Father Gian Carlo Michelini came to Taiwan from Italy in 1964, and founded the Lan Yang Dancers in 1966. In 1974 he took his dancers on an international tour, on which they became the first performing arts group ever to perform for the Pope in the Vatican. He was also an important contributor to the founding of the Yilan International Children’s Folklore and Folkgame Festival, and has helped bring the world to Taiwan by inviting numerous international performing arts companies to perform here.
During the 1950s, Taiwan was just emerging from a period of war and chaos, and faced inadequate conditions in culture, education, medical care, and public health. At this time, Catholic missionaries from Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Italy, and elsewhere arrived with much-needed donations and material assistance.
It was at a Mid-Autumn Festival celebration in the Houbi District of Tainan City that Father François Verny, originally from France, first made himself well-known among the local people—specifically by karaoke singing the Taiwanese-language hit “Marching Forward.” Since then, Tainan people, Catholic or not, have known this foreign priest not only for his fine singing voice, but even more for his fluency in Taiwanese.
A casual passerby of the bustling shop at the intersection of Lanjing Street and Guohua Street in Chiayi City might lift his head and see a sign proclaiming the site to be the former residence of Chen Cheng-po. Although he was acclaimed as the father of Taiwanese modernism, Chen’s untimely death in his prime led him to be forgotten by many.
