Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng's (韓正) tour of Taipei yesterday took him to the MRT and local attractions to experience local culture, but it attracted complaints from some residents over tight security for Han and the Chinese delegation.
Accompanied by Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and top-level city officials, Han and the Shanghai delegation toured the National Palace Museum and visited the Beitou Incinerator to gain a deeper understanding of Taipei's efforts in garbage recycling.
The two mayors later took the MRT from Beitou Station to Jiantan Station to experience what Han called “mass culture” in Taipei, causing some chaos as officials, reporters and passengers crowded the stations and the trains.
Hau and the Taipei City Police Department had insisted there would be no extra police force or traffic controls arranged for Han and the delegation. However, a group of security guards followed Han all day yesterday, and traffic lights were timed along the way to clear the traffic for the two mayors' motorcades.
An MRT passenger surnamed Chiang (江) complained about being pushed by the crowd at Beitou Station, urging the city officials and Chinese delegation not to disturb residents with their visiting schedule.
“I am on my way to school, and it's really annoying that I have to wait and let those government officials get in the trains first,” she said.
Unbothered by the complaints, Han used the MRT EasyCard to enter and leave the stations, and lauded Taipei’s MRT system for its great management.
“I am impressed by the management of the Taipei MRT system, and Shanghai should learn from Taipei's experience,” he said.
Hau welcomed Han to visit Taipei again soon to experience more local culture, and formally invited him to attend the Taipei International Flora Expo in November.
Han accepted the invitation, but declined to confirm whether or not he will attend the event.
Han attended a luncheon hosted by Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kun (江丙坤) earlier yesterday, and met with former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) for dinner.
Han will visit Taichung and Taoyuan today and leave tomorrow.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater