Next year's presidential election will be Chen Shui-bian's (
"I am quite happy about next year's election. The first reason is that we just had a new member of the family, small An-an [her grandson Chao Yi-an (
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
"The second reason is that in next year's election, no matter the outcome, it will be Chen Shui-bian's last battle. After that I don't have to campaign for him anymore," she said.
"He will be campaigning for me in the future instead," Wu, who was once a legislator, joked.
Wu made the statement during a tea party at the president's residence yesterday. The president and the first lady threw the party for physically and mentally handicapped children, Vincent Kabore from Burkina Faso and Huynh Thi Van from Vietnam who came to Taiwan for medical treatment, and "doctor dogs," which are trained to help people with various therapies.
The dogs were the stars at the party. Chen and Wu played with the dogs and Chen addressed the issue of China and Taiwan again by telling a story of his dogs, Yung-ko (
"When I look at the doctor dogs, I think of my own Yung-ko and Honey. There was one day when Yung-ko and Honey got into a fight, and I asked them what happened," Chen said.
"Yung-ko said that Honey tried to provoke him, and I thought, how would 2kg Honey have wanted to provoke 30kg Yung-ko? Then Honey told me that Yung-ko aimed his slingshot at her, and she just shouted, `don't hurt me,' and Yung-ko said it was provocation."
Wu also recounted the story of their golden retriever, Freedom. She said that when they had Freedom, they gave it the best care they could, but it died after eight months because of kidney problems.
"But my daughter saw a dog on the street one day, and it was led by a poor old man collecting garbage. It was rainy and cold, and that dog was only covered by plastic. Yet that dog seemed to survive well," Wu said.
"Sometimes people are like that. They live better when they are in an harsh environment," she said.
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More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
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