Taipei, Feb. 2 (CNA) Lanterns and light installations have popped up around Taiwan ahead of the upcoming Lantern Festival, which falls on Feb. 5 this year.
AQUATIC LIFE
<strong>Rare shark caught in Taitung</strong>
A rare bluntnose sixgill shark, a species believed to have been on Earth since before the dinosaurs, was caught by Taitung County fishers on Sunday. The shark is a rare sight as it generally lives at a depth of 200m to 1,000m below sea level, said Wu Jui-hsien (吳瑞賢), a research assistant at the East Coast Marine Biology Center, a unit of the Fisheries Research Institute. Although most modern shark species evolved to have five gills, the bluntnose shark still has six, just as their ancient ancestors had, Wu said. The 420kg fish was caught
Tainan’s Lee Yi-nan (李一男) on Friday kept a centuries-old family tradition alive by drawing the special “iron quench water” from an ancient well at noon on Friday. The day was Taiwan’s traditional Fifth Month Festival Day (五月節) on the lunar calendar.
Proprietor of the Chuan Li Blacksmith Shop (泉利打鐵鋪), Lee headed to his neighbor’s ancient well, which reportedly has a 200-year history dating to the Ming Dynasty, and is the only remaining “octagon well” in Tainan’s Yanshui District (鹽水), with eight-sided brickwork lining its inner wall.
Lee, 81, is a fifth-generation master blacksmith who has passed the family tradition to his son,