Having never been on an airplane nor seen the ocean before, five fourth-graders from Ping Deng Elementary School, the most remote school in Greater Taichung, were so moved by stories of -Penghu told by their teacher, Chen Yan-chih (陳彥誌) — who did his military service there — that they dreamed of visiting the island before their graduation two years ago and set about trying to save as much of their allowance as possible to make that dream come true.
However, a three-day journey to Penghu costs about NT$7,000 per person, an enormous amount for young students from families of meager means.
To help them fulfill their dream, Chen Yan-chih encouraged the five to try and save a fraction of their allowance, which he then gave to the Director of Counseling Lin Hsiao-yi (林曉儀) at the school for safekeeping.
One student, surnamed Chen, managed to save about NT6,000 by February, while the others, despite their best efforts, only saved between NT$1,000 and NT$2,000.
The student who had saved the least, Chan Tzu-chi (詹子驥), even decided to give up at one point and was only persuaded to continue after his friends insisted that “no one should be left out of the trip.”
To boost their savings, Chen Yan-chih and the students set up a small store at Wuling Farm in Miaoli County, after seeing crowds of visitors at the tourist site looking at cherry blossoms.
They sold handmade cards, black tea and snacks like meatball soup and rice dumplings to passing tourists, some of whom tipped them generously after learning about their goal.
One day of hard work earned them about NT$25,000, which added to their original savings meant the students now have enough money to embark on their long-awaited trip next month.
“We are very excited at realizing our goal together and we want to express our gratitude to those tourists who supported us. Because of you, we will finally see the ocean together,” Chen and the students said.
Translated by Stacy Hsu, Staff Writer
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
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the