A centenarian in Changhua County has remained the matriarch of the family in death as in life, staying seated in her favorite chair after passing away on March 19 to bid her family farewell.
Liu Huang Yeh (劉黃葉), 103, left instructions that she did not want to be cremated or put into a freezer after dying, so the family decided to have her “sit” in her favorite chair for a few days despite the reluctance of some of her descendants.
After steps were taken to preserve the body, the deceased Liu Huang sat on the chair until Friday last week, or the seventh day after her death, which according to custom will see the soul of a deceased person return home.
A photograph of the whole family, along with her favorite radio, was put on a table beside her.
“It was as if she were just sleeping,” a family member said.
During the week when Liu Huang was “holding court,” more than 100 members of five generations of her family along with many of her friends came to pay their last respects.
“Grandma, we’ve come to see you,” they would say to her.
Her eldest son, Liu Hsin-fa (劉新發), 84, said he could not accept the idea at first, but decided eventually to do as his mother wished and prepared the body.
Yang Hsiu-chin (楊秀琴), the daughter-in-law of Liu Huang’s eldest grandson, said her grandmother was very nice, always praised others and would help care for grandchildren or great-grandchildren.
She could still ride a bicycle in her 90s, Yang said.
Liu Huang’s great-granddaughter described her as someone who loved everyone dearly, saying that she felt no fear when seeing her great-grandmother sitting there this past week.
The family has arranged to hold Liu Huang’s funeral this week. She is to be given a traditional burial.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods