Despite the central government's decision to make Tongyong Pinyin the official system for the Roman-ization of street signs, Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday remained firm in his stand that the Taipei City Government would continue using Hanyu Pinyin as its Romanization standard. \nOn Thursday, a consensus to use Tongyong Pinyin was reached between various ministries and local governments at a meeting held by the Ministry of Education, the ministry which had officially approved the system last month. \n"The consensus reached [by various government agencies on Thursday] to use Tongyong Pinyin does not have any bearing on us, so the Taipei City Government will keep on using Hanyu Pinyin," Ma yesterday told an audience at the opening ceremony of the Guo Yuan-yi Pastry Museum. \nUsing the name of the museum as an example, as well as that of the National Palace Museum and all museums around the world, "which all use Hanyu Pinyin," Ma reiterated that Hanyu Pinyin is the international trend for the Romanization of Mandarin Chinese. \nWu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), the Taipei City government's spokesman, told the Taipei Times yesterday that, "since a conclusion that was made during that meeting stated that it is not compulsory for all cities and counties to use Tongyong Pinyin, we [Taipei City] will keep using the Hanyu Pinyin System, which is more user-friendly to the vast number of expatriates in town." \nAs an alternative solution, Kang Tsung-hu (康宗虎), deputy director of the city's Bureau of Education, added that the city would also consider the possibility of using both Hanyu and Tongyong Pinyin for the city's place names and road signs. \nThursday's meeting was attended by representatives from various government agencies, such as the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and a number of local governments. Measures drafted during the meeting will be sent to the Cabinet for review. \nOne of these draft measures calls for authorities to instruct the National Central Library to develop a computerized Romanization system for the conversion of Chinese characters into Tongyong by the end of this year. \nThe Ministry of Foreign Affairs would also work to amend the relevant laws and to have people's passport names Romanized according to Tongyong Pinyin by next June at the earliest. \nThe Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Government Information Office would coordinate seminars for Taiwan's expatriates to familiarize them with the Tongyong Pinyin system. These two bodies will also promote the use of the system to firms so that the companies can use it on their products.
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
‘ORDINARY PEOPLE’: A man watching Taiwanese military drills said that there would be nothing anyone could do if the situation escalates in the Taiwan Strait Many people in Taiwan look upon China’s military exercises over the past week with calm resignation, doubting that war is imminent and if anything, feeling pride in their nation’s determination to defend itself. After a visit to Taiwan last week by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China has sent ships and aircraft across an unofficial buffer between Taiwan and China’s coast and missiles over Taipei and into waters surrounding the nation since Thursday last week. However, Rosa Chang, proudly watching her son take part in Taiwanese military exercises that included dozens of howitzers firing shells into the Taiwan Strait off
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical
RSS