As far as news goes, the past year has yielded a patchwork quilt of highs and lows — local festivals and horrendous disasters, political intrigue and ongoing food safety scandals, sporting achievements and environmental marvels — all carefully stitched together by the ever-present and steady hand of the Taipei Times.
Taiwanese-language pop diva Jody Chiang (江蕙), one of the nation’s most popular singers over a career spanning four decades, announced on Jan. 2 that she would retire after a series of farewell concerts from July to September. The announcement set off a chaotic pursuit of tickets.
The release of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on Jan. 5 from prison on medical parole saw an ailing Chen — in a wheelchair and holding a cane — leave the prison accompanied by his son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), for one month of medical treatment, and the period was extended several times.
New government policies took effect in January, ranging from labor rules to tax schemes and food safety.
Controversy exploded when the Republic of China (ROC) national flag was raised at Twin Oaks Estate, the residence of ROC ambassadors to the US before Washington switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
“Twin Oaks is our estate and it should be possible to raise our own flag and wear the military uniform of our nation on the estate,” Representative to the US Shen Lyu-shun (沈呂巡) said.
As expected, Beijing swiftly retaliated, with Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) calling on the US to abide by the “one China” policy and to “prudently and properly handle” any issues relating to Taiwan to prevent similar incidents.
FLIGHT GE235
On Feb. 4, TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 bound for Kinmen crashed into the Keelung River (基隆河) about 5km from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport), with 53 passengers and five crew onboard. There were 15 survivors.
The nation’s, and the world’s, focus was fixated on the capital.
Why? People everywhere were shocked. It is becoming increasingly rare to have planes flying at low altitudes and in close proximity to dense urban areas, or in other words, having an airport in the middle of a bustling, high-tech, modern megacity.
The footage that caught everyone’s attention was from a dashcam on a car that captured the last moments of the planes’ short journey as it clipped a guardrail of the Huandong Expressway — as well as a taxi — before disappearing from view into the river.
As was revealed by the Aviation Safety Council, the pilot said he shut down the wrong engine in a conversation recorded by the cockpit voice recorder.
Council executive director Thomas Wang (王興中) said that a master warning sounded after the aircraft climbed to 1,200 feet (365.8m). The aircraft’s engine warning display showed a series of steps that the pilot, Liao Chien-tsung (廖建宗), should have taken when the No. 2 engine flamed out after takeoff, but the pilot said he shut down the No. 1 engine instead.
On Feb. 11, six convicts carrying rifles and handguns took hostages at Kaohsiung Prison in what was called the biggest jailbreak attempt in the nation’s history, triggering a massive show of force by SWAT teams and police units outside the facility. The 14-hour siege culminated in the apparent suicides of the inmates.
The New Taipei City District Court collegiate bench on March 6 found Taipei MRT killer Cheng Chieh (鄭捷), who attacked passengers on the rail system’s Bannan Line on May 21 last year, guilty on four counts of murder and 22 counts of attempted manslaughter, handing down four death sentences and multiple prison sentences.
In October, the Taiwan High Court upheld the death sentence and revoked Cheng’s civil rights for life.
Taipei 101 also made headlines earlier in the year, when Krystian Herba, a Guinness World Record holder from Poland, cycled up its 3,139 steps in an astonishing feat of endurance.
As summer approached, the nation was facing an ironic phenomenon: a water shortage. Water rationing measures were tightened in parts of New Taipei City, Taoyuan and Hsinchu County as the Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫), which supplies water to most of northern Taiwan, fell to 24.56 percent of its capacity — the lowest level since it became operational in 1964. Heavy rain in early May saw third-phase water rationing measures lifted.
However, the joys of a plentiful summer were tragically cut short when hundreds of people were injured in an inferno at the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) water park in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里) on June 27, with 15 dying in the days, weeks or months that followed. An explosion occurred as colored cornstarch powder was sprayed over people attending a “Color Play Asia” party, with a fire engulfing partygoers — most of them in their teens and 20s.
Video footage of the fireball engulfing the crowd was leaked on social media not long after the tragedy, which struck a chord with viewers the world over and brought the devastation of the incident to the fore.
POLITICS
In politics, Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was endorsed by the party congress as its presidential candidate in late July. However, rumors of opposition from within the party turned out to be well-founded, with party members voting at an emergency congress in October to drop Hung from the ticket. She was replaced by KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫).
The nation’s spirit of activism was once again on display in July, with protests against the Ministry of Education’s controversial adjustments to high-school curriculum guidelines, which demonstrators said were China-centric and lacked objectivity. Thirty-three people, including activists and three reporters, were arrested and charged with trespassing on a private residence, obstruction and vandalism, after participating in a break-in of the education ministry complex on July 23.
Just as the media storm surrounding the curriculum guidelines was dissipating, darker clouds gathered.
Dai Lin (林冠華), a member of the Northern Taiwan Anti-Curriculum Changes Alliance, was found dead on July 30 in an apparent suicide at his family’s residence in New Taipei City.
On Aug. 6, four people in Yilan County’s Suao Township (蘇澳) were swept away while watching waves as Typhoon Soudelor — at that time the strongest typhoon to have developed in the northern hemisphere this year — approached the nation. One person, a child, survived, but three others died. The typhoon, which made landfall on the east coast on Aug. 8, claimed eight lives in total, while 420 people sustained injuries.
The clean-up from Soudelor had barely begun when more than 4,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes as Typhoon Dujuan approached. Three people died and 376 were injured as the typhoon pummeled Taiwan with torrential rainfall and strong winds.
As the skies cleared and the spectacular autumn weather arrived, the nation was taken by complete surprise by two more storms of a political nature.
The first was when former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) traveled to China to attend a series of commemorative events in Beijing to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the second was the revelation by the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Singapore.
The meeting took place on Nov. 7 and was of historical significance, as it was the first meeting between the leaders of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
In post-meeting press conferences, Ma said Xi’s words were conducive to the practicalities of cross-strait matters.
‘1992 CONSENSUS’
He said that both sides talked about consolidating the so-called “1992 consensus” and adherence to the “one China policy,” but maintained that both sides are free to interpret its meaning.
Ma came under heavy criticism over the meeting, with critics saying he had damaged national sovereignty by acknowledging the “one China” principle.
As the year draws to a close, thousands of people are once again expected to descend upon Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) to watch the annual Taipei 101 fireworks display.
A total of 30,000 fireworks are expected to be set off at Taipei 101 this year in 238 seconds, which would make it the longest-ever fireworks display at the skyscraper.
“Nature is Future” is the theme of the display, with images of fish, flowers and plants to be depicted for the first time to raise awareness of environmental protection.
However, as the nation heads into the new year, there is only really one thing that is on everyone’s mind, and that is the Jan. 16 presidential and legislative elections.
Whatever the outcome, next year will be just as interesting as this one, if not more so.
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