Department of Cultural Affairs

By Eva Tang
Staff Reporter

Taipei City Government's Department of Cultural Affairs held the 14th Taipei Culture Awards this year. The winners included Japanese pianist Anna Azusa Fujita and Sinologist and professor Xin Yi-yun.

Every year the department assigns a theme and promotes it by holding the Taipei Culture Awards where recipients get certificates of merit and NT$300,000 prize money. This year's theme is the promotion of aesthetics in life.

Fujita played Fantaisie-Impromptu and Chopin Polonaise at the awarding ceremony on December 11. She had previously helped organize the International Chopin Festival 2010 to commemorate the musician’s 200th anniversary. Originally from Osaka, Japan, Fujita married the late Taiwanese musician Deng Chang-guo 50 years ago and has lived in Taiwan. Thus she is also known as Anna Teng.

A longtime promoter of music education and Chopin, Fujita began organizing the Taipei International Chopin Piano Competition in 1986, cultivating music talents from Taiwan. The twelve performances in the 2010 Festival represented more than 200 works from Chopin live; a third of them made its debut in Taiwan, marking an unprecedented record.

Xin Yi-yun is known for his research and preaching on Sinology. Chien Mu, one of the greatest historians and philosophers in 20th-century China was Xin’s teacher. Xin gave lectures on Chinese philosophy, Chinese history of aesthetics, and readings of Chinese classics in Taipei National University of the Arts, as well as in community colleges, where he inspired numerous participants from the public, besides those from school.

After retiring from TNUA in 2008, 67-year-old Xin still maintains an active life. He hosted a radio show on the Analects of Confucius or Lunyu for a Hsinchu broadcaster, and published audio books based on the show.