Indonesian migrant workers enjoyed a day of karaoke at Da-an Forest Park yesterday.
The karaoke competition was the last in a series of cultural events hosted throughout the year by the Taipei City Government's Migrant Workers' Cultural Center, who commissioned the Rerum Novarum Center (RNC) to organize the activities.
"The events are held as a token of our appreciation for the contributions migrant workers make to Taiwanese society," RNC employee Lara Lin (林倩如) said. "[The events] are also intended to alleviate the workers' homesickness and allow Taipei residents to learn more about the cultures of our neighbors in Southeast Asia."
PHOTO: CNA
Sixty-one Indonesian men and women signed up for the singing contest and 10 finalists progressed to the second round, in which they competed for prizes such as heaters and electric stovetops.
Indonesian bands Jampez and Jakarta played popular Indonesian music at the event, helping to attract a crowd of hundreds of migrant workers, exchange students and Taiwanese.
"We host cultural events for migrant workers from Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia -- the countries where most of Taiwan's migrant workers come from -- in the months that they have major religious celebrations in their native countries," Lin said.
More than 10,000 Indonesians work in Taipei, making them the third-biggest foreign work force in the city, Lin said, adding that most of them work as caregivers.
Competition winner Yuni won a return ticket to Jakarta.
"Taiwan is a lovely place to work, especially because the people make me feel at home," 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:
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