Professor Shih Thai-Tien is Emeritus Professor, the National Taiwan Normal University, and one of the most famous Chinese geomorphologists not only in Japan but also in the world. He was born in Taiwan in 1930, educated in the Japanese-style schools during the Second World War and graduated from the Department of Geography, Taiwan Normal College. Then he served as a lecturer at the Department of Geography, Nanyang University in Singapore.
He studied at the Department of Geography, Graduate School of Science, Tokyo University of Education (presently University of Tsukuba) as a graduate student from 1961 to 1964, and took the degree of Doctor of Science at Tokyo University of Education in 1970. His doctoral thesis was concerned with the active mud volcanoes in Taiwan. He has worked tirelessly to develop geomorphology in Taiwan, educating many geomorphologists at the Department of Geography, National Taiwan Normal University, and investigating all aspects of geomorphological subjects in Taiwan by himself and in cooperation with his students as well as many foreign geomorphologists including Japanese. Because of his experience above, he speaks Japanese and sings Japanese school-songs much better than common Japanese, and hence has a number of Japanese friends in the field of geomorphology in particular. Thus he became a member of the Japanese Geomorphological Union (JGU) in 1980.
He is well known, on the other hand, as a great calligrapher as well as a poet not only in Taiwan but also all over China. The JGU, therefore, asked him to write the title lettering of t (Chikei, Landform), which is the Japanese title of the Transactions of JGU. The JGU should be proud of this magnificent title lettering of the Transactions.
Another of his special contributions to the JGU is that he made every effort and exceptional leadership to hold the first international joint meeting of the JGU, that is, the Japan-Sino Geomorphological Conference held in Taiwan, 1996. The success of the conference is in his debt, and its success is the benchmark for the succeeding JGU- Asian Geomorphological Conferences.
In Professor Shih Thai-Tien we find a truly international geomorphologist and an individual worthy of the title Honorary Member of the JGU.
On May 14, 2005, the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the JGU, at Fukuoka.
Writer: Takasuke Suzuki
TJGU 26:355-356
2005年5月14日推戴
一般社団法人 日本地形学連合 