Captain Kinmen and Kinmen Wonder Woman were unveiled on Friday last week as the Kinmen Civil Service’s Department of Ethics’ seventh-generation mascots for honest government.
Part traditional design and part pop culture, the figurines were created by Wang Ming-tsung (王明宗), a maker of traditional guardian lions used as lucky charms.
The new designs are evocative of the guardian lion and the mythical one-horned zhishou (廌獸, “beast”), fitting symbols for the ethics and accountability unit, as the former wards off evil and the latter discerns righteousness from injustice, department director Chen Chih-ping (陳治平) said.
Photo: Wu Cheng-ting, Taipei Times
Wang borrowed from the honorable protectors of comic books and their shields to represent the department’s role in defending the rights of county residents, Chen said.
The mascots are popular among children and collectors, he said, adding that they are used as prizes for department-held public information and education puzzles.
A central government agency has called to ask about similar figurines for its use, he said.
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
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