Striving to serve the local Taiwanese community and preserve the traditional culture of Taiwan, the Yokohama Overseas Chinese School asked visiting Lien Fang Yu (連方瑀), the wife of APEC envoy and former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) for help with the school’s development.
Arriving to a warm welcome as students of the school performed the traditional lion dance and waved the Republic of China flag, Lien Fang visited the Yokohama Overseas Chinese School — founded by Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) in 1897 — as part of her visit to Yokohama’s Chinatown.
Lien Fang arrived in Yokohama on Thursday, accompanying her husband, who is to take part today and tomorrow in APEC summit meetings on behalf of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
After the welcome ceremony, Lien Fang was briefed about the school by school president Shih Huei-chen (施惠珍), before she visited a fourth-grade classroom.
It was during the briefing that the school president told Lien Fang that the school was in constant financial hardship and asked her to deliver a message to the government in Taipei that the school needs more help.
“We’re always having financial difficulties,” Academic Affairs Office director Yang -Ching-huei (楊靜蕙), told the Taipei Times.
“Although we do receive some funds from the Overseas -Compatriots Commission, we depend mostly on tuition fees as a source of income,” she said. “Since our main goal is to serve the Taiwanese community here, we’re charging far less than most other Japanese schools.”
She said the Yokohama Overseas Chinese School charges ￥22,000 (US$268) per student per month at elementary and junior high school levels, and ￥25,000 per student per month at the high school level, while other private schools in Japan charge about ￥50,000 per student per month on average.
“Other than regular expenses, the buildings on campus need some serious renovation work. As you can see, these buildings are very old,” Yang said.
Yang is a retired teacher from Taiwan, who has devoted her time to serving overseas communities since her retirement, which led her to teach in Thailand before moving to Japan.
Although there are also Japanese students and ethnic Chinese students from other countries, 71 percent of the students are either from Taiwan or children of local Taiwanese families, which is the result of the schooling staying “focused,” said Chiang Pin-huei (江品輝), a teacher at the school who moved from Taiwan to Japan about a year ago.
Chiang said that since about half of the teachers are Japanese, both Japanese and Mandarin are used as the instructional languages of the school.
Another teacher at the school, Chang Ma-yun (張瑪雲), said that because of the lack of funds, teachers get paid very little and have to take on more than one person’s work.
“You asked which subject I teach, well, I teach everything because we don’t have enough money to hire more teachers,” Chang said.
The first of 10 new high-capacity trains purchased from South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem arrived at the Port of Taipei yesterday to meet the demands of an expanding metro network, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. The train completed a three-day, 1,200km voyage from the Port of Masan in South Korea, the company said. Costing NT$590 million (US$18.79 million) each, the new six-carriage trains feature a redesigned interior based on "human-centric" transportation concepts, TRTC said. The design utilizes continuous longitudinal seating to widen the aisles and optimize passenger flow, while also upgrading passenger information displays and driving control systems for a more comfortable
Taiwan's first indigenous defense submarine, the SS-711 Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), departed for its 13th sea trial at 7am today, marking its seventh submerged test, with delivery to the navy scheduled for July. The outing also marked its first sea deployment since President William Lai (賴清德) boarded the submarine for an inspection on March 19, drawing a crowd of military enthusiasts who gathered to show support. The submarine this morning departed port accompanied by CSBC Corp’s Endeavor Manta (奮進魔鬼魚號) uncrewed surface vessel and a navy M109 assault boat. Amid public interest in key milestones such as torpedo-launching operations and overnight submerged trials,
Quarantine awareness posters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport have gone viral for their use of wordplay. Issued by the airport branch of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency, the posters feature sniffer dogs making a range of facial expressions, paired with advisory messages built around homophones. “We update the messages for holidays and campaign needs, periodically refreshing materials to attract people’s attention,” quarantine officials said. “The aim is to use the dogs’ appeal to draw focus to quarantine regulations.” A Japanese traveler visiting Taiwan has posted a photo on X of a poster showing a quarantine dog with a
Taiwan’s coffee community has launched a “one-person-one-e-mail” campaign, calling for people to send a protest-e-mail to the World Coffee Championships (WCC) urging it to redesignate Taiwanese competitors as from “Taiwan,” rather than “Chinese Taipei.” The call followed sudden action last week after the WCC changed all references to Taiwanese competitors from “Taiwan” to “Chinese Taipei,” including recent World Latte Art champion Bala (林紹興), who won the World Latte Art Championship in San Diego earlier this month. When Bala received the trophy, he was referred to as representing Taiwan, as well as in the announcement on the WCC’s Web site, until it
RSS