Hundreds of thousands of people across Taiwan spent the last night of the millennium partying, especially on the beaches along the east coast where the first rays of sunlight would shine, marking a new year.
More than 100,000 people gathered at the Lungpan Park (
On the beach of Taimali, the day broke at 5:45am, sending the crowds into a euphoric roar. Unfortunately, most other places along the coast were cloaked in heavy clouds until well after 6am.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
During the night, hundreds of thousands of people participated in celebratory rallies and concerts from Taipei to Kaohsiung.
In the plaza in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, more than 100,000 participated in the celebrations featuring media celebrities and a last minute appearance of Vice President Lien Chan (
The crowds went into a frenzy just before midnight, throwing fluorescent tubes and plastic bottles onto the stage as Lien spoke. Lien responded by throwing his cap into the crowd.
In the Taipei City Hall plaza, 100,000 people attending another millennium party featuring mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
The National Palace Museum also offered free-of-charge entry at many of its exhibitions from 8pm to 11:40pm last night.
More than 10,000 people went to the midnight party held in front of the museum.
In Taipei, nine couples held their wedding ceremonies in front of the presidential office at 4am. A total of 32 couples tied the knot at the Taipei District Court yesterday morning, despite the fact that the Chinese lunar calendar bore no special recommendation for marriage.
"We don't care if it's a good day on the lunar calendar. We know that [couples married on] the first day of the millennium will be together till death," said one bride.
Entry tickets were sold out last night at many of the pubs and discos across the city, despite the inflated cover charges. Many places raised their prices from the usual NT$200 to NT$500 to NT$400 to NT$1,200.
The city's major hotels also saw record-breaking attendance at their millennium parties, with over 3,000 people crowding into the lobbies of the Grand Hyatt and Formosa Regent.
Meanwhile, in Taipei County's Pinghsi (
The party reached its climax at midnight with the lift-off of a giant lantern 18.98-meters tall and weighing 200 kilograms. The lantern, which now claims a place in the Guiness Book of World Records, carried the words "Keep going Taiwan -- peace." The lantern was released amid prayers by a Taoist organization.
Thousands of other lanterns also floated skyward in other villages and cities across Taiwan bearing hopes for peace and rapid recovery from the massive September 21 earthquake.
On Orchid Island off Taiwan's east coast, men of the Yami tribe rowed in traditional wooden boats to meet the dawn.
In Kaohsiung City, some 100,000 people gathered at an evening gala at the city's culture center for a millennium countdown led by mayor Frank Hsieh (
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has