Amid Taipei City councilors' opposition to setting up the city's -- and Taiwan's -- first official Hakka governmental organization, the fifth annual Taipei Hakka Festival is slated to kick off on Saturday at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.
Addressing reporters yesterday, director of the city's Bureau of Civil Affairs (民政局), Lin Cheng-hsiou (林正修), who is of Hakka descent, said it was important to preserve Hakka heritage.
"Hakka culture is like a deserted island gradually being submerged in the sea of other aggressive ethnic cultures. I'm afraid that if we don't save it now, it might be too late," he said. "There is an immediate need to set up the Hakka affairs commission, but we desperately need approval from the City Council."
The Taipei City Government approved a draft measure to establish a Hakka affairs commission on April 11 this year. The proposed commission was part of Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (
DPP City Councilor Yeh Hsin-yi (
"Hakka people are different from Aborigines because the Hakka are not a minority group," he said, adding that Taipei has about 400,000 Hakka, or about 15 percent of its population.
"Don't get me wrong. I'm not against Hakka culture. I just think that there's no need to create hostility among different ethnic groups," Yeh said. "We have a commission set up already for native Taiwanese. Now they want one more for the Hakka. What about other ethnic groups? When is it going to end if we set up different units for each of them?"
He said that a better idea might be to set up a subsidiary unit under a municipal agency such as the Bureau of Civil Affairs or the Bureau of Cultural Affairs.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique