The Tourism Bureau yesterday said it had sent its regards to a Taiwanese tour guide who was slapped by Chinese tourists after their flight was canceled.
Flights between Kinmen and Taiwan were unable to cope with the number of tourists flying to Taiwanese mainland after heavy fog earlier this week caused airlines to divert and cancel most flights.
Tempers flared among some Chinese tourists after they were informed that they would not be able to catch a flight or book a hotel for days, forcing them to sleep under military blankets in the airport.
A group of Chinese tourists were caught on television slapping a female Taiwanese tour guide on Thursday after she informed the tourists that their flight had been canceled.
Bureau officials said they had sent their regards to the tour guide, adding that it had also reported the names of the Chinese tourists involved in the incident to China’s Cross-Strait Tourism Association and asked the association to demand that the tourists not slap people again.
In related news, three military cargo planes that were mobilized to fly hundreds of stranded Taiwanese vacationers from Kinmen County have arrived back on the Taiwanese mainland.
The Ministry of Defense-operated C-130s returned after picking up more than 400 tourists, although news reports yesterday said hundreds of vacationers were still unable to catch a flight out.
Kinmen airport officials said that each of the three C-130s made two round trips taking an average of 70 passengers on each flight from Kinmen to Taiwan. Four of the flights were made to Taipei and a further two to Taichung.
According to information from Kinmen’s airport, flights have been operating normally since yesterday morning after parts of the heavy fog lifted. Airlines have also promised extra flights during the next few days to ensure that the last of the stranded passengers makes it home safely.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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