The Children's Bureau of the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) plans to set aside a budget to subsidize daycare costs for middle and low income households with foreign spouses. \nAt a children and youth welfare conference held by the bureau last week, the budget proposal was brought up as a response to the increasing number of children born to intercultural couples. \n"The budget aims to assist households with foreign spouses whose children are aged two years or older and who need pre-school daycare services," the bureau stated last week in a press release. \n"The plan to set aside a daycare budget is to assist those families in which the parents may not serve as a source of pre-school education for the children. Also, the budget may prevent delays in the learning process or learning disadvantages for children in interracial families due to incomplete cultural understanding," the bureau said. \nAccording to the bureau, several government offices, including the social, public health and education administrations, are working together to provide counseling services to intercultural families. \n"In order to have professional counselors to treat all foreign spouses equally and with respect, starting next year, training workshops will be set up to enable specialized social counselors to learn more about intercultural families. Furthermore, these workshops will help personnel to better assess identity issues for children in such households," the bureau stated. \nSo far, the bureau has printed pamphlets on the topic of parenting. The pamphlet is called a "Parenting guide for parents with children between the ages of 0 and 3." \nThe guide has been printed in Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai and English. \nA similar guide for parents with older children is currently available in Chinese and is being translated into other languages.
A Keelung high school on Saturday night apologized for using a picture containing a Chinese flag on the cover of the senior yearbook, adding that it has recalled the books and pledged to provide students new ones before graduation on Thursday. Of 309 Affiliated Keelung Maritime Senior High School of National Taiwan Ocean University graduates, 248 had purchased the yearbook. Some students said that the printer committed an outrageous error in including the picture, while others said that nobody would notice such a small flag on the cover. Other students said that they cared more about the photographs of classmates and what was
GOING INTERNATIONAL: Rakuten Girls squad leader Ula Shen said she was surprised that baseball fans outside of Taiwan not only knew of them, but also knew their names Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Oakland Athletics on Saturday hosted its first Taiwanese Heritage Day event at the Oakland Coliseum with a performance by Taiwanese cheerleading squad the Rakuten Girls and a video message from Vice President William Lai (賴清德). The Rakuten Girls, who are the cheerleaders for the CPBL’s Rakuten Monkeys, performed in front of a crowd of more than 2,000 people, followed by a prerecorded address by Lai about Taiwan’s baseball culture and democratic spirit. Taiwanese pitcher Sha Tzu-chen (沙子宸), who was signed by the Athletics earlier this year, was also present. Mizuki Lin (林襄), considered a “baseball cheerleading goddess” by Taiwanese
WAY OF THE RUKAI: ‘Values deemed worthy often exist amid discomfort, so when people go against the flow, nature becomes entwined with our lives,’ a student said “Run, don’t walk” after your dreams, Nvidia cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) told National Taiwan University (NTU) graduates yesterday, as several major universities held in-person graduation ceremonies for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. “What will you create? Whatever it is, run after it. Run, don’t walk. Remember, either you’re running for food, or you are running from becoming food. Oftentimes, you can’t tell which. Either way, run,” he said. Huang was one of several tech executives addressing graduating students at Taiwanese universities. National Chengchi University held two ceremonies, with alumnus Patrick Pan (潘先國), who is head of Taiwan
A 14-legged giant isopod is the highlight of a new dish at a ramen restaurant in Taipei and it has people lining up — both for pictures and for a bite from this bowl of noodles. Since “The Ramen Boy” launched the limited-edition noodle bowl on Monday last week, declaring in a social media post that it had “finally got this dream ingredient,” more than 100 people have joined a waiting list to dine at the restaurant. “It is so attractive because of its appearance — it looks very cute,” said the 37-year-old owner of the restaurant, who wanted to be