SOCIETY
Kids’ entrance fees differ
Amusement parks are more flexible and lenient with their entrance fees for children than other places where children go with their parents, according to the results of a survey published yesterday. The Consumers’ Foundation survey compared charges levied on parents with children at restaurants, theaters and amusement parks. Some amusement parks surveyed applied height limitations loosely, giving discounts to children who are taller than the official recommended limit, according to the survey. Restaurants were found to be less child-friendly in their pricing policies, with nearly half of those surveyed charging parents for children who did not have meals. Cinemas also had different height regulations for free admission, with differences of up to 30cm, the survey showed. The survey was conducted by telephone and the Internet last month, in which 10 restaurants and 10 theaters and 10 amusement parks were randomly selected.
SOCIETY
Gay couples ‘partners’: MOI
In cases where one member of a homosexual relationship dies, the survivor should be referred to in the obituary as the deceased’s partner, a Ministry of the Interior (MOI) official said yesterday. In a publication on funeral etiquette that will be released in June, the Department of Civil Affairs suggested people avoid the use of terms such as “close brotherly or close sisterly relationship” in the obituaries of homosexuals. Department Director Huang Li-hsin (黃麗馨) said a funeral is an event that helps people come to terms with their loss, therefore, the person closest to the deceased should have an appropriate role at the funeral. Lee Hui-jen (李慧仁), a college instructor who helped compile the publication, said the editorial staff consulted the homosexual community and it was decided that the term “partner” should be used, in an effort to break gender stereotyping.
DIPLOMACY
Nepal kids to have eyecare
Taiwan will help provide eyecare for thousands of children in Nepal this year by funding an international humanitarian aid project, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Under the program, four eyecare centers are to be established to screen the vision of 120,000 children under the age of 15, offer surgery to 320 children and correct the vision of another 1,000, NGO Affairs Committee Vice Chairman Wu Rong-chuan (吳榮泉) said. The project is being organized by Orbis International and co-financed by the ministry, which has approved US$100,000 in funding. The project is to be launched three months after an agreement is signed by both parties, Wu said.
SOCIETY
No plans for kids soon: poll
More than half of female office workers are not considering having children soon, mainly because of economic reasons or because they cannot find the right partner, a survey of female office workers aged 25 to 35 by an online human resources agency found. The results of the 1111 Job Bank survey, released yesterday, showed 50.4 percent of female office workers who responded to the poll said they are not planning to have a child in the next three years. Asked why, 44.09 percent cited economic pressures, 40.48 percent said they could not find the right partner and 24.86 percent said they were happy with their current situation. The respondents were allowed to answer more than one category. The survey was conducted on female workers with and without children between March 16 and Friday. A total of 627 valid samples were collected.
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
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater