Japanese Representative to Taiwan Tadashi Imai and two Japanese community leaders in Taiwan yesterday thanked Taiwanese for their encouragement and donations for the victims of a massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of the country one month ago.
Imai, Japanese Association in Taiwan chairman Koichiro Kusano and Japanese Chamber of Commerce & Industry chairman Kishimoto Kyota called a press conference at the Interchange Association, Japan’s representative office, to express their gratitude on behalf of Japanese in Taiwan.
“Needless to say, a bunch of flowers lying in front of the Interchange Association on the third day [following the disaster] with a card that read that ‘Peace for Japan and its people’ deeply moved my soul. It was also a great encouragement to our staff,” Imai said.
Having lived in many countries, Imai said the relationship between Taiwan and Japan was very unusual.
“The consolation and support Taiwan offered us was really warm. We want more Taiwanese to know that we really thank you,” he said.
“Before the earthquake, Taiwanese were very friendly to Japan. After it struck, I was often so moved by the encouraging words of local people that I was unable to speak,” Imai said.
In the basement of the Interchange Association’s office building, where the press conference was held, numerous cards with -encouraging words were pinned on the walls.
“They were sent from various sectors of Taiwanese society, ranging from kindergarten children to elderly people ... I will keep all these in mind and further seek to widen exchanges between Japan and Taiwan to enhance and deepen our relationship,” Imai said.
Kusano thanked the hospitality that Taiwanese have extended to Japanese in Taiwan.
“As Taiwanese are always so friendly and passionate, we never feel like we live in a foreign country,” he said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan also received a letter of appreciation from Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Sunday, in which he expressed sincere thanks for the profound friendship shown by Taiwanese toward Japan.
One month into the disaster, about 13,000 people have been confirmed dead and more than 14,000 are listed as missing. More than 150,000 people are still living in shelters.
Kan’s letter, titled “Thank you for the Kizuna [bonds of friendship],” was delivered to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添).
In it, Kan said the assistance from friends abroad “gave us a great amount of courage” at the time when the tsunami had washed away whole communities and left people without water, electricity, food or the means to communicate with one another.
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
GROUNDED: A KMT lawmaker proposed eliminating drone development programs and freezing funding for counterdrone systems, despite China’s adoption of the technology China has deployed attack drones at air bases near the Taiwan Strait in a strategy aimed at overwhelming Taiwan’s air defense systems through saturation attacks, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. The council’s latest quarterly report on China said that satellite imagery and open-source intelligence indicate that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had converted retired J-6 fighter jets into J-6W drones, which the PLA has stationed at six air bases near Taiwan, five in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province. The report cited J. Michael Dahm, a senior fellow at the US-based Mitchell Institute, as saying that China has
Carrefour Taiwan is to begin using a new name from the start of July, but it cannot divulge the name until then, the chairman of the supermarket chain's parent company said today. President Chain Store Co chairman Lo Chih-hsien (羅智先) was asked by reporters after a shareholders' meeting to confirm whether the company has settled on a new name for the supermarket brand. In March, the government-registered name of two Carrefour Taiwan branches was quietly changed to "Le Chia Kang" (樂家康) in Chinese, raising speculation that has been selected as the name. Lo said that because of local regulations and contractual obligations, the
RSS