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Chen to attend Tainan holiday banquet

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will attend a large-scale lunch banquet in Tainan on Jan 22, the first day of the Lunar New Year, local media reported yesterday.

The lunch party will be held by the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Tainan chapter. More than 1,500 guests will be invited, including Chen's relatives and friends, local business leaders, some officials from the Tainan chapter, as well as the president's vote captains.

The 150-table banquet will be held at the Nanyuan Ranch. According to ranch manager Chen Chen-hsien (陳振賢), local agricultural products from Tainan will be used for the meal.

According to Chen Chen-hsien, the cost for each table will be NT$5,000, making the total price of the banquet around NT$750,000.

The ranch manager said Chen Shui-bian threw a large New Year's party at the ranch two years ago. That banquet was held by the Tainan County Government and was paid for by the Presidential Office, so he speculated that this year's party would also be paid for by the Presidential Office again.

However, Tainan chapter officials later said that only 120 tables of guests will be invited and the chapter would be paying for the banquet -- not the Presidential Office.

Presidential Office Spokesman James Huang (黃志芳) said yesterday that Chen Shui-bian would attend the banquet as a guest.

"The New Year banquet is being arranged solely by the locals," Huang said yesterday, "so the Presidential Office will not pay."

Meanwhile, over 100 people have already lined up to get a New Year's red envelope from the president at his boyhood home in Kuantien township, Tainan County on New Year's day.

Many people believe that getting a red envelope from the president will bring them good luck and are willing to queue for days for the chance to get one.

In the past, such envelopes contained two NT$100 bills. Given the presidential election, however, the Presidential Office announced that this year's envelopes would just contain a NT$10 coin in order to avoid the any impression or allegation of vote-buying.

In other news, Chen attended the opening of the 2004 Taiwan Flower Expo in Changhua County's Hsichou township yesterday.

He said the expo marked a great achievement in the development of fine-quality agriculture.

Many central and local government officials, as well as members of the Taipei diplomatic corps, attended the ceremony.
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