Staff Reporter
The Kaohsiung City Government Education Bureau's recent order that schools in Kaohsiung rename ceremonial podiums used in schoolyards came under fire from pan-blue city councilors during a question-and-answer session at the council yesterday.
The bureau filed an administrative order to all schools in Kaohsiung in late March, asking them to stop calling school podiums "Commander's Podiums" (Silingtai, 司令台).
The podiums in schools nationwide have borne the name since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime arrived in Taiwan.
Flag-raising
The podiums are normally used by school principals or teachers to address students after the flag-raising ceremony in the morning.
Kaohsiung City Councilor Lin Kuo-cheng (林國正) of the KMT yesterday criticized bureau director Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) for politicizing education.
"The Bureau of Education is in charge of education policies and administration," Lin said. "Why doesn't it spend more time thinking about how many pupils cannot afford school lunches instead of such trivial things?"
In his defense, Cheng said the podiums located in schoolyards date back to the authoritarian era and are related to the military.
Better environment
"The bureau issued the order mainly in the hope of offering a better educational environment for the next generation," he said.
Cheng said the order did not force schools to remove the name "Commander's Podium," but hoped schools could rename their podiums creatively.
Democratic Progressive Party Kaohsiung City Councilor Cheng Kuang-feng (鄭光峰) lauded Cheng Ying-yao's idea when asked for his opinion yesterday.
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
RSS