Chunghwa Post plans to release its first new stamp set for next year — four stamps featuring different varieties of goldfish — on Jan. 24.
Designed by Jheng Yi-lang (鄭義郎), the stamps showcase the comet, the ryukin, the telescope eye, and the crown pearlscale, the postal company said, adding that the stamps have face values of NT$6, NT$6, NT$12 and NT$28 respectively.
The set, titled Aquatic Life Postage Stamps — Goldfish, is one of three sets of new stamps that the company is to issue in the first quarter of next year, it said.
Photo courtesy of Chunghwa Post
A set of four stamps featuring scenes from Dongsha Atoll National Park is to be released on Feb. 21 and next year’s edition of the Chinese Idiom Stories series is to become available on March 20, it said.
The national park stamps, also designed by Jheng, are to feature the coral reef and seagrass bed of the Dongsha Atoll (東沙環礁), about 450km southwest of Kaohsiung, as well as the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島), located just west of the atoll, it said, adding that the four stamps have face values of NT$8, NT$13, NT$15, and NT$28 respectively.
The new Chinese Idiom Stories edition has four stamps designed by Tseng Kai-chih (曾凱智), the company said, adding that each illustrates a different idiom and has a face value of NT$8.
The idiom Jiaoxue xiangzhang (教學相長) expresses the idea that teaching benefits both the student and the teacher, the company said.
The expression paozhuan yinyu (拋磚引玉), which literally means “offering bricks to elicit jade,” originated with Tang Dynasty poet Chang Jian (常建), who inscribed two unpolished lines of poetry on a temple wall with the hope that another poet, Zhao Gu (趙嘏), would supply better-crafted lines, it said.
Today, paozhuan yinyu is used to describe a range of scenarios in which a person offers an opinion to spark greater discussion, it added.
Aiwu jiwu (愛屋及烏), which literally means “love house and crow,” can be translated: “When you truly love someone, you love everything connected to them,” it said.
Xuxu rushing (栩栩如生) came from the writings of Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu (莊子) and is used to describe something as being true-to-life, the company said.
Previous editions of the series were released in 2015 and last year, it added.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper