Starting today, instrumental music is to be broadcast at eight stations along the MRT’s Tamsui-Xinyi Line to notify passengers of services and lighten their moods, the metro operator said.
The eight stations are Taipei 101/World Trade Center, Xinyi Anhe, Daan Park, NTU Hospital, Taipei Main Station, Zhongshan, Shuanglian and Minquan W Road, with each station featuring a unique theme, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said.
The music features harpsichords, xylophones, kalimbas and celestas using light motifs and uplifting melodies, which will likely lighten passengers’ mood, the company said.
The company said that the new feature is the result of a collaboration with the Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs, while plans to play piped-in music at stations along the Bannan, Songshan-Xindian and Zhonghe-Xinlu lines have been made.
To avoid disturbing people living close to MRT stations or causing confusion, music will not be played at elevated stations, terminal stations or stations with platforms taking services on different lines at the same level — such as the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Ximen stations — the company said.
The department said that it had asked composers to create “MRT-inspired” music in an effort to bring an artistic touch to commuter’s lives.
The department said it hopes this feature will allow people to see Taipei’s unique urban vibes in a new light.
Summer Lei (雷光夏), a musician who wrote and played music for the stations, said that she wanted to create the feeling of taking a day trip out of town for passengers.
Lei said that as a Tamkang University student, she often had to ride trains along what is now the Tamsui-Xinyi Line and it always felt like an excursion, as the train would pass by rice paddies, mango gardens and swamps.
“I wrote four versions of the music and made at least five to six revisions to each,” Lei said.
“I, too, use the MRT line, so it would be me suffering if I had not done my best,” the musician added.
Additional reporting by Loa Iok-sin
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