Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Kaohsiung City councilors on Thursday said that the city government has developed a “culture of sucking up to Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜),” after the Kaohsiung Education Bureau used a Ferris wheel emblem on the cover of commendations for schoolchildren.
While the bureau said it selected the design from submissions by contractors and it is supposed to “symbolize the spirit of going ever upward,” Han last year on the campaign trail repeatedly touted the idea of building a “Ferris Wheel of Love” in the city.
At a news conference, Kaohsiung City councilors Kang Yu-cheng (康裕成), Huang Wen-yi (黃文益) and Lin Chih-hung (林智鴻) said that Han has been promoting a cult of personality at the local government.
Photo: Huang Hsu-lei, Taipei Times
Han is contenting himself with printing the Ferris wheel on paper because he has not managed to build it by the Love River (愛河) as promised, Kang said.
“A Ferris wheel goes up and down; ever upward is not how it works,” Kang added.
“Like the Tourism Bureau’s festival for bald people, the emblem design absolutely was the product of people sucking up to Han,” Huang said. “It shows just how much the culture of sucking up to the mayor has spread.”
Han’s talk of “personnel adjustments” has led city officials who fear losing their jobs or are ambitious about their advancement to compete to flatter the mayor, Lin said.
Kaohsiung City Councilor Huang Jie (黃捷) of the New Power Party said that the Ferris wheel has no significance to learning or education, and the use of the image “serves as a reminder that the mayor’s promises are empty.”
Kaohsiung City Council Deputy Speaker Lu Shu-mei (陸淑美) said critics of the design are “making a big deal out of nothing.”
“Children like Ferris wheels ... they expand their horizons, so what is wrong with it?” Lu said.
A poll of 10 randomly chosen recipients, who are elementary and junior-high students, showed that seven liked the emblem and two disliked it, with the other student not having an opinion.
Additional reporting by Huang Hsu-lei
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