There will be no permanent sitting ban in the main hall of the Taipei Railway Station, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said yesterday, adding that it has placed smiley face decals on the floor to welcome all visitors.
The agency in May said that it would make the temporary ban on sitting on the hall’s floor — imposed as part of disease-prevention measures amid the COVID-19 pandemic — permanent to ensure foot traffic inside the station would not be disrupted.
The announcement infuriated many people, including migrant workers and their supporters, triggering sit-in protests in the hall.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Opponents of the ban said the main hall is a public space that should be accessible to everyone, and the move would further restrict the number of places in Taipei for migrant workers to meet on their days off.
The TRA held two seminars, on May 26 and June 3, to hear from civic groups, non-governmental organizations and experts on how the main hall should be used.
Civic groups held their own meetings on June 11 and Tuesday, reaching a consensus that the main hall should remain open to the public and be used to facilitate civic participation, the TRA said.
“To create a more user-friendly environment, our first step was to put 10 different smiley face decals on the floor to show that the main hall can be used for various purposes and all people are welcome to access the facility,” the agency said.
The word “smile” was translated into 10 languages — Mandarin, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Filipino, Thai and Malaysian — with the decals placed in squares next to the smiley faces to highlight the floor’s checkerboard pattern.
All the decals had been placed by yesterday morning, it said.
“The checkerboard pattern in the main hall has been around for many years, but the use of the public space should be more diverse. Our hope is that people, be they standing or sitting, can come to the main hall and find a place they belong,” it added.
“We will later release proposals on how the main hall should be used to meet diverse demands from the public, including installing seating and allowing non-governmental groups to access the area,” it said.
“These moves demonstrate our commitment to fulfilling our social responsibility and to making the Taipei Railway Station’s main hall a landmark for cultural diversity that is friendly to all,” it said.
Given that COVID-19 has been contained domestically, event organizers are welcome to rent TRA station facilities, provided that participants follow social-distancing guidelines, wear masks and wash their hands frequently, it added.
UKRAINE, NVIDIA: The US leader said the subject of Russia’s war had come up ‘very strongly,’ while Jenson Huang was hoping that the conversation was good Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US President Donald Trump had differing takes following their meeting in Busan, South Korea, yesterday. Xi said that the two sides should complete follow-up work as soon as possible to deliver tangible results that would provide “peace of mind” to China, the US and the rest of the world, while Trump hailed the “great success” of the talks. The two discussed trade, including a deal to reduce tariffs slapped on China for its role in the fentanyl trade, as well as cooperation in ending the war in Ukraine, among other issues, but they did not mention
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday lavished US President Donald Trump with praise and vows of a “golden age” of ties on his visit to Tokyo, before inking a deal with Washington aimed at securing critical minerals. Takaichi — Japan’s first female prime minister — pulled out all the stops for Trump in her opening test on the international stage and even announced that she would nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, the White House said. Trump has become increasingly focused on the Nobel since his return to power in January and claims to have ended several conflicts around the world,
GLOBAL PROJECT: Underseas cables ‘are the nervous system of democratic connectivity,’ which is under stress, Member of the European Parliament Rihards Kols said The government yesterday launched an initiative to promote global cooperation on improved security of undersea cables, following reported disruptions of such cables near Taiwan and around the world. The Management Initiative on International Undersea Cables aims to “bring together stakeholders, align standards, promote best practices and turn shared concerns into beneficial cooperation,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said at a seminar in Taipei. The project would be known as “RISK,” an acronym for risk mitigation, information sharing, systemic reform and knowledge building, he said at the seminar, titled “Taiwan-Europe Subsea Cable Security Cooperation Forum.” Taiwan sits at a vital junction on
LONG-HELD POSITION: Washington has repeatedly and clearly reiterated its support for Taiwan and its long-term policy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday said that Taiwan should not be concerned about being used as a bargaining chip in the ongoing US-China trade talks. “I don’t think you’re going to see some trade deal where, if what people are worried about is, we’re going to get some trade deal or we’re going to get favorable treatment on trade in exchange for walking away from Taiwan,” Rubio told reporters aboard his airplane traveling between Israel and Qatar en route to Asia. “No one is contemplating that,” Reuters quoted Rubio as saying. A US Treasury spokesman yesterday told reporters
RSS