อาวีญง (Avignon) ปราการแห่งฝันแดนใต้เมืองน้ำหอม
Location ทางตอนใต้ของประเทศฝรั่งเศส
Currency ยูโร (EUR)
Language ภาษาฝรั่งเศส
Weather อุณหภูมิเฉลี่ยในช่วงฤดูร้อน 16-31°C ในฤดูหนาว 2-10°C
About the city
เมืองที่ตั้งอยู่ทางฝั่งซ้ายของแม่น้ำโรน์ (Rhône ) แห่งนี้ได้รับการขนานนามว่า “เมืองแห่งโป๊ป” (City of Popes) เนื่องจากเคยเป็นที่พำนักของพระสันตปาปาหลายพระองค์ในช่วง ปีค.ศ. 1309 - 1423 และยังเป็นหนึ่งในไม่กี่เมืองของฝรั่งเศสที่ยังคงรักษาตัวป้อมปราการเมืองเก่าเอาไว้ได้อย่างสมบูรณ์ และด้วยสถานที่ตั้ง ทำให้เป็นหนึ่งในเมืองป้อมปราการที่สวยงามที่สุดที่หนึ่งในโลก ตัวเมืองที่เต็มไปด้วยชีวิตชีวาด้วยร้านรวง สวนสาธารณะ และย่านกลางเมืองที่แสนคึกคัก ทำให้ใครๆที่ได้มาเยือนเมืองนี้ต่างตกหลุมรักในความสดใสของที่นี่อย่างช่วยไม่ได้
Place
สิ่งก่อสร้างที่สร้างชื่อให้เมืองมากที่สุดก็คือสะพานแซ็งต์เบเนเซ (Pont Saint Benezet) ที่สร้างขึ้นตั้งแต่สมัยยุคกลาง มียาวถึงประมาณ 900 เมตร แต่ด้วยอุทกภัยที่เกิดขึ้นบ่อยครั้งที่จึงทำให้สะพานถูกทำลายไปหลายต่อหลายครั้ง โดยเมื่อปี ค.ศ. 1669 ถึงกับเกือบพังทลายไปทั้งหมด จนเหลือเสาเพียง 4 ต้น จาก 22 ต้นเช่นในปัจจุบัน ใกล้กับตัวสะพานจะเป็นทางเดินไปสู่พระราชวังพระสันตปาปาแห่งเอวีญง (Palais des papes d'Avignon) ที่โอ่โถงสง่างาม เคยเป็นที่พำนักของพระสันตะปาปา ในช่วง ค.ศ. 1309 - 1423 ปัจจุบันใช้เป็นที่เก็บเอกสารสำคัญของประเทศ และที่จัดประชุมสัมมนา รวมถึงเปิดให้นักท่องเที่ยวเข้าเยี่ยมชมได้ ถัดไปไม่ไกลนัก ตามตรอกซอกซอยเล็กๆ จะมีศิลปินนำภาพวาดมาตั้งขาย และร้านค้าเล็กๆ รวมถึงร้านกาแฟน่ารักๆหลายร้านเปิดให้บริการไปจนถึงบริเวณลานกลางเมือง
Activities
แค่เดินเล่นรอบๆเมืองเพื่อดื่มด่ำบรรยากาศให้เต็มที่ก็กินเวลาไม่น้อยกว่าครึ่งวันแล้ว เพราะไม่ว่าจะมุมไหนก็สวยงามและน่ารักไปเสียหมด แต่หากต้องการจะชมสะพานจากมุมสูง ให้เดินขึ้นไปที่สวนสาธารณะที่อยู่ใกล้กับพระราชวังพระสันตะปาปา จะเห็นทิวทัศน์ที่สวยงามและสงบเงียบ มีนักท่องเที่ยวหลายๆคนนำเอาปิ่นโตแบบง่ายๆไปนั่งรับประทาน พร้อมกับชมวิวจากจุดที่สูงที่สุดของเมืองแกล้มกันไป บริเวณใกล้กันนั้นยังมีไร่องุ่นเล็กๆให้ไปเยี่ยมชมอีกด้วย
Best view
เดินข้ามสะพานสาธารณะที่พาดผ่านแม่น้ำโรน์ไปอีกฝั่งหนึ่ง จะเป็นจุดที่สามารถมองเห็นพระราชวังพระสันตะปาปาและสะพานแซงต์เบเนเซได้อย่างชัดเจน ในเวลาพลบค่ำเมื่อทั้งเมืองเปิดไฟสว่างไสว ภาพของตัวเมืองทั้งเมืองจะสะท้อนลงมาที่ผืนน้ำ สวยงามและน่าตื่นตาตื่นใจที่สุด
Tips
การเดินทางจากไทยไปอาวีญง มีสายการบิน Air France บินไปต่อเครื่องที่ปารีส ก่อนที่จะลงที่มาร์แซย์ จากนั้นต่อรถไฟมาที่อาวีญง ใช้เวลาเพียง 20 นาที
การเตรียมตัว ในเมืองค่อนข้างลมแรง เพราะเป็นเป็นพื้นที่เปิดโล่งริมแม่น้ำ ควรเตรียมอุปกรณ์กันลมไปให้พร้อม แม้จะไปในช่วงที่อากาศไม่หนาวนักก็ตาม
การเดินทางท่องเที่ยวในตัวเมือง สามารถเดินเท้าสำรวจได้ทั้งเมือง แต่ถ้าจะข้ามฝั่งแม่น้ำแต่ไม่อยากเดิน ให้นั่งรถบัสจากบริเวณหน้าที่ทำการไปรษณีย์ประจำเมือง ใช้เวลาประมาณ 5 – 10 นาที
