Amid tears and laughter, hundreds of people from different nations gathered yesterday in downtown Taipei for a celebration memorial, remembering the lives of the five Taiwan-based young victims of last month's Bali bombings.
"Over the past month, I've been grief-stricken. I can't understand why a young, energetic and promising young life was snuffed out in the blink of an eye," said Theresa Chu of the death of her 24-year-old co-worker Eve Kuo (
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
"She was able to remember each guest's name, what sort of beer they like and even what sort of weird temperament they have," recalled a weeping Chu of her co-worker at Saints and Sinners, a bar in downtown Taipei.
Chu, dressed in black, found her grief echoed in the silent sobs of Kuo's parents sitting in one corner of the room, located in the Gloria Prince Hotel in downtown Taipei.
Greg Assink, a South African member of the Taipei International Rugby Club (TIRC), said the memories of his girlfriend have kept flooding back to him since Kuo died in the blast.
Michelle Tsai (蔡怡), co-worker of South African bomb victim Craig Harty at the LADDER Digital Education Corp, said her office is no longer the same without the presence of Harty, a man "with a big smile."
"`How empty the bus stop was without Craig there helping me pass the time,'" read Tsai from a small card written by another staff member at the company.
Max Murphy, captain of the TIRC, which lost four members in the bomb blast, said the team was no longer the same after the atrocity.
Calling the club "a home away from home," Murphy said the club would grow and gain strength despite the tragic loss of his four teammates.
Murphy made his point by recalling an anecdote about a message delivered by John Hardman, father of lost teammate James Hardman, when they said good-bye in Bali.
"He raised one finger, pointed to us and said, `Live it, guys. Live it,'" Murphy said, adding that his teammates are determined to make the most of their lives in memory of their friend.
The family of Daniel Braden, a 28-year-old Briton who also died in the attack, has set up a trust fund called "Encompass" aimed at offering "non-sectarian, non-denominational education" to young people, initially in Indonesia.
Those interested in contributing to the trust fund can E-mail info@encompass.com for further information.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching