As if people in Taiwan didn't have enough to worry about, what with daily doses of bitter political intrigue and a hostile authoritarian power on their doorstep, a new problem was exposed yesterday: their license plates have turned against them.
Although many motorists in Taiwan go to great lengths to personalize their license plates by choosing lucky numbers, if they are not familiar with English, they can't avoid the bad luck of having inauspicious alphabetic combinations, such as "ASS," "DIE" or "DOA."
License plates in Taiwan are made up of two alphabetic letters and four digits for cars, while license plates on scooters have three letters and three digits.
PHOTO: CNA
Drivers and motorists tend to avoid combinations ending in the unlucky number four (si, 四), which sounds similar to "death" (si, 死) in Mandarin, and prefer lucky number combinations using eight (ba, 八), which rhymes with wealth (fa, 發).
However, an independent Taipei City councilor yesterday took the city's Department of Transportation to task for failing to address an equally weighty issue: unseemly combinations of alphabetic characters on many license plates.
"The meanings of some English letters on these license plates are insulting, ill-omened or funny. Drivers are making an ass of themselves by driving cars with such license plates," independent Taipei City Councilor Tim Chang (
During his speech, Chang asked officials from the department to hold mock license plates he had prepared. Officials stood in front of the news cameras holding license plates reading "ASS," "BS," "BUM," "BRA" and "PIG."
"Do you know what `BS' means in English?" Chang asked department Deputy Commissioner Lin Li-yu (林麗玉), who had chosen to hold one of the cards.
"It's an abbreviation for `bullshit,'" Chang told her.
According to Chang, there are more than 500 Taipei motorists who have the inauspicious alphabetic letters "DOA" (dead on arrival) on their license plates, while at least 50 motorists are riding around with license plates inscribed with "DIE."
He urged the department to either allow motorists to change their license plates, or to sift out combinations that would have unpleasant or strange meanings in advance.
Department Commissioner Jason Lin (林志盈) said drivers or motorists could change their license plates, which cost NT$1,250 for a random selection of another set of alphabetic letters and digits. Personalizing license plates would cost at least NT$3,000.
"We suggest that the central government screen the alphabetic letters in advance. But it's up to the government to decide, since it is responsible for manufacturing and distributing the plates," he said.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS