This year, October 3 has a very special significance for the German Cultural Center Taipei, because the very next day will be the official opening of our new premises. Because of SARS, this opening had been delayed. If you haven't received an invitation yet, please regard this as an invitation. The event will begin at 6pm.
The official opening will celebrate innovations that have been undertaken since last year. First there is the new logo, which expresses our function more concisely than before. The new logo consists of the old Tang-Dynasty character "de" for "virtue" (and also Germany), in a globe with a bridge underneath. The second change is the new address, which was much more difficult to achieve. Since our old building was irreparable because of, among other things, the frequent earthquakes and was at risk of collapsing, it had to be closed and we had to find new premises under enormous time pressure. You are most welcome to visit our new center close to Kuting Station. The third and most demanding task was the design of our new Web site, whose soft launch took place during the first half of September. I would like to thank DaimlerChrysler Taiwan who generously supported this project, thus opening up new avenues of cooperation between business and culture.
Now the way is free again for our main tasks, which are language teaching, information service and cultural exchange between Germany and Taiwan. In September the major events included movies by Helma Sanders-Brahms at the "Women Make Waves" film festival, and presentations on "Bauhaus" and "Architecture and National Identity" as part of the European Forum by the German architect Ulf Meyer. For further information about our program and us, please visit our new Web site, www.dk-taipei.org.tw, where you will find more details about the events planned until the end of this year.
An outstanding one should be mentioned here: On December 6 we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the opening of the German Cultural Center in Taipei with the double opening of a documentation center and an exhibition of paintings by four painters from Kiel, northern Germany. At 40, we are the oldest European Cultural Institution in Taiwan, yet by no means old, as all the changes mentioned above that signal a fresh start clearly reveal. Another reason why this year and this German National Day are very special to us!
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