The Ministry of Culture, media outlets and more than 100 poets and writers have launched a poetry drive to honor the victims of the Greater Kaohsiung gas pipeline explosions and their families in the hope of providing the survivors with comfort.
Poems about the Kaohsiung blasts have been posted on the Facebook page of the ministry’s Qidong Poetry Salon since Monday.
The salon site was launched on Thursday last week to help promote and preserve Taiwanese poetry.
Photo: Courtesy of Hsun Hsun’s family
“Suffering makes us appreciate each other more. Let us use poetry to pray for our fellow citizens who are in tears,” a statement on the salon’s page reads.
So far, more than 25 poems about the disaster have been posted, including ones written by poets Kuan Kuan (管管) and Chiang Hsun (蔣勳).
Minister of Culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台), herself a renowned essayist and cultural critic, has contributed a poem titled Ruguo Zao Zhidao (如果早知道 , “If I Had Known Earlier”).
“If I had known earlier that the sight of you going out in a hurry tonight means that you would linger out of my reach this life, dear, oh how I would fall to my knees and kiss every inch of the soil you’ve stepped over,” the poem reads.
The explosions on Thursday night last week killed 30 people and injured 310.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said