital once a week the whole year round costs us about €12,500 [US$18,106]. If we succeed in selling the entire collection, we can visit an extra 780 children thanks to this fantastic support,” Van Gastel wrote.

Ancient Beauty

During the four-day exhibit, 10 frames of Taiwanese stamps—some 287 stamps, 107 maximum cards and 26 pre-cancelled first-day covers—on the following four themes will go on display: ancient bird paintings from the National Palace Museum (NPM), birds, insects and other creatures (including mainly mammals and sea animals).

“Ancient Chinese paintings from the National Palace Museum have been a constant theme for our stamps. The paintings are both realistic and opulent, and they chronicle the millennia-old history of Chinese culture,” Chunghwa Post’s Chen Jen-chieh says. “Since Birdpex is an international exhibition for bird stamps, we selected stamps of bird paintings from the museum as one of our highlights.”

Ranked with the British Museum and France’s Louvre as one of the top five museums in the world, the NPM in Taipei boasts a vast collection of around 655,000 works of art and artifacts. The collections include jade, porcelains, calligraphy, rare books and scroll paintings from various dynasties, and best exemplify the richness of Chinese culture and its people’s aesthetic tastes. According to the museum’s recent annual reports, more than 2 million visitors tour the NPM each year to admire the splendor of these treasures. “Stamps of masterpieces from this museum have always been well received at home and abroad and have seen rapid sales,” Chen adds.

Since the mid-1990s, ancient paintings of birds from the NPM’s collection have been frequently chosen for stamps. For example, to mark the 1996 Asian International Philatelic Exhibition, which was held in Taipei, as well as the 100th anniversary of the launch of modern Chinese postal services, Chunghwa Post issued a set of four stamps and a souvenir sheet depicting bird paintings from the museum’s collection of Song (960–1279) and Ming (1368–1644) dynasty works. For the 2008 Asian International Stamp Exhibition, which was also held in Taipei, Chunghwa Post issued another set of four stamps and a souvenir sheet featuring the NPM’s bird paintings from the Song, Yuan (1271–1368) and Ming dynasties.

A quick glance at Chunghwa Post’s inventory for the Antverpia exhibition shows that Taiwan has released a large number of postage stamps featuring various local birds, insects and animals, including some of the endangered species found on the island.

Taiwan’s varied natural environment with everything from tropical to temperate ecological zones, as well as its contrasting topography, have endowed the island with a diverse range of fauna. Around 500 species of birds, 70 species of mammals, 3,000 species of fish and 18,000 identified insect species (including around 400 species of butterflies) are known to inhabit Taiwan. These living creatures make Taiwan an island of great biodiversity, affording abundant material for stamp design.

Conservation Agenda

Over the past decades, however, animal habitats in Taiwan have been severely damaged and degraded. Many species have thus gradually vanished due to industrial pollution and large-scale development. To address the problem, the government in Taiwan has put considerable effort into preserving the island’s natural ecology. For its part, Chunghwa Post has issued a series of stamps featuring endangered species to raise public awareness about wildlife conservation.

For instance, in 1992, a set of postage stamps was issued to present four types of endangered species endemic to Taiwan: namely the Chinese river otter, Formosan flying fox, Formosan clouded leopard and Formosan black bear. In 1997, a set of stamps featuring four rare or near-extinct insects native to Taiwan was also released. They are the Formosan giant stag beetle, Lanyu giant katydid, Magellan’s iridescent birdwing butterfly and Tsuda’s giant stick insect.

“The stamp designs emphasize the close relationship between creatures and their natural habitats, suggesting the importance of biodiversity in ensuring that relationship,” says Chunghwa Post’s Chen Jen-chieh.

The 2002 issue of 10 stamps and a miniature sheet featuring the Chinese crested tern merits further mention. The last confirmed sighting of the species in the 20th century was in 1937, when 21 such terns were killed for specimens. Once thought to be extinct, the bird was identified in 2000 during the editing of a Taiwanese nature documentary by filmmaker Liang Chieh-teh about tern breeding colonies on Matsu, an outlying archipelago of Taiwan. The discovery soon attracted the BBC to film a special report about the breeding of these “legendary birds” there.

