HORTICULTURE
Taipei flower show blooms
Crowds surged into the Taipei Expo Park Complex yesterday as the capital’s second annual International Flower Design Award and Exhibition opened. Taipei Deputy Mayor Chen Yung-jen (陳永仁) said that 98 percent of the flowers displayed this year were grown domestically, “reflecting the rapid growth of Taiwan’s domestic floral industry.” The exhibition also features several rare, imported flowers, some of which are being displayed in the nation for the first time, such as double-petaled Dutch lilies and orchids from Japan. Several international floral designers have special displays. For example, designer Wang Hsia-chun (王俠軍) has several exhibits intertwining unique ceramic designs with flowers, including a set of vases held together and elevated to different levels with bamboo. The exhibition will feature craft activities and performances every day in the afternoon until Nov. 9. It is open from noon until 8pm at the Expo Dome at the Taipei Expo Park Complex next to the Yuanshan MRT station. Admission is free.
PUBLIC SAFETY
NTU student drowns in lake
A National Taiwan University (NTU) student died late on Friday in an accidental drowning at a lake on campus. The student, surnamed Liao (廖), was a junior majoring in ocean engineering. He was at the school’s Drunken Moon Lake (醉月湖) celebrating his 21st birthday with four classmates, when they decided to swim to a pavilion in the center of the lake to take pictures. On the way back, Liao began struggling. Unable to help him, his classmates swam to shore and got a lifebelt, which they tied to Liao to pull him ashore. When they got him ashore, he showed no signs of life. It is thought that muscle cramps led to his death. Swimming in the lake is prohibited, as indicated by several signs, NTU Secretary-General Lin Ta-te (林達德) said while expressing sorrow over Liao’s death. Lin said NTU would help make funeral arrangements and file insurance claims.
ORNITHOLOGY
Birders boogie in Birdathon
This year’s Taiwan Birdathon took flight yesterday, drawing birders to compete in a 30-hour birding race in the Southwest Coast National Scenic Area. A total of 27 teams are participating in the race to spot the largest number of species across the coastlines of Yunlin, Chiayi and Greater Tainan, organizer the Southwest Coast National Scenic Area Administration said. The competitors include six international teams of birdwatchers from eight nations, including Malaysia, the US, South Africa, Nepal and China. Organizers said the flat alluvial shore along the coasts is home to various shoals, lagoons and estuary wetlands with diverse ecosystems that supports abundant wildlife. Participants can expect to see black-faced spoonbills, northern shovelers and Eurasian wigeons, among others, it said.
CULTURE
Wheel good time in Taoyuan
Taoyuan County yesterday set a Guinness World Record for the most people simultaneously riding unicycles. The attempt to break the record of 1,142 people set in Germany in 2005 succeeded with 1,682 riders as part of this year’s International Unicycle Carnival. The carnival celebrates the county’s planned investiture as special municipality next month. Riders ranged in age from three to 73, the Taoyuan County Government’s department of education said. All qualified riders had to depart from the starting line within one minute and finish a 500m distance without dismounting.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching