First lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青) received mixed reactions at yesterday’s Double Ten National Day celebration for wearing the same dress she wore to last year’s festivities.
The black-and-gold dress decorated in 24-karat gold foil was a gift from designer Jason Wu (吳季剛), a Taiwanese designer who gained fame when he created US first lady Michelle Obama’s one-shoulder white chiffon inaugural gown in 2009.
Chow received mixed reactions from the media for wearing the dress again, with some saying it was a reflection of her frugal character, while others questioned whether it was suitable for a first lady to recycle an outfit for such a major national event.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
Meanwhile, the centenary celebration of the establishment of the Republic of China provided an opportunity for pan-blue heavyweights to share the same stage amid rumored friction ahead of January’s presidential election.
Wearing sunglasses, People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), currently in the process of collecting signatures for his presidential candidacy, attended the ceremony, but did not interact much with Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) or former Chinese National Party (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄).
After the ceremony, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) went over to Soong, who has refused to meet Ma to discuss cooperation between their two parties in the presidential and legislative elections, to shake hands.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Soong told reporters afterward that he did not talk much with Ma, saying they simply exchanged greetings and wishes for a more prosperous nation and a better life for Taiwanese.
According to the government, the ceremony drew about 1,500 foreign guests from 50 delegations and 22,000 overseas compatriots, the largest numbers in recent years.
Former Japanese prime minister Taro Aso led one of the delegations, which included 10 members of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party.
The ceremonies went smoothly, with occasional scuffles between police and some people who did not have passes to enter the restricted area near the Presidential Office and Ketagalan Boulevard.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching