Ties between Taiwan and Japan have not been affected by the row over publicity materials for an exhibition of treasures from the National Palace Museum, Tokyo’s deputy representative to Taiwan said yesterday.
Interchange Association, Japan Deputy Representative Izuru Hanaki said he believes the dispute over the omission of the word “national” from some promotional materials, which erupted just days before the exhibition was scheduled to open, has not impacted ties.
“[The exhibition] is very popular” and many in Japan still want to visit it, Hanaki said on the sidelines of an event for an exchange program that subsidizes short-term research by Japanese and Taiwanese doctoral students.
Asked about first lady Chow Mei-ching’s (周美青) canceling a trip to Tokyo to attend the opening of the exhibit, Hanaki said that Chow was welcome to visit Japan “if there is an opportunity.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday last week said that Taiwan would cancel the show at the Tokyo National Museum, unless advertisements and tickets that referred to the National Palace Museum as the “Palace Museum” were replaced with ones bearing the correct name. The removal of the word “national” violated a deal that the National Palace Museum’s full name must be used in all publicity materials.
The National Palace Museum said on Monday that the materials had been corrected. The exhibition opened as planned.
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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