Too much publicity appears to have convinced Chen Guangbiao (陳光標), a Chinese tycoon distributing hundreds of millions of NT dollars to poor people nationwide, to rein in his high-profile style.
The last straw apparently came yesterday, on day three of his weeklong “Thanksgiving” tour of Taiwan, when a young man kneeled in front of him while having lunch, asking him to donate one of his red envelopes containing at least NT$10,000 (US$345) in cash.
Chen refused; in an unexpected turn for a man that has already given three envelopes worth NT$70,000 to an elderly woman who waited outside his hotel and another NT$20,000 to a young man on the street with his niece on Thursday.
“He’s a strong young fellow. He should be creating business with an entrepreneurial spirit. I didn’t give [the red envelope] to him because it would have harmed him, not helped him,” Chen said.
Chen and his family arrived on Wednesday as part of a controversial donation tour in Taiwan, flanked by other Chinese industrialists. Chen said he was committed to making NT$500 million in donations, through personal meetings with recipients and other donations to charities and non-profit organizations. He is also reportedly in Taiwan to handle a business deal that he said would return 40 percent of its profits.
Chen and members of the entourage have maintained that they wish to keep the trip “low-profile,” despite making media appearances, photo-ops and granting interview requests at almost every stop of his itinerary yesterday.
A large button on each of their lapels read: “This is a low-profile trip.”
Chen said he wouldn’t be handing more money out on the street and that the remaining amount would instead be donated to a charitable organization.
His actions, markedly toned down since his arrival, when he reportedly insisted on meeting personally with all recipients, still drew heated -questions by -lawmakers across party lines, who called some of the behavior Chen encountered “shameful.”
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲), meanwhile, told a press conference that Chen, instead of showing the best in people, “appears to have brought out the worst.”
“I guess even in the richest of Middle Eastern countries, you will see the poor and the disadvantaged; it’s not that surprising,” Huang said. “Chen’s efforts, while laudable, should be better thought out.”
His itinerary yesterday included a visit to the tomb of late pop singer Teresa Teng (鄧麗君), where Chen shed tears.
DPP lawmakers have expressed concern that Chen may be violating the terms of his business visa when he reportedly skipped a business meeting yesterday.
Trip itineraries by Chinese visitors are tightly controlled, but Chen has insisted that the business deals will be completed.
Meanwhile, the New Taipei City (新北市) Government yesterday confirmed that a local donor gave NT$10 million to the city anonymously in the past few days.
“He was very low-key,” said Lee Li-chen (李麗圳), director of the city’s Department of Social Affairs. “He used cash and asked that the bank simply send it over.”
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS