Father Gian Carlo Michelini, an 81-year-old Catholic priest from Italy who founded the children’s folk dance troupe Lan Yang Dancers, was yesterday granted Republic of China (ROC) citizenship in recognition of his invaluable contribution to the nation.
Michelini is the first foreigner to be naturalized in recognition of his contributions in the field of arts and culture.
An amendment to the Nationality Act (國籍法) passed in December last year allows foreign nationals applying for ROC citizenship to retain their original nationality if they are high-level professionals in the fields of technology, economy, education, culture, arts and sports, and have served the nation’s interests.
Photo: CNA
The Yilan County Government on Wednesday said that Michelini’s household will be registered in Yilan, where the priest is based.
Michelini, born in 1935 in Italy, came to Taiwan at the age of 29 as a member of the Camillian Order. In 1966, he established the Lan Yang Youth Catholic Center and the Lan Yang Dancers in Yilan County.
The center offered dance, music and art classes, and organized sports competitions, while the Lan Yang Dancers gained nationwide acclaim for its folk dance performances.
In 1974, at a time when the nation was diplomatically isolated from the international community, Michelini organized a tour of Italy for the troupe, where they performed for Pope Paul VI at the Vatican.
The troupe has since toured numerous nations and given more than 1,000 performances.
Michelini in 1996 also helped establish the annual Yilan International Children’s Folklore and Folkgame Festival.
He has been credited with bringing many international troupes to the festival.
Ministry of the Interior officials and Acting Yilan County Commissioner Wu Tze-cheng (吳澤成) gave Michelini his ID card and household registration.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the