Former first daughter Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤) yesterday threw a fit on the streets of Manhattan, screaming at a group of Taiwanese reporters dogging her every move in New York.
Chen, a dentist, left for New York on Saturday night to take a US dental aptitude test.
As soon as her plane touched down at Newark Airport in New Jersey, she was met by a throng of Taiwanese reporters who continued to follow her around the city.
Screaming at the reporters for some 15 minutes and attracting the attention of many passersby, Chen slammed them for following her everywhere like “flies hovering over my head.”
“Why do you keep following me? I am not a wanted fugitive but you [the press] have been hounding me for six months in Taiwan and in the US,” Chen said in news clips aired by several cable news channels in Taiwan yesterday.
“Do you want me to die? What exactly do you want? All you want is to disturb my life,” Chen said.
Chen Hsing-yu is the only member of former president Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) family who has not been implicated in charges of money-laundering.
Chen Shui-bian is in detention, while his wheelchair-bound wife and son have been indicted and restricted from travel.
Many pan-blue talking heads speculate that the dental aptitude test was just a convenient guise for her to be in the States to take care of business relating to Chen Shui-bian's alleged money-laundering, including meeting with the Chen family's former doctor, Huang Fang-yen (黃芳彥).
Some pan-blue pundits alleged that Huang flew to the US to tie up loose ends on the Chen family's suspect bank accounts.
Chen Hsing-yu denied she had arranged a meeting with Huang.
Asked for comments, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said in Taipei that the media take pity on Chen Hsing-yu and respect her human rights and personal space.
DPP Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) said Taiwanese reporters were stalking Chen Hsing-yu on purpose because they knew they would freak her out by doing so.
“Reporters made her go mad before the camera, film it and then broadcast it to make her a laughingstock in Taiwan and around the world,” Chiu said, urging reporters to stop tormenting her.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅), however, remained skeptical of Chen Hsing-yu's role in the money-laundering case.
KMT caucus deputy secretary-general Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) said Chen Hsing-yu could only blame her plight on her parents, “who were so greedy for money.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY RICH CHANG AND FLORA WANG
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS