There were a total of 173,000 weddings in this country last year, with nearly 30 percent of the brides hailing from China or Southeast Asian countries, the interior mministry said yesterday.
The latest ministry tallies show that 173,000 couples tied the knot last year, down 0.2 percent from the year-earlier level, representing a marriage rate of about 0.77 percent. Last year's marriage rate was about 0.005 percentage points lower than that posted in 2002.
The number of newlyweds from abroad, however, increased during the same period, with the number foreign-national bride-grooms (including those from Hong Kong, Macau and China) increasing by 1,448, and the number of brides (including those from Hong Kong, Macau and China) growing by 3,557 over the previous year, according to the statistics.
Last year 3.4 percent of the bridegrooms were foreign or Chinese nationals, while 28 percent of the brides were. Of the latter group, nearly 65 percent were Chinese citizens and nearly 35 percent were nationals from Southeast Asia. The average age of the bridegrooms last year was 33.8 years old, compared with 28.4 years old for the brides. A breakdown of the brides' ages show that Taiwanese brides' average age was 28.3, compared with 31.3 for Chinese brides and 23.6 for Southeast Asian brides.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
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