To increase opportunities for person-to-person diplomacy and to open up the vision of the people of southern Taiwan on domestic and oversea stamp rarities, Chunghwa Post is sponsoring the Kaohsiung 2005 International Stamp Exhibition (Invitational) on October 7-11, 2005 at the Kaohsiung Business Exhibition Center. Seven hundred frames of exhibits from Japan, Korea and New Zealand, etc. will be invited to participate in the exhibition. With “Maritime Capital, International City” as an integral concept and “Healthy City, Energetic Harbor Municipality” and “Stamp collections to be passed on from generation to generation” as a connotation of the exhibition, Chunghwa Post invites Kaohsiung City Government as a joint sponsor. Building upon the spirit of the TAIPEI 2005 - 18th Asian International Stamp Exhibition held in Taipei, the Post is issuing a commemorative souvenir sheet on the opening day (October 7) of the exhibition to mark the occasion. The sheet will introduce the beauty of Taiwan from the perspective of cultural assets. The souvenir sheet consists of one NT$5 stamp and one NT$25 stamp. The design of the souvenir sheet follows:The souvenir sheet’s theme is museum collections in Taiwan, and it features two stamps: a Ming Dynasty painting Loyalty and Filial Piety (originally attributed to Cian Syuan of Song Dynasty) and a Cing Dynasty gilt ruyi scepter decorated with jewel inlays and emblems of the eight immortals. Loyalty and Filial Piety depicts outlines of sunflowers and daylilies filled with colors and with a background of oddly shaped lake rocks. Because they always lean toward the sun, sunflowers symbolize loyal subjects of the throne; daylilies represent devoted sons. The vignette of the other stamp is a gilt ruyi scepter, whose head and handle are inlaid with pieces of turquoise that form the emblems of the eight immortals. The upper half of the sheet shows the front of the National Palace Museum. Photographs of the Mao Gong Ding bronze ritual vessel from the Western Jhou Dynasty and a garlic head vase with depictions of dragons, flowers, and birds in polychrome enamels that dates from Wanli’s rule of the Ming Dynasty are placed asymmetrically on the bottom half of the sheet. These ancient treasures are surrounded by empty space crisscrossed only with regular grid lines, imparting a modern flavor.