A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker yesterday suggested designating an area around the National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei City as a "Chinatown" to assemble all the "Chinese people" who live in Taiwan.
DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-fang (
In saying the "Chinese people," Tsai was referring to all those who desire unification with China. He said the group had organized a series of actions which had caused serious social disturbances since the anti-president sit-in started in September.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Tsai said he came up with the idea because one of his supporters was terribly upset by the red-clad crowd ganging up against President Chen Shui-bian (
"I made the suggestion for the sake of social stability -- to gather all the Chinese people together to prevent them from running amok throughout the country," Tsai said.
"[The protests occurred] due to the lack of `Chinatowns' in Taiwan, a place that can channel the Chinese people's thinking and strength that might otherwise lead to social upheaval," he added.
Tsai said that since that there are Chinatowns everywhere in the world -- in the US, Japan, Australia, South Korea and Singapore, Taiwan also needs such an area.
"If we had a Chinatown, the kind of demonstrations we have witnessed could be confined within the area," Tsai said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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