Chin Shih Ruan, a Vietnamese woman married to a Taiwan national, said she is thrilled to be attending a class set up by a charity organization to train interpreters -- which she said will at least help solve the problem of "ordering food" in Taiwan.
Ruan said that for the first week after she first arrived in Taiwan, she was given noodles every time she ordered food simply because she did not know the Mandarin Chinese word for "rice."
After hearing that the Eden Social Welfare Foundation was organizing a class exclusively to teach Vietnamese wives in Taiwan how to speak Mandarin Chinese as well as how to be Vietnamese-Chinese interpreters, Ruan signed up without hesitation and with the full support of her husband.
Eden is aiming to train 20 Vietnamese wives in Taiwan to be seed teachers who will in turn help out other Vietnamese women who don't speak Chinese in everyday life and help them to adapt to Taiwan society more quickly after marrying Taiwanese men.
During the three-month class, the Vietnamese women will also be taught about Taiwan's laws and regulations and social welfare programs pertaining to foreign wives in Taiwan, an Eden foundation spokesman said.
From the 85 telephone calls made by Vietnamese women to the foundation seeking advice between January and March of this year, the foundation found out that the Vietnamese wives face various problems, ranging from marital communication and employment to children's education and official paperwork, all derived from language barriers and a lack of knowledge about Taiwan's cultural background and laws.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
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