The underwear T-shirt brand Wei Sin (維新) may sound familiar to customers who attach great importance to the comfort and durability of their outfits, but few are aware that the shirts are all made in Chiayi Prison.
The brand distributes cotton T-shirts in retail outlets, as well as at prisons and correctional facilities nationwide — excepting Taichung Prison, which has its own production line.
The only difference between the products made available to non-prisoners and prisoners is that the former is sewn with a brand name label, while the latter also comes with a “place of origin” label.
Photo: Wu Shih-tsung, Taipei Times
Approximately 36,000 Wei Sin T-shirts were sold last year.
The brand started in 2001, when Chiayi Prison introduced sewing classes as part of its efforts to equip prisoners with job skills they could use after their release.
The small classroom was later expanded into two sewing factories. The prison then started a clothing brand and named it after the village where the factories are located — Wei Sin Village (維新新村).
The factories employ 300 inmates, who are paid NT$1,800 (US$60) a month for their labor. They also make uniforms for prison night guards and substitute military service members.
The combined annual output of the factories has reached about NT$21 million in value.
Chiayi Prison instructor Kao Fu-chun (高福君) said the factories’ No. 1 priority was to provide the inmates with an opportunity to learn employable skills.
“In the factories, prisoners are required to do everything by themselves, from cutting fabric and sewing the pieces together, to packaging and selling the finished products,” Kao said.
Kao said the factories used only locally made fabrics, with their short-sleeved products being made of 100 percent cotton and long-sleeved ones made of 55 percent cotton.
Despite the shirts being comfortable, a Chiayi inmate who spoke on condition of anonymity said he would never again put on a Wei Sin T-shirt after he was released from prison.
“It is bad luck to wear it,” he said.
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
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
RSS