The Ministry of Education (MOE) said yesterday it would retain its policy of teaching local students traditional Chinese characters after a parent complained that his child was assigned simplified characters for homework.
In a press release, the ministry’s Department of Elementary Education said that promoting traditional Chinese characters in school had always been — and remained — the ministry’s policy.
“Traditional Chinese characters are important cultural assets. Their significance as documented in historical documents is undeniable,” the department said.
“Traditional Chinese characters should be adopted at school, in textbooks and teaching assignments since promotion of the characters is a national policy,” the department said.
In a story yesterday, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) quoted a parent as saying that his second grade child could “get confused” by homework that required writing using simplified characters.
The story quoted the parent as saying that the child’s teacher at an elementary school in Taipei County’s Gongliao Township (貢寮) invited the Chinese parents of students in the class to teach a few sessions, after which the students were asked to learn to write in simplified form.
The parent questioned the need for second graders to learn simplified characters, saying that his child could not even write traditional characters well.
The story also quoted the teacher, surnamed Chang, as saying that the sessions were part of lessons to help students with foreign mothers learn their mothers’ culture.
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
Fast food chain McDonald's is to raise prices by up to NT$5 on some products at its restaurants across Taiwan, starting on Wednesday next week, the company announced today. The prices of all extra value meals and sharing boxes are to increase by NT$5, while breakfast combos and creamy corn soup would go up by NT$3, the company said in a statement. The price of the main items of those meals, if ordered individually, would remain the same. Meanwhile, the price of a medium-sized lemon iced tea and hot cappuccino would rise by NT$3, extra dipping sauces for chicken nuggets would go up
Yangmingshan National Park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) nature area has gone viral after a park livestream camera observed a couple in the throes of intimate congress, which was broadcast live on YouTube, drawing large late-night crowds and sparking a backlash over noise, bright lights and disruption to wildlife habitat. The area’s livestream footage appeared to show a couple engaging in sexual activity on a picnic table in the park on Friday last week, with the uncensored footage streamed publicly online. The footage quickly spread across social media, prompting a tide of visitors to travel to the site to “check in” and recreate the
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
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