Outgoing Taipei Deputy Mayors Pai Hsiou-hsiung (白秀雄) and Ou Chin-der (歐晉德) yesterday said goodbye to the city government colleagues they have worked with for more than five years. Both stressed that they will continue to serve Taipei despite leaving their posts.
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is going to formally announce the result of the city government reshuffle on Friday, but yesterday's weekly municipal meeting became a farewell for Ou and Pai.
"I was so lucky to be able to work in the city government," Ou said before about 20 bureau chiefs who clapped for him and Pai. "I learned so much from the municipal job that enabled me to approach the public more closely and widely ... Thanks so much for the support and tolerance of Mayor Ma, the city council and all of you," Ou said with tears in his eyes.
Ou, 60, was an engineer before Ma asked him to be one of his deputies when he was elected mayor in 1998.
Ou was dubbed a "rescue hero," since he often inspected disaster areas and visited victims on Ma's behalf. His most prominent job was commanding rescue operations at the Tunghsing Building, which collapsed in the 921 Earthquake, causing heavy casualties.
Ou will become president of the Taipei Smart Card Corp, which is in charge of the distribution of the MRT Easy Card.
Pai, 63, has served as a deputy mayor since 1994, when Huang Ta-chou (黃大洲) was mayor.
He continued to work for the city government when President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was mayor.
Pai will become president of the charity foundation TaipeiBank .
Yesterday, Pai hugged every bureau chief, thanking them for their help during the past nine years.
"I felt like taking a heavy load off my shoulder," Pai said, adding that he will take up a new job in the private sector after taking a rest.
Ma said that he was not sad about his two deputies leaving "because I know they are still members of the city government. I am sure that they will serve all the citizens in different positions."
Former city government spokes-man King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) and former director of the Bureau of Health Yeh Chin-chuan (葉金川) will replace Ou and Pai.
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:
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