As the year draws to a close, several civil and charity groups are calling on the public to support their causes by purchasing calendars for next year.
The calendar for the Taiwan Community Alliance has the theme: “The place where our feelings lie,” and recounts the stories of 12 local communities and their residents, while also introducing local specialty products.
These products include mushrooms from Cyonglin Township (芎林) in Hsinchu County; leek wine and pickled tofu from Yuanshan Tonwship (員山) in Yilan County; frozen seaweed from Heping Island (和平島) northeast of Keelung, wood oven baked longan from Jhongliao Township (中寮) in Nantou County and white gourd cake from Dongshi Township (東石) in Chiayi County, as well as sulfur-fire fish-catching in Jinshan District (金山) in New Taipei City (新北市).
The calendar also features Taiwan Community Alliance secretary-general Hsiang Chia-hung’s (向家弘) poetry describing the close emotional connection that farmers and fishers feel toward the land and the ocean.
Now largely a rarity, catching fish using sulfur fires is still practiced in Jinshan.
Fishermen sail out at night, light sulfur fires in the dark and put out their nets, and fish attracted by the light jump out of the water and into the nets.
Hsiang describes the centuries-old fishing technique used by elderly fishermen as the “most beautiful scenery of the ocean.”
Meanwhile, the Peng Ming-min Foundation and the Nation Building Union of Taiwan have published a calendar with pictures of Yushan (玉山) in different seasons and times of the day, as well as animals and plants unique to Taiwan taken by Yushan National Park Administration Office director Yu Teng-liang (游登良), who is also a senior ecological photographer.
The calendar of the Children’s Welfare League Foundation uses drawings by a popular blogger of the famous Fenjia Night Market (逢甲夜市) in Greater Taichung.
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
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