มุมน่ารัก อีกฟากฝั่งของแม่น้ำนอกจากวิวที่สวยงาม ยังมีพื้นที่คล้ายกับสวนสาธารณะขนาดย่อมๆ และมีเก้าอี้ให้นั่งทอดอารมณ์อยู่หลายแห่ง และไม่ต้องกลัวว่าจะเปลี่ยวหากอยู่จนถึงค่ำมืด เพราะมีไฟเปิดสว่างตลอดคืน และมีผู้คนนั่งอยู่จนค่อนข้างดึก
france currency 在 Mordeth13 Facebook 的最佳貼文
Jenna Cody :
Is Taiwan a real China?
No, and with the exception of a few intervening decades - here’s the part that’ll surprise you - it never has been.
This’ll blow your mind too: that it never has been doesn’t matter.
So let’s start with what doesn’t actually matter.
Until the 1600s, Taiwan was indigenous. Indigenous Taiwanese are not Chinese, they’re Austronesian. Then it was a Dutch colony (note: I do not say “it was Dutch”, I say it was a Dutch colony). Then it was taken over by Ming loyalists at the end of the Ming dynasty (the Ming loyalists were breakaways, not a part of the new Qing court. Any overlap in Ming rule and Ming loyalist conquest of Taiwan was so brief as to be inconsequential).
Only then, in the late 1600s, was it taken over by the Chinese (Qing). But here’s the thing, it was more like a colony of the Qing, treated as - to use Emma Teng’s wording in Taiwan’s Imagined Geography - a barrier or barricade keeping the ‘real’ Qing China safe. In fact, the Qing didn’t even want Taiwan at first, the emperor called it “a ball of mud beyond the pale of civilization”. Prior to that, and to a great extent at that time, there was no concept on the part of China that Taiwan was Chinese, even though Chinese immigrants began moving to Taiwan under Dutch colonial rule (mostly encouraged by the Dutch, to work as laborers). When the Spanish landed in the north of Taiwan, it was the Dutch, not the Chinese, who kicked them out.
Under Qing colonial rule - and yes, I am choosing my words carefully - China only controlled the Western half of Taiwan. They didn’t even have maps for the eastern half. That’s how uninterested in it they were. I can’t say that the Qing controlled “Taiwan”, they only had power over part of it.
Note that the Qing were Manchu, which at the time of their conquest had not been a part of China: China itself essentially became a Manchu imperial holding, and Taiwan did as well, once they were convinced it was not a “ball of mud” but actually worth taking. Taiwan was not treated the same way as the rest of “Qing China”, and was not administered as a province until (I believe) 1887. So that’s around 200 years of Taiwan being a colony of the Qing.
