TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taipei 101 will light up to mark 228 Peace Memorial Day on Saturday evening, with Chair Janet Chia (賈永婕) announcing a NT$228,000 (US$7,056) donation to promote democratic education, while responding to online critics linking her family to the 318 incident in China, per Tai Sounds.
Chia said late Friday that 101’s facade will display a message commemorating 228 and urging healing and love, from 6 p.m.
She added that past wounds should not divide people and directed donations to the Tsilin Education Foundation, founded by democracy activist Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) to advance civic literacy.
Chia also addressed online barbs that linked Taiwan’s 228 with China’s 318 in 1926, in which a family relation was involved. Her great-granduncle, Jia Deyao (賈德耀), had ordered soldiers to fire on protesters demanding an end to foreign influence and warlord rule, killing 47 and wounding over 150.
She reportedly responded that she would not whitewash history but would leave judgment to scholars, adding that all injustice should be condemned. She also rejected accusations of “historical amnesia” or “forgetting her ancestors.”
