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Taiwan Quick Take

■ Education
College turning off TV
Miaoli Community College is sponsoring a "No TV Week" from Monday to Friday next week. The campaign is aimed at helping people to reconsider their family values, to get out of their homes and exercise, and to think over the question of what kind of media they need. "Although television has brought a new civilization to human beings, it has somehow restricted our lives within this little box," said college president Chiang Ming-hsiu (江明修). Chiang said the "No TV Week" will hopefully help people "break through the restriction of television." Everyone was encouraged to take part in this event in order to discover the meaning of life in this chaotic society, he said. More information can be accessed on the school's Web site on the Internet at www.mlcu.mlc.edu.tw.

■ Crime
Man caught with heroin
A Taipei resident attempting to smuggle more than 500g of heroin into the country from China in his shoes was arrested at CKS International Airport on Thursday night, coast guard officials said yesterday. The 32-year-old man, surnamed Huang, packed the heroin into eight plastic sacks and hid them in the soles of his shoes. Coast guard officers in Kaohsiung said they were tipped off early last month that a drug-trafficking ring was planning to smuggle heroin from China by air or by fishing boat. Huang, who has been brought to Kaohsiung for questioning, said he purchased the heroin in Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province, for his personal consumption. The police found that Huang, who has a criminal record that includes theft and drug-trafficking convictions, has traveled to Guangdong many times in the past several years.

■ Politics
Tsai to chat with `slanderer'
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Spokesman Alex Tsai (蔡正元) said yesterday he has not yet decided whether to accept an interview request from TV host Clara Chou (周玉蔻), after his party on Thursday filed a slander suit against Chou for injuring the party's reputation and image. The KMT sued Chou over remarks in a recent TV show in which she said the party, in a bid to mobilize large crowd to attend its March 27 demonstration, had paid individuals NT$3,000 each for participating in the event. Chou said on Thursday that she was not intimidated by the KMT's suit against her. Stating that her remarks concerning the demonstration were backed by sound evidence, Chou added that she would not rule out the possibility of herself filing a slander suit against the KMT.

■ Cooking
Taiwanese named best chef
A delegation of five chefs from Taiwan excelled in a Chinese cooking contest held in Singapore yesterday, with one member winning the "best chef" award among contestants from various Asian countries. The contest was part of the Food and Hotel Asia 2004 exhibition in Singapore and was the first time that a Chinese cooking contest had been included in the expo. To demonstrate the special flavors of Chinese food and promote exchanges of food culture, some of the best chefs in Asia were invited to participate. Seven delegations from Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan sent teams to compete in the contest, in which each contestant had to prepare eight dishes of banquet food for 10 people in three hours. A 130-member delegation organized by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council also exhibited a variety of Taiwanese food and drink at the four-day exhibition, which drew more than 10,000 buyers from around the world.

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