Hundreds of thousands of people lined up at post offices nationwide yesterday morning to purchase the commemorative stamps issued for President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) inauguration.
Each set contains four stamps featuring the president and Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) and the first day cover, an envelope issued specifically for the occasion.
Taiwan Post estimated it sold 1 million sets yesterday.
At the main Taipei Post Office, 68-year-old Lin Rey-yao (林瑞曜) was busy pasting the commemorative stamps on the first day cover as he spoke with the Taipei Times. He purchased 10 sets, which he sent only to himself.
“I do this for fun,” he said, adding that he had also bought the commemorative stamps for the inauguration of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) in 1996.
Forty-year-old Mr Chen waited for two hours before he could put his hands on the sets he had ordered. He said he had purchased the stamps not only because Ma was president, but also because the Chinese characters for “Republic of China” were once again on the stamps.
Last year, the stamps issued by Taiwan Post Co only bore the name Taiwan.
Meanwhile, to welcome Japanese guests, the Office of the President ordered 90 lunch boxes made by the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA).
Ma said the TRA lunch boxes were to reflect the fact that the railway infrastructure was mostly built during the Japanese colonial era, while the High Speed Rail was inspired by Japan’s Shinkansen line.
Each TRA lunch box contained a deep-fried cutlet, fried rice, Taiwanese sauerkraut, potherb mustard, as well as an iron-made container carved with “the 120th anniversary of the TRA” in Chinese characters and an image of a TRA train. The lunch box cost NT$300 and is only available at the Taipei Main Station.
The public can also buy the same meal, packed in a wooden container with a plastic lid, at a cost of NT$100.
Lee Yu-hsia (李玉霞), the TRA’s kitchen manager at Taipei Main Station, said the lunch box was popular among Japanese tourists.
AGGRESSION: China’s latest intrusions set a new benchmark for its ‘gray zone’ tactics and possibly a new pattern that it would attempt to normalize, a researcher said China’s latest military exercises represent a new challenge to Taiwan’s legal authority to demarcate its borders in the Taiwan Strait, a defense expert said, adding that the fleets in the latest exercises were likely the most powerful the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ever assembled. The PLA conducted military exercises from Sunday last week to 6am on Friday, which encompassed large swathes of the western Pacific, including the Taiwan Strait and waters off the Philippines and Guam, National Policy Foundation associate research fellow Chieh Chung (揭仲) said on Friday. The Ministry of National Defense said that it detected 70 warship and 162 aircraft
DOMESTIC MARKET: To protect the livelihoods of local egg farmers, the government adopted a new method for releasing imported eggs, the agriculture minister said More than 54 million imported eggs will be disposed, as their expiration date has passed, Minister of Agriculture Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said yesterday. Chen made the remarks at a news conference in Taipei, explaining the flow of imported eggs following recent controversies regarding the products. The ministry introduced a special egg import program to address a nationwide egg shortage earlier this year. However, controversies have risen in recent weeks. These included an accusation that the government helped some egg importing companies over others, eggs imported from Brazil that had an incorrect expiration date, and egg shipments from Brazil that were found
PACIFIC OCEAN: Defense experts have warned that the ‘Shandong,’ China’s second largest aircraft carrier, poses a serious threat to eastern Taiwan’s defenses The drills conducted by the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong in the Western Pacific last week were more aimed at showcasing China’s military capabilities to the US rather than toward Taiwan, a Taiwanese defense expert said yesterday. Lin Yin-yu (林穎佑), an assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, said the drills which involved dozens of warplanes sought to test China’s anti-access and area denial capabilities should the US and its allies attempt to interfere in a cross-strait conflict. Lin said that the latest Chinese drills coincided with a joint maritime exercise conducted by the US, South Korea
Thousands of bottles of Sriracha have been returned or destroyed after the discovery of excessive sulfur dioxide, a bleaching agent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday. About 12,600 bottles totaling 9,991.8kg of the hot sauce imported from the US by Emporium Corp (河洛企業) were flagged at the border for containing illegal levels of sulfur dioxide, the FDA said in its regular border inspection announcement. Inspectors discovered 0.5g per kilogram of the common bleaching agent and preservative, higher than the 0.03g permitted, it said. As it is the first time within six months the product has been flagged, Sriracha products from
RSS