The National Youth Commission is sponsoring 38 tours around the country to open young people's eyes to Taiwan's culture, customs and natural beauty during the upcoming winter vacation.
The "Youth Travel in Taiwan " program, initiated by the commission in 2005, was designed to encourage local and overseas students to join in-depth tours that provide rare opportunities to gain a deeper perspective on the nation and its people, commission Chairwoman Cheng Li-chun (
38 TOURS
The 38 "Trekking Taiwan: Creative Tours" feature a wide variety of themes, including exploring Taiwan's art and history, observing how local people live, discovering Taiwan's ecosystem and learning about Taiwan's indigenous people.
Depending on the tour they choose, Cheng said, participants can travel around the island county of Penghu or cycle through the eastern county of Taitung; raft down whitewater rapids in Hualien County or get a close-up view of the lives of Aborigines by staying in their homes.
Participants can also learn about brick-making by descending into a tunnel kiln or experience the daily lives of farmers and fishermen.
DAY IN JAIL
Of all the theme tours, perhaps the most unusual was what the commission calls "a day in jail" in Chiayi.
Participants are handcuffed, chained and fed prison food in jail to "let them feel what it's like when a person loses their freedom," Cheng said.
Instead of traveling abroad for new learning experiences, students can learn about the colorful aspects of Taiwan's culture, customs and natural environment by enrolling in the program, which offers quality trips at the lowest possible prices, Cheng said.
Young men and women between the ages of 15 and 30 who are interested in the program can register on the commission's Web site at www.youthtravel.tw/youthtravel.
The commission will also be offering 10 free spots on the tours this winter to benefit 10 young people from low-income families or from outlying islands, Cheng said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by