The third Shida Business Area beauty contest was held on Saturday, with Yan Chia-yun (鄢嘉妘) — a five-year-old kindergarten student — winning third place.
Yan, who secured the position with 31,498 votes, often helps her mother, Yan Yu-jung (鄢郁蓉), by working at the family store after she returns home from school.
“I let her take part in the contest for fun. Our customers often say she is the most beautiful person in the store,” Yan’s mother said.
The Shida Business Area is bisected in half by Heping E Road. Most customers in the southern section, where most stores are located, are residents and students, while the northern section caters to a greater variety of customers, including tourists and office workers.
After the polls closed yesterday, Wang Wen-shan (王文珊) was declared the winner with 42,025 votes, followed by Huang Ching-ting (黃靖廷) with 41,804. Wang, nicknamed “sweet 33,” will be spokesperson for the Shida Business Area in the coming year.
To celebrate Wang’s victory, the store where she works is now offering a 10 percent discount on all items until the end of the month.
However, not everybody saw the presence of a five-year-old in the contest as cute.
“The innocence of young children should remain [unsullied],” said Richard Chia-Tung Lee (李家同), a lecturer at National Tsing Hua University.
Writer and Internet celebrity, Lucifer Chu (朱學恆) also voiced concern: “Elections for election’s sake can confuse the public,” he said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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