Celebrating its 100th anniversary, Taipei Municipal First Girls' Senior High School yesterday held an array of gala activities and alumni from around the world returned to join the festivities.
The centennial celebrations attracted a large and diverse group of faculty and alumni, including nearly 100 women in their 80s from Japan.
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), one of the school's distinguished alumni, attended the centennial celebration and gave a congratulatory speech yesterday morning.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
"I remembered the good old days of commuting between Taipei and Taoyuan by train everyday to go to Taipei First Girls' Senior High School," said Lu, who attended the school in 1957.
"But I never expected to be the first alumnus to enter the Presidential Office," Lu said.
"I am willing to exchange the office of the vice president for the youth that you girls are enjoying now if I could turn back the clock," Lu said.
Lu also suggested that the students hold a referendum on whether to change the school's distinctive uniform of green shirts and black skirts.
"I think our students deserve more beautiful school uniforms," Lu said.
That suggestion, however, drew boos from some of the older alumni in the stadium.
"The green uniform was designed to help escape air raids when World War II broke out. The clothing belongs to the martial law era. I just feel that the students can't be relaxed wearing uniforms," Lu said afterwards, adding she did not mind boos because everyone has the right to express their opinion in a democratic society.
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Ma said seven women in his family, including his sisters and daughters, were graduated from the school.
"So I can be counted as an alumnus as well," he said.
Many alumni, young and old, donned their old uniforms to attend yesterday's celebration.
As part of the festivities, the school organized an impressive fashion show of the school's uniforms dating back to its founding in 1904 -- from kimono-style uniforms to sailor suits, black suits and today's green shirts.
From its founding when Taiwan was a Japanese colony to the present, Taipei First Girls' Senior High School has earned a reputation for educating numerous outstanding women.
"The centennial events also remind us that Taipei First Girls' Senior High School plays a leadership role in many fields and its influence is felt around the country, even the world," said 54-year old Yen Chia-chih (
Yen was one of the alumni who showed up in her old uniform. She returned to Taipei from her home in southern California, along with 13 friends who are also alumni.
"What I obtained from the school was lifelong friendships because we had the same exper-i-ences and interests," Yen said.
"The three-year education in Taipei First Girls' Senior High School was my ticket to the future. It was the best time of my life," she said.
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