The National Day Celebrations Organization Committee yesterday unveiled an animated logo for Double Ten National Day, which is on Wednesday next week, adding that at the national ceremony on Taipei’s Ketagalan Boulevard, six lighthouse keepers would lead attendees in singing the national anthem in a symbol of the government’s resolve to protect and guide an “ocean country.”
This year’s National Day is themed “Taiwan, Together,” and the animation features “technicolor” images of shifting pixels forming various patterns before finally forming the outline of Taiwan.
The logo aims to convey the ideas of “diversity, return and unity,” said Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), who chairs the committee.
Photo: CNA
It wants to convey that Taiwan is ethnically diverse; that Taiwanese living overseas can always return, regardless of their ethnicity or occupation; and that people can make Taiwan better by showing unity, Su said.
Taiwan is an ocean country, so the committee invited six lighthouse keepers to lead the national anthem, in line with the idea of “protecting and guiding the nation,” Su said.
Athletes who competed at the Asian Games in Indonesia would make an appearance on 24 floats at the ceremony, Su said.
The addition would add to the jubilant and festive atmosphere of the ceremony, Su said, adding that the public should feel more confident knowing that the national sports team’s excellent performance has propelled Taiwan onto the world stage and increased its global visibility, despite Chinese oppression.
Apart from the standard performances by honor guards and marching bands, Su said the ceremony would also feature performances by jump-roping pupils from Pingtung County’s Renai Elementary School and by the choir from Nantou County’s Minhe Junior High School, whose performance in July at the UN World Peace Choral Festival in Vienna was canceled last-minute by organizers under Chinese pressure.
As a prelude to the main event, the Presidential Office Building would feature light sculptures from tonight, Su said.
The National Day evening banquet for overseas Taiwanese is to be held by the Yilan County Government, and would feature speakers and singers, he said, adding that it would be the second consecutive year that the banquet is held outside Taipei.
Similarly, the national fireworks show is to be held at the Port of Hualien, Su said, adding that the committee picked the venue to help the county’s tourism industry after it was hit by a magnitude 6 earthquake in February.
That the fireworks display is to be held in Hualien should dispel accusations that the government neglects Hualien’s development, acting Hualien County Commissioner Tsai Pi-chung (蔡碧仲) said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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