An Aboriginal pupil at the coastal Heping Elementary School in Taitung County had a unique graduation ceremony on Friday in that not only was he the only graduate, but the event turned into a tourist attraction with more than 300 unexpected guests attending his graduation party.
The party that the school threw for Chen Ting-wei (陳庭偉) presented a festive atmosphere with Aboriginal games, a photography exhibition about the township and stands selling food and handicrafts that attracted many curious tourists.
With just 20 pupils, Heping Elementary School is one of the smallest primary schools in the nation. This year, 80 percent of the pupils come from a nearby Amis village.
Photo: Huang Ming-tang, Taipei Times
Ting-wei is the fifth of the Chen family’s six children to graduate from the school. A younger brother is in the fifth grade.
Principal Shih Hsiu-ying (施琇瑩) told the visitors that when Chen Ting-wei started attending the school, he had three classmates. He became the sole pupil in the third grade and remained so for three years, until the school decided to have him join younger children in a mixed class in his sixth year, so he could have company while studying.
Chen said he did not mind being the only graduate — after all, he received all the prizes and presents for graduates.
Besides, he also enjoyed tourists asking him to take photographs with them.
Talented at math and particularly interested in machines, Chen said that his graduation wish is that one day he can have a backhoe similar to the one that his father operates.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift