The Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF) held its annual award ceremony in Taipei yesterday to confer its Golden Support Awards on individuals for making donations to help children from low-income families — support they themselves received in their childhoods.
Much of the focus was on baseball star Lin Chih-sheng (林智勝), one of the award recipients, who was overcome by emotions and teared up when the TFCF arranged a surprise for him by allowing him to see his childhood benefactor, doctor Huang Cheng-hsun (黃正勳), via a pre-recorded videotape.
Huang sponsored Lin through the TFCF program for six years from middle to high school.
Lin said he was brought up by his paternal grandparents because his parents divorced when he was very young.
“I grew up in very poor conditions and my grandparents made a living by growing vegetables,” he said.
“I was an active kid and had to eat all the time. They often had difficulties feeding me,” Lin added, adding that at elementary school, when his classmate were eating their lunches, he would often asked them whether they could save some for him.
Lin is now a star shortstop for the Lamigo Monkeys in the Chinese Professional Baseball League. The Monkeys team rewarded Lin’s standout performance with a five-year contract worth NT$30 million (US$1 million) in 2011.
Lin has not forgotten TFCF’s support during his childhood and is himself now sponsoring a number of children on a long term basis.
Lin had tried to find his benefactor, but had been unsuccessful, until yesterday’s event.
In the video, Huang, who could not attend in person because he was giving free medical diagnoses at a temple in Greater Taichung, told Lin: “The support I gave you in the past was just a small help. I hope you can pass on this love to other people.”
“I shall pass the love I received on to others. I will strive to play ball the best I can and to repay the goodwill back to society,” a teary-eyed Lin said.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS