The Ministry of the Interior yesterday inaugurated a “Temple Stay in Taiwan” program that aims to allow domestic and foreign travelers to get a taste of the nation’s religious culture by spending a night at selected Buddhist and Catholic monasteries.
Accompanied by Buddhist Master and founder of Ling Jiou Mountain Monastery Shih Hsin-tao (釋心道), Mount Beatitude Catholic Monastery social welfare center director Yang Yi-tai (楊毅台) and Shan Chih Buddhist Monastery planning department director Yen Shao-cheng (顏紹丞), as well as professional baseball players Chou Si-chi (周思齊) and Chang Cheng-wei (張正偉), Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) unveiled the five religious institutions selected as the first Temple Stay in Taiwan locations.
“Taiwan has a rich and diverse religious culture and it’s the biggest treasure that Taiwan has,” Lee said at a press conference introducing the program at Ling Jiou Mountain Monastery in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), yesterday. “I often tell my friends from abroad that they don’t need to go to Taipei 101, but should rather visit monasteries and temples.”
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Taipei Times
Lee said that the program would not only benefit visitors culturally and spiritually, but would also help the areas in which the monasteries are situated to develop a local tourism industry.
“For example, when you visit Ling Jiou Mountain Monastery, you can also visit the fishing village of Gongliao and go to the beach nearby,” Lee said.
Following the press conference, Lee took part in meditation, tea drinking and calligraphy sessions, as well as learning how to enjoy a meal in a Zen Buddhist manner.
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Taipei Times
“The ultimate idea behind the Zen lifestyle is to help everyone lead a simple life,” Buddhist Master Shih Miao-yung (釋妙用) explained to Lee and the other visitors. “We eat food with the least processing so that we can savor the original taste of the food, we appreciate everything we receive from society, we give best wishes to everyone in the society and we try to help other people as much as possible.”
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫) plans to take to the courts of the Australian Open for the first time as a competitor in the high-stakes 1 Point Slam. The Australian Open yesterday afternoon announced the news on its official Instagram account, welcoming Chou — who celebrates his 47th birthday on Sunday — to the star-studded lineup of the tournament’s signature warm-up event. “From being the King of Mandarin Pop filling stadiums with his music to being Kato from The Green Hornet and now shifting focus to being a dedicated tennis player — welcome @jaychou to the 1 Point Slam and #AusOpen,” the
RSS