The New Taipei City Library and 19 local temples are giving out stamps to readers who borrow books over the Lunar New Year holiday with the possibility of lighting a free good-fortune lamp (guangmingdeng, 光明燈), a Taoist tradition said to bring a safe and smooth year.
City residents are encouraged to borrow 10 books from library branches near the participating temples, where they can obtain a stamp for the chance to be one of 630 people selected to light a lucky lamp, library director Wang Chin-hua (王錦華) said on Tuesday.
“The event will not only promote reading, but also gain the favor and good fortune of the gods,” the library said.
Photo courtesy of the New Taipei City Sports Office
Meanwhile, the New Taipei City Sports Center is to give out packets of red envelopes from today, New Taipei City Sports Office Director Hung Yu-ling (洪玉玲) said.
The packets contain four large envelopes and a small envelope, each carrying one of four Chinese characters: Fu (富) for “wealth,” Fu (福) for “good fortune,” Fu (腹) for “belly” and Fu (賦) for “gift,” Hung said.
The characters convey having great wealth and being stately, having luck, having intelligence and being rid of excess belly fat, Hung said.
The packets also contain stickers that are more modern and fashionable, Hung said, adding that the New Taipei City Government has only prepared 1,000 packets.
The fitness center at each municipal sports center is also to offer visitors a discount price of NT$20, down from NT$50, from the second to the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, or from Jan. 26 to 29.
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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