To commemorate the annual Ching Ming Festival , or "Tomb-Sweeping Festival," yesterday, President Chen Shui-bian (
During his weekly televised talk A-bian Portrait, Chen yesterday talked about the meaning of the traditional Ching Ming Festival, -- a national holiday during which families sweep their ancestors' tombs -- saying that investing in improving the education system is the best policy during periods of economic recession.
"It was very wise for our forefathers to designate the day preceding the Tomb-Sweeping Festival as Children's Day because we can first think about our responsibility toward the younger generation and then teach them to express gratitude to our ancestors," Chen said.
The president recalled the experiences of his family during the Ching Ming Festival. As the head of state, Chen said that now he realized the importance of devising a good system within which children could be educated.
"Owing to their experiences with both war and poverty, the generation before us worked hard to bring stability and to give us adequate clothing and food," Chen said. "Now, what can we give to the next generation?"
"The only thing that we can help instill in them is the lifelong ability to learn," the president said. "Therefore, we must develop an excellent learning environment as well as provide high-quality learning materials."
Noting that we live in a globalized era and are suffering from an economic recession, Chen said that the appropriate investment for parents would be to spend money on their children's education, instead of simply saving their earnings in private bank accounts.
"Not only the government, but also every family should allocate resources to help the next generation advance their learning skills," Chen said, "This is a promise that we must make as we commemorate our ancestors."
Meanwhile, KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) also returned to his hometown in southern Taiwan's Tainan County to say prayers and sweep his ancestral tomb.
Accompanied by many relatives and by KMT Secretary-General Lin Feng-Cheng (
Many of the townspeople expressed their support and their hope that Lien would win next year's presidential election.
Lien, who was nominated the KMT's presidential candidate last month, told the media that his family immigrated to Taiwan in the 17th century and all his ancestors had shown loyalty to the country.
"There has been no experience of surrendering in my family's history," Lien said, adding that his ancestors had once joined the military to fight foreign aggression near the end of the Ming and Ching dynasties.
Lien's remark was made in direct response to Chen's comments last week, during which Chen described Lien's campaign promise about visiting China once he wins the presidential election as a "voyage of surrender."
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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