One of Taiwan’s largest basketball leagues for Filipino migrant workers began in Taoyuan yesterday, with hundreds of people gathering at a local park for the opening ceremony, while the first nine games were played.
The Chungli Basketball League Inter-factory Winter League saw its 37 teams, primarily of migrant workers from Taiwanese factories from Hsinchu to Taipei, parading in front of a panel of judges who selected the best uniform and best muse, which in Filipino basketball culture are women who encourage support for their teams.
Farshing from Taoyuan mechanical parts maker Atrans Precision Industries Co won the Best Uniform trophy with their maroon, yellow and purple jerseys.
“The colors were selected by members of our team and we have symbols to represent Taiwan and the Philippines to show the close friendship between the people of the two countries,” said Irene Chen (陳冠霖), a human resources manager at the company.
Best Muse went to 24-year-old Patricia Isabel Raviza of the Alpha Beta team.
One of the judges, Sabrina Aaron, director for Assistance to Nationals at the Manila Economic and Cultural Office, praised Raviza for her confidence and poise.
The tournament tipped off yesterday and is expected to run for about three months. It follows the Chungli Basketball Commercial Summer League, which began in March with 54 teams.
Jerry Yang, founder and chairman of the basketball tournament, on Saturday said that he has organized it for more than a decade because of his love of the sport, and to provide a safe and organized environment where Filipino workers can get away from the pressures of work and meet new friends.
According to the Ministry of Labor, there were 155,560 Filipino migrant workers in Taiwan as of the end of last month.
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:
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