The Taipei City Government recently handed out model worker awards to hundreds of individuals — including key grip Wang Wei-liu (王偉六) and visually impaired masseur Yang Shu-chi (楊書齊) —for their exemplary contributions in their respective fields.
The work of Wang, a senior key grip with 30 years of experience under his belt, can be seem in a majority of Taiwanese films, including the two Black & White (痞子英雄) movies, Monga (艋舺) and Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (彩虹戰士:賽德克巴萊).
Being a key grip is not just about controlling the lighting and camera movement and setup, it also entails monitoring safety on the film set as well as keeping order, said Wang, who was a recipient of the same award in 2011.
Wang said that filming the blockbuster film Seediq Bale had left a deep impression on him because the cast and crew had spent more than four months in the mountains.
Locally produced films have a very limited future, and it is increasingly hard to find young people to mentor so they can take over the position, Wang said.
While he has thought of choosing another line of work, he loves the freedom of filmmaking, which enable him to travel around the world, he said.
Yang, the other worker to receive an award from Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), is the young owner of two massage parlors.
Yang was diagnosed with neuropathy when he was in junior high school, which caused his vision to regress to just 0.01 in less than a month.
Yang said he was in denial during the onset of the condition and tried to convince himself that it was only temporary, but came to terms with it two year later.
He went through a period of depression, but realized that he could not afford to rail against fate and not be incapacitated by inertia.
He used his free time to learn how to provide massages and obtained a permit for blind masseurs before finishing senior high school.
Yang opened his first massage parlor after graduating from college.
Now the proud owner of two parlors with a staff of nearly 30 shops, he said he would be glad to share his experience of starting a business with others.
Ko, who handed out the 356 awards on April 28, lauded the awardees for being leaders in their respective industries.
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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