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With digital devices commanding our attention these days, how many of us still read books? The habit of reading starts young, and a financial holdings company has dedicated itself to the cause for 20 years. Employees volunteer to read with kids in new libraries built by the company’s charity foundation. Let’s take a look at some of the results in our special report.

At the presidential inauguration in 2016, the choir of Pingtung County Timur Elementary School stole the show by layering Traditional Paiwan tunes with the national anthem in counterpoint.

The home of these voices is Timur, also known as Sandimen Township, 360km from the capital. The local, 120-year-old Timur Elementary School is the first primary school bearing the Traditional Place name. The majority of students are Paiwan, followed by Rukai.

- What is your school called?
- Timur Elementary School
- What does “Timur” mean?
- Timur is a school.
- I don’t know.

Tjanubak, Kao Chih-cheng
Principal, Timur Elementary School
Timur Elementary School was formerly known as Sandi Elementary School. Timur is the name of this community. The name was changed because we Indigenous Peoples name our living spaces as a connection to collective memory and lifetime memory.

This is Djemuljat, a sacred ritual of Maljeveq, also known as the Five-Year Festival. Clan representatives gather around in a circle, each holding a 10m-long bamboo pole to try to stab vine balls tossed into the air by the priest. Every ball represents a different blessing. The ritual is used to introduce levers to kids in science class.

Where is the fulcrum in Djemuljat? The shoulders. He’s holding a bamboo pole at least 10m long. That makes the spirit ball the resistance.

Instead of conventional textbooks compiled by the Han people, Timur Elementary School uses the country’s first Paiwan-centric class materials. For example, the traditional slate house illustrates thermal conductivity of different materials, while ceramic beads and silver buttons on traditional clothing are featured in math.

Lai Wei-en
Timur Elementary School
Paiwan culture informs texts for various subjects, including Mandarin, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. This not only helps kids acquire knowledge in these subjects, but also makes them understand that there’s academic know-how in our elders’ wisdom and heritage.

Chen Hsin-yu
Timur Elementary School
We’re less than ten minutes away from the plains, so most of the kids’ parents are quite comfortable financially and have good jobs, compared with other more remote villages. Parents here are also quite supportive of getting their kids to read.

On this bookish campus, today, every member has come out to welcome guests from afar, to inaugurate a new library.

- Can you tell me what your favorite thing is here?
- This is my favorite.
- This thing on the ceiling is our glass beads.
- Is the new library very different from the old one?
- Very different.
In the old library, the whole space at the back is shelves. There are shelves here, and there at the back, and also there.

Even though many kids here love reading, the old library wasn’t particularly attractive to young kids with its basic interior.

Chen Hsin-yu
Timur Elementary School
Our former library had a more somber color scheme. It’s reflective of the colors of the Paiwan and Rukai peoples, mainly browns, blacks and other deeper shades. I find that the yellow goes really well with muted colors. It feels really bright and attractive to kids. The space is also well-designed, with various reading corners. There’s a seating area, reading steps and other different reading spaces.

The new library was funded by a domestic financial holdings company. A percentage of credit card payment goes to the company’s charity and volunteer foundation, which is then used for improving the infrastructure of underserved schools. From 2007 to April, 2026, as many as 200 public schools have benefitted from this initiative.

Joseph N. C. Huang
Company volunteer foundation CEO
We hope that the Gold Seed initiative will plant a seed for the love of reading in the hearts of every school kid, and that the seed will slowly grow into a tall tree. We hope that they’ll develop a conviction to become
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