The Taiwanese overseas student who heckled Department of Health (DOH) Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) in Geneva on Tuesday said she went directly to Yeh because her previous requests to meet him had been turned down.
Rebutting allegations that she barged into a private party, Huang Hai-ning (黃海寧) told the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) that she and her friends learned at the last minute that Yeh was to appear at a five-star hotel for a banquet. They sat in the hotel coffee shop until representatives from other countries left before approaching Yeh, she said.
Huang, the daughter of former Democratic Progressive Party Taichung County concilor Huang Pin-huang (黃丙煌), said that while they were sitting at the coffee shop, the atmosphere was calm. At one point, the Honduran representative thought she was a DOH official, but she told him she was not and that she had come to see the Taiwanese representative. Hotel staff were also friendly to her and greeted her warmly, she said, adding that her group had no intention to embarrass Taiwanese officials.
PHOTO: CHANG JUI-CHEN, TAIPEI TIMES
After the banquet concluded, Huang went into the banquet hall and asked Yeh what title he was using at the World Health Assembly (WHA), Huang said. In the beginning, Yeh politely asked her which media she represented, she said. After Huang replied that she was an overseas student, Yeh turned away without answering her question, Huang said.
Saying that she did not expect Yeh would respond this way, Huang said she continued to ask Yeh to answer her question, but Yeh became angry and called her “shameful” and “not a Taiwanese because [Huang] does not speak the Taiwanese dialect [Hoklo, also known as Taiwanese].”
Huang said she thought Yeh was trying to change the topic and persisted in asking him to answer her question, adding that she repeated her question in both Taiwanese and Hakka to show him that she could speak both dialects. She said this further infuriated Yeh, who raised his voice but still refused to answer her question. She said the entire process was videotaped.
Huang said that Yeh should apologize for losing his temper abroad, calling her names and causing ethnic conflict. She said that as Taiwan’s representative, Yeh should have remained calm under all circumstances.
Huang called on the Taiwanese delegation to insist that Taiwan is not a province of China, and that Taiwan does not need to take orders from China. She said she hoped the Taiwanese delegation would be more aware of the nation’s sovereignty rights and stop belittling the country’s dignity. She said Taiwan’s participation at the WHA should be under the name “Taiwan.”
Also See: EDITORIAL: Sorry conduct at the WHA
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