ENTERTAINMENT
Ang Lee wins US award
Oscar-winning Taiwanese director Ang Lee (李安) received the 2012 best director award from the North Carolina Film Critics Association (NCFCA) on Tuesday for Life of Pi (少年PI的奇幻漂流), his third such honor for the year. Lee defeated several other hopefuls, including Kathryn Bigelow, who directed Zero Dark Thirty, David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook, Paul Thomas Anderson for The Master, Wes Anderson for Moonrise Kingdom and Rian Johnson for Looper. The award was Lee’s third best director award for the film, following a Kansas City Film Critics Circle award announced in December and another from the Las Vegas Film Critics Society that same month. Lee’s 3D fantasy was also nominated by the NCFCA for best adapted screenplay, but did not win.
TRAVEL
Travel program expanded
A program that allows Chinese tourists to travel independently to Taiwan will be expanded, a tourism official said yesterday. Chang Shi-chung (張時中), deputy director-general of the Tourism Bureau and vice president of the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association (TSTA), said the association and its Chinese counterpart, the Cross-Strait Tourism Association, have reached an agreement to extend the free independent travel program to an additional number of Chinese cities. Currently, residents of 13 cities — Jinan, Xian, Fuzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen, Tianjin, Chongqing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Chengdu — are permitted to travel as independent visitors and not just in tour groups. Arrivals from China last year totaled 2.58 million, an annual increase of 44.96 percent, according to the TSTA’s Beijing office. Of that number, 190,676 were independent travelers, which represented an annual increase of 529.69 percent, the office said.
WEATHER
Cold weather expected
The weather could be at its coldest between today and tomorrow, with northern and eastern parts of the country likely to see rainfall, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The bureau also warned of strong winds between today and Saturday in southern areas, as well as in Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. The chill could start to ease up on Saturday, when clear skies are expected countrywide, it said. Tamsui recorded the lowest temperature this winter on Dec. 30, reaching a low of 7.3°C.
ENTERTAINMENT
Taipei-based film to open
The romantic comedy film Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (明天記得愛上我), directed by Arvin Chen (陳駿霖) and set in Taipei, has been included in the Panorama program of the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival. The film will have its world premiere at the 63rd annual film festival, which runs from Feb. 7 to Feb. 17. It is part of a lineup of 31 fictional features from 23 countries that have been selected for Panorama’s main program to provide insight into the world of contemporary cinema production. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? is the second Mandarin feature film from Chen, a 34-year-old American of Taiwanese descent, following Au Revoir Taipei (一頁台北), also a romantic comedy set in Taipei, which won the Best Asian Film Award from the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema at the 60th Berlin Film Festival. Chen’s first short film, MEI (美), won a Silver Berlin Bear at the festival in 2007.
FAST TRACK? Chinese spouses must renounce their Chinese citizenship and pledge allegiance to Taiwan to gain citizenship, some demonstrators said Opponents and supporters of a bill that would allow Chinese spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship in four years instead of six staged protests near the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday morning. Those who oppose the bill proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) demanded that Chinese spouses be granted citizenship only after renouncing their Chinese citizenship, passing a citizenship test and pledging allegiance to Taiwan. The demonstrators, who were protesting at a side entrance to the Legislative Yuan on Jinan Road, were mostly members of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and other organizations advocating Taiwanese independence. Supporters of the bill, led
SILENT MAJORITY: Only 1 percent of Chinese rejected all options but war to annex Taiwan, while one-third viewed war as unacceptable, a university study showed Many Chinese are more concerned with developments inside their country than with seeking unification with Taiwan, al-Jazeera reported on Friday. Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary, 23-year-old Chinese Shao Hongtian was quoted by al-Jazeera as saying that “hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.” “I want unification to happen peacefully,” Shao said. Al-Jazeera said it changed Shao’s name to respect his wish for anonymity. If peaceful unification is not possible, Shao said he would prefer “things to remain as they are,” adding that many of his friends feel
Taiwan has “absolute air superiority” over China in its own airspace, Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Monday, amid concern over whether Taipei could defend itself against a military incursion by Beijing. Po made the remarks in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) on whether Taiwan would have partial or complete air superiority if Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes were to enter Taiwan’s airspace. Po, a retired pilot, said that the Taiwanese military has “absolute air superiority” over PLA
A shipment of basil pesto imported by Costco Wholesale Taiwan from the US in the middle of last month was intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. Samples taken from a shipment of the Kirkland Signature brand of basil pesto imported by Costco contained 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of ethylene oxide, exceeding the non-detectable limit. Ethylene oxide is a carcinogenic substance that can be used as a pesticide. The 674kg shipment of basil pesto would either be destroyed or returned to its country of origin, as is the procedure for all