What happened in the late 19th century to change China’s mind? Japan. A Japanese ship was shipwrecked in eastern Taiwan in the 1870s, and the crew was killed by hostile indigenous people in what is known as the Mudan Incident. A Japanese emissary mission went to China to inquire about what could be done, only to be told that China had no control there and if they went to eastern Taiwan, they did so at their own peril. China had not intended to imply that Taiwan wasn’t theirs, but they did. Japan - and other foreign powers, as France also attempted an invasion - were showing an interest in Taiwan, so China decided to cement its claim, started mapping the entire island, and made it a province.
So, I suppose for a decade or so Taiwan was a part of China. A China that no longer exists.
It remained a province until 1895, when it was ceded to Japan after the (first) Sino-Japanese War. Before that could happen, Taiwan declared itself a Republic, although it was essentially a Qing puppet state (though the history here is interesting - correspondence at the time indicates that the leaders of this ‘Republic of Taiwan’ considered themselves Chinese, and the tiger flag hints at this as well. However, the constitution was a very republican document, not something you’d expect to see in Qing-era China.) That lasted for less than a year, when the Japanese took it by force.
This is important for two reasons - the first is that some interpretations of IR theory state that when a colonial holding is released, it should revert to the state it was in before it was taken as a colony. In this case, that would actually be The Republic of Taiwan, not Qing-era China. Secondly, it puts to rest all notions that there was no Taiwan autonomy movement prior to 1947.
In any case, it would be impossible to revert to its previous state, as the government that controlled it - the Qing empire - no longer exists. The current government of China - the PRC - has never controlled it.
After the Japanese colonial era, there is a whole web of treaties and agreements that do not satisfactorily settle the status of Taiwan. None of them actually do so - those which explicitly state that Taiwan is to be given to the Republic of China (such as the Cairo declaration) are non-binding. Those that are binding do not settle the status of Taiwan (neither the treaty of San Francisco nor the Treaty of Taipei definitively say that Taiwan is a part of China, or even which China it is - the Treaty of Taipei sets out what nationality the Taiwanese are to be considered, but that doesn’t determine territorial claims). Treaty-wise, the status of Taiwan is “undetermined”.
Under more modern interpretations, what a state needs to be a state is…lessee…a contiguous territory, a government, a military, a currency…maybe I’m forgetting something, but Taiwan has all of it. For all intents and purposes it is independent already.
In fact, in the time when all of these agreements were made, the Allied powers weren’t as sure as you might have learned about what to do with Taiwan. They weren’t a big fan of Chiang Kai-shek, didn’t want it to go Communist, and discussed an Allied trusteeship (which would have led to independence) or backing local autonomy movements (which did exist). That it became what it did - “the ROC” but not China - was an accident (as Hsiao-ting Lin lays out in Accidental State).
In fact, the KMT knew this, and at the time the foreign minister (George Yeh) stated something to the effect that they were aware they were ‘squatters’ in Taiwan.
Since then, it’s true that the ROC claims to be the rightful government of Taiwan, however, that hardly matters when considering the future of Taiwan simply because they have no choice. To divest themselves of all such claims (and, presumably, change their name) would be considered by the PRC to be a declaration of formal independence. So that they have not done so is not a sign that they wish to retain the claim, merely that they wish to avoid a war.
It’s also true that most Taiwanese are ethnically “Han” (alongside indigenous and Hakka, although Hakka are, according to many, technically Han…but I don’t think that’s relevant here). But biology is not destiny: what ethnicity someone is shouldn’t determine what government they must be ruled by.
Through all of this, the Taiwanese have evolved their own culture, identity and sense of history. They are diverse in a way unique to Taiwan, having been a part of Austronesian and later Hoklo trade routes through Southeast Asia for millenia. Now, one in five (I’ve heard one in four, actually) Taiwanese children has a foreign parent. The Taiwanese language (which is not Mandarin - that’s a KMT transplant language forced on Taiwanese) is gaining popularity as people discover their history. Visiting Taiwan and China, it is clear where the cultural differences are, not least in terms of civic engagement. This morning, a group of legislators were removed after a weekend-long pro-labor hunger strike in front of the presidential palace. They were not arrested and will not be. Right now, a group of pro-labor protesters is lying down on the tracks at Taipei Main Station to protest the new labor law amendments.