A set of commemorative stamps for the 2005 Asian International Stamp Exhibition in Taipei illustrates how abstract conservation ideas can come alive on a small piece of paper. The stamps were designed by Ko Hung-tu, an associate professor at Ming Chuan University’s Department of Commercial Design. As one of Taiwan’s leading graphic designers, Ko has carried off innumerable prizes for his works at home and abroad.

“To lend an air of fun and vitality to this souvenir sheet, I used the shape of a big flying bird as an outline against a light green background. Within the outline are images of a Muller’s barbet, Green Island [a small island off the eastern coast of Taiwan] and a tree frog, which together symbolize Taiwan’s biodiversity. Depicted in the lower part of the sheet are the lofty peaks of Hehuan Mountain [a 3,417-meter-high mountain in central Taiwan] and a Formosan rock macaque gazing into the distance. All of these images represent Taiwan’s endemic species and their natural habitats,” Ko explains. “Did you find anything special about the shape of the two stamps? They’re circular!” the designer enthuses.

According to Ko, an elaborate stamp sheet requires first-hand observation of the creatures to be portrayed. “For example, before working on the two sets of cetacean stamps, I made several whale-watching trips, where I got to see whales and dolphins jumping and whirling like ballet dancers,” he adds. “I also went to see dead ones being dissected in the zoo. All these preparations are necessary to make my graphic elements more lifelike.”

In association with Birdpex, five frames of Taiwan’s bird stamps, maximum cards and first-day covers will be exhibited at the Belgium show. Among these, most of the recently released items were designed by Lai Chi-jen, a painter who regularly works with Chunghwa Post to develop conservation-themed stamps.

“Whenever I submit a proposal for designing a new set of bird stamps, I always suggest Chunghwa Post issue a souvenir sheet, so that the habitats of the birds can be fully shown,” Lai says. “By doing so, people can better realize through the stamps that animals cannot survive in isolation from their environment. If their habitats are severely contaminated, our chances of seeing these wonderful creatures might never come again.”

In his designs of rare bird species such as the Formosan blue magpie, black-faced spoonbill and fairy pitta, Lai’s works are animated portrayals of the creatures foraging, rearing young, flying, perching and fluttering. In addition, the artist uses the birds’ natural environment as a backdrop, including insects and plants. For the souvenir sheet featuring the blue-tailed bee-eater, which is found on the outlying island of Kinmen, the artist includes traditional Kinmen architecture in the background.

“Except for Formosan blue magpies, the other three species are migratory birds, which can also be found elsewhere. Therefore, my intention was to spotlight distinctly Taiwanese characteristics, so collectors could recognize more easily that these stamps come from this beautiful country,” Lai explains. “Stamps are a country’s name card. They travel all around the world. I really hope that our foreign friends can get to know Taiwan better through our stamps.”

Also included in Chunghwa Post’s exhibit at Antverpia 2010 is a commemorative stamp from Taiwan’s participation in the 1964 New York World’s Fair. A set of four stamps was issued, but only the one with a bird theme, entitled “One Hundred Birds Paying Tribute to Queen Phoenix,” will be displayed. “For us philatelists, the value of this set of stamps cannot be weighed in dollars and cents,” says Wang Hua-nan, a senior philatelist who has written five books on world stamps. “It stands out not merely for its commemorative significance, but also for its elegant design, fine paper quality and antique style.”

Postage stamps act as a useful vehicle to honor the beauty in the midst of people’s daily lives, and the creatures featured on them are fair ambassadors of nature, as evidenced by Taiwan’s selection of stamps for the upcoming exhibition. For stamp lovers interested in art and conservation, the Taiwan booth at Antverpia 2010 this April promises a fascinating starting point to the world of the island’s postage stamps.

Write to dennis0602@mail.gio.gov.tw