The Taipei City Government’s Department of Information and Tourism has come under fire for an ad it recently placed, with numerous netizens calling it arrogant.
From Friday last week through yesterday, the department placed an ad in local newspapers promoting a new city government policy that raises the housing subsidy given to Taipei residents to NT$5,000, beating the subsidy bar of NT$3,600 set by the central government.
The ad — titled “Sorry, we’re just that attractive” — has sparked a storm of criticism from netizens.
As Taipei has long been referred to as Tian Long Guo (天龍國), a term denoting wealth and lack of knowledge about the woes of real life, on the Internet, the advertisement’s title caused netizens from four municipalities to concur that “such language is typical of the area.”
The derogatory term is taken from the popular One Piece comic book series drawn by Oda Eiichiro, in which a group of people, called “Tian Long,” are given special rights and do not know the difficulties of life outside their particular area.
“The title should be changed to ‘Sorry, we just scorn people that way,’” some netizens said, while another, Hsieh Meng-en (謝孟恩), said the title should instead say: “Sorry, our mayor is incompetent.”
The comparison made in the ad between Taipei and the other municipalities has also caused discontent.
One netizen going by “Clitier Chen” said: “For a long time, Taipei has been getting the good stuff and urban development across Taiwan has been imbalanced. In effect, it is forcing others to leave their homes in other counties and come to live in misery in a concrete jungle. Then the rich people from Taipei come to our hometowns and develop them as they please while destroying the environment. Afterward, they just go back to their big condos and mansions in Taipei with their pockets full of money. This is what’s called debasing the people and debasing the land.”
Criticizing the Taipei City Government-sponsored ad as being blatantly egotistic, netizens said that if the ad implied that Taipei‘s social welfare is incomparable to that of other counties,’ then it would indeed be a joke.
“If you really wanted to make a comparison, compare Taipei with foreign countries,” another netizen, Lei Hsin-cheng (雷昕澄), said. “Let’s see if your social welfare can lure citizens of Sweden, France and the US to immigrate [to Taipei].”
The money used to increase the subsidy as well as that used to pay for the ad have also caused outrage.
“The Taipei City councilors should block the expenditure for this arrogant advertisement and tell [department commissioner] Chao Hsin- ping (趙心屏) to pay for it herself,” a netizen said.
In response to the negative online barrage, Chao on Sunday said that the ad was to promote the city’s new policy, which began yesterday and will continue to Aug. 24.
“We wanted to draw people’s attention by using an eye-catching title so city residents will be aware of their rights,” she said, adding it was not the city government’s intention to “rile the other municipalities.”
Another netizen, named Wei Wei Chien, said in a post that it did not matter if the advertisement was attractive because what Taipei has is the conglomeration of a lot of resources form everyone else across the nation, adding that the city was absolutely not an ideal place to live.
Netizen “Zuka Hsu” said that the advertisement’s endeavor to frame arrogance as humor simply showed the Taipei City Government was “not of this world.”
Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said he does not foresee a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan in the next decade, although it is “perfectly possible” that China could seek to weaken the island’s status. “I don’t expect an all-out attack on Taiwan in, say, a 10-year period, which is as far as I can see,” Kissinger said yesterday in an interview on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS. Kissinger, 98, who also served as national security adviser and helped pave the way for then-US president Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to China, said that “everyone wants to be a China hawk” and
Taiwanese actress Big S, also known as Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), and Chinese restaurateur Wang Xiaofei (汪小菲) officially announced their divorce yesterday, stating the decision was cordial and that they would be raising their two children together. The statement came by proxy through the couple’s legal counsel, filed by both Wang and Hsu. Hsu and Wang thanked fans for their love and support, with the couple saying that fate had blessed them with a time of happiness, and that they were grateful for their time together. They said that while they walked hand-in-hand as husband and wife, they would continue a cordial relationship as
UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS: Tortuous and possibly criminal penalties doled out by nine officers to a napping cadet have sparked calls for standardized discipline rules Defense experts called on the Ministry of Defense to create a standard code for maintaining discipline, after local media on Saturday reported that nine officers were reprimanded for administering inappropriate punishments to a conscript in Kinmen. Earlier last week, a boot camp recruit surnamed Chung (鍾) was stripped of his shirt and had icepacks placed against his armpits and crotch as a punishment for napping during physical training, the Kinmen Defense Command confirmed on Saturday. The command cadre of the battalion, including the battalion commander, the political warfare officer and the sergeant who ordered the drill have been transferred and could face
DESTABILIZING: Beijing’s efforts to choke Taiwan, pressure its friends and hamper its democracy are a threat to the world, AIT Director Sandra Oudkirk said China’s provocative military activities near Taiwan are destabilizing and risk “miscalculation,” American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Sandra Oudkirk said yesterday, reiterating the US’ objection to any unilateral changes to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait. Oudkirk made the remarks in a speech at the annual conference of the Association of International Relations in Taipei. “In the Indo-Pacific region, America’s effort to resolve and manage differences with the leadership of the People’s Republic of [PRC] faces distinct challenges,” she said, referencing a range of actions by China that she said run counter to the shared values and interests of the
RSS