Frequency Weekly First issue 1885 Based in Tainan | Publisher Taiwan Church Press Country Taiwan | |
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Language Mandarin Chinese, some sections in Taiwanese | ||
The Taiwan Church News (Chinese: 台灣教會公報; pinyin: Táiwān Jiàohuì Gōngbào; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-oân Kàu-hoē Kong-pò) is a publication of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. It was first published in 1885 as the Tâi-oân-hú-siâⁿ Kàu-hōe-pò (臺灣府城教會報; Táiwān Fǔchéng Jiàohuì Bào; "Taiwan Prefecture City Church News") under the direction of missionary Thomas Barclay, and was Taiwan's first printed newspaper. This early edition was also notable for being printed in romanised Taiwanese using the Pe̍h-ōe-jī orthography. The publication was banned during the latter stages of Japanese rule and editions were also impounded on several occasions during the martial law era in post-war Taiwan for discussing forbidden subjects.
Contents
Early years
In Taiwan in the late 1800s (during Taiwan's Qing era), only the educated elite could read and write. Christian missionaries in southern Taiwan were anxious that their congregations should learn to read and write, and were convinced that romanised script (i.e. Pe̍h-ōe-jī) was easier to learn than Chinese characters. James Laidlaw Maxwell, a medical missionary, donated a small printing press to the church in 1880, but at the time nobody in Taiwan-fu (modern-day Tainan) knew how to operate it.
In 1881 while on furlough in Glasgow, Thomas Barclay studied printing techniques, and on his return to Taiwan-fu he sent others for printing training and set up a machine shop, which started printing in 1884. Then in June 1885 came the first issue of the Tâi-oân-hú-siâⁿ Kàu-hōe-pò (Taiwan-fu Church News), which thus became the first printed newspaper in the island.
The newspaper was just one of the products of the new press, and William Campbell was later able to proudly write that "our Tainan Mission Press turned out 700,357 pages, chiefly in the dialect or brogue of South Formosa during 1913". In 1915 the newspaper was reported as having a circulation of roughly 1,600.
World War II to the present
In 1942 after Japan and the United States declared war on each other, the missionaries were expelled from Taiwan, which was at the time a Japanese colony, and the press was closed. After the defeat of Japan and the takeover by the Kuomintang, the Taiwan Church News resumed publication. However, in 1969 the printing of the Taiwan Church News in Pe̍h-ōe-jī was banned by the Kuomintang government of the time, who were taking action to restrict the use of local languages.
From that point on, the publication appeared in Mandarin Chinese characters, and even after the restrictions were lifted in the 1980s, Mandarin continued to be the dominant language, with "native languages" (Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka and Formosan languages) confined to a "Mother Tongue Section" from 1991 onwards. On several occasions the magazine was confiscated by the authorities for running articles on forbidden topics, such as a discussion of the February 28 Incident which saw the entire print run of 6,700 copies seized in 1987.
The modern incarnation of the periodical takes the form of a weekly magazine, plus ad hoc English reports on the organization's website.