Taiwanese baseball star Chen Chin-feng (陳金鋒) has been invited to sing the national anthem at next month’s Double Ten National Day celebrations, as the event would focus on the theme of “local heroes” and cut back on the extravagant style of previous celebrations, government officials said.
Chen has accepted the invitation, said Deputy Minister of the Interior Hua Ching-chun (花敬群), who heads the event’s organizing committee.
“The Double Ten event marks our National Day, so it is an honor to be invited, and I am happy to accept it,” Chen said.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
This year’s organizing efforts are aimed at putting on a markedly different celebration from previous ones by cutting back on the ostentatious display of pomp and pageantry, and doing away with the nighttime fireworks show, which has been seen as wasting taxpayers’ money, Hua said.
This is to be the first National Day celebrations that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) would preside over in her capacity as the head of state.
This year’s themes are “We stand together with the public” and “It is good to be with you,” which would honor outstanding performers in their respective endeavors, as well as individuals who made a difference in other people’s lives through their work, Hua said.
The ceremony is to include firefighters and civilian groups tasked with rescue and emergency response operations take part in a parade as “local heroes,” joining marching bands from various schools and military units.
Another focus is to be on the nation’s athletes, as the ceremony is to have the Taiwanese team who competed at the Rio Olympic Games last month, along with Chen, lead a procession of athletes.
Hua said that they invited Chen because he has announced his plan to retire after this season, and sports fans and officials would like to pay tribute to Chen, who came up with game-deciding hits for Team Taiwan and made history as the first Taiwanese player in US Major League Baseball when he debuted for the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sept. 14, 2002.
“People are proud of Chen’s accomplishment and he is recognized as the ‘pride of Taiwan,’ so this is a fitting way to honor him before he retires,” Hua said.
One other main theme for this year’s celebrations is “green” energy, which is to have people, including borough and village wardens from across the nation, parade on electrical motorcycles provided by a Taiwanese company.
Hua said this is the government’s way of showing the public and the international community its resolve to “go green” and “go electrical” by using Taiwan’s “most popular mode of transportation.”
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
RSS