This would never be allowed in China, but Taiwanese take it as a fiercely-guarded basic right.
*
Now, as I said, none of this matters.
What matters is self-determination. If you believe in democracy, you believe that every state (and Taiwan does fit the definition of a state) that wants to be democratic - that already is democratic and wishes to remain that way - has the right to self-determination. In fact, every nation does. You cannot be pro-democracy and also believe that it is acceptable to deprive people of this right, especially if they already have it.
Taiwan is already a democracy. That means it has the right to determine its own future. Period.
Even under the ROC, Taiwan was not allowed to determine its future. The KMT just arrived from China and claimed it. The Taiwanese were never asked if they consented. What do we call it when a foreign government arrives in land they had not previously governed and declares itself the legitimate governing power of that land without the consent of the local people? We call that colonialism.
Under this definition, the ROC can also be said to be a colonial power in Taiwan. They forced Mandarin - previously not a language native to Taiwan - onto the people, taught Chinese history, geography and culture, and insisted that the Taiwanese learn they were Chinese - not Taiwanese (and certainly not Japanese). This was forced on them. It was not chosen. Some, for awhile, swallowed it. Many didn’t. The independence movement only grew, and truly blossomed after democratization - something the Taiwanese fought for and won, not something handed to them by the KMT.
So what matters is what the Taiwanese want, not what the ROC is forced to claim. I cannot stress this enough - if you do not believe Taiwan has the right to this, you do not believe in democracy.
And poll after poll shows it: Taiwanese identify more as Taiwanese than Chinese (those who identify as both primarily identify as Taiwanese, just as I identify as American and Armenian, but primarily as American. Armenian is merely my ethnicity). They overwhelmingly support not unifying with China. The vast majority who support the status quo support one that leads to eventual de jure independence, not unification. The status quo is not - and cannot be - an endgame (if only because China has declared so, but also because it is untenable). Less than 10% want unification. Only a small number (a very small minority) would countenance unification in the future…even if China were to democratize.
The issue isn’t the incompatibility of the systems - it’s that the Taiwanese fundamentally do not see themselves as Chinese.
A change in China’s system won’t change that. It’s not an ethnic nationalism - there is no ethnic argument for Taiwan (or any nation - didn’t we learn in the 20th century what ethnicity-based nation-building leads to? Nothing good). It’s not a jingoistic or xenophobic nationalism - Taiwanese know that to be dangerous. It’s a nationalism based on shared identity, culture, history and civics. The healthiest kind of nationalism there is. Taiwan exists because the Taiwanese identify with it. Period.
There are debates about how long the status quo should go on, and what we should risk to insist on formal recognition. However, the question of whether or not to be Taiwan, not China…
…well, that’s already settled.
The Taiwanese have spoken and they are not Chinese.
Whatever y’all think about that doesn’t matter. That’s what they want, and if you believe in self-determination you will respect it.
If you don’t, good luck with your authoritarian nonsense, but Taiwan wants nothing to do with it.
france currency 在 Lee Hsien Loong Facebook 的精選貼文
Was saddened to learn of the passing of former French President Giscard d'Estaing yesterday from complications due to COVID-19.
Mr Giscard d’Estaing, who was president of France from 1974 to 1981, played a huge role in the modernisation of French society and was a proponent of European integration – laying the groundwork for the euro single currency. MM Lee Kuan Yew was also his guest on several occasions when he visited France.
After retiring from politics, he served on France’s Constitutional Council. His literary accomplishments earned him a chair in the prestigious French Academy.
I met him once at a conference in Taipei, after he retired. I found him very knowledgeable about Chinese culture and history. He could even speak some Chinese!
France has lost a great statesman. My deepest condolences to his wife and his family during their time of grief. – LHL
(Photo courtesy of SPH)
france currency 在 Cashing in on local French currencies - YouTube 的推薦與評價
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