CULTURE
Macau Orchestra to visit
The Macau Orchestra is to perform in Taiwan for the first time during a concert tour opening today, performing works by Rachmaninoff and other masters. Led by artistic director and principal conductor Lu Jia (呂嘉), the orchestra will hold concerts in Taipei today, in Hsinchu on Saturday, in Greater Kaohsiung on Monday and in Greater Taichung on Tuesday, said the tour’s promoter, New Aspect, Environment, Culture & Creation. Taiwanese pianist Rueibin Chen (陳瑞斌) is to join the orchestra in performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, while Chinese pipa player Zhang Hongyan (章紅艷) is to perform Little Sisters of the Grassland, a Chinese pipa concerto composed by Liu Dehai (劉德海), Wu Zuqiang (吳祖強) and Wang Yanqiao (王燕樵).
CULTURE
NY to show Taiwanese films
Four Taiwan-produced films will be screened at the upcoming 37th Asian American International Film Festival in New York, with each showing a different side of Taiwanese society. The films include director Cho Li’s (卓立) The Rice Bomber, based on the true story of Yang Ju-men (楊儒門), a man who planted 17 rice-filled explosive devices in Taiwan in 2003 and 2004 to protest what he saw as the government’s neglect of farmers. Also to be shown are director Chang Tso-chi’s (張作驥) A Time in Quchi, a film about a boy who comes of age while visiting his grandfather in rural Quchi in New Taipei City, and US director Henry Chan’s (陳發中) romantic comedy 100 Days, which concerns a career-obsessed man who returns to his hometown after his mother’s death, only to run into his childhood sweetheart. The black-and-white short A Breath From the Bottom by director Chan Ching-lin (詹京霖) is also to be screened at the festival, which takes place from July 24 to Aug. 2.
SOCIETY
Charities report missions
Taiwanese charity groups traveled to remote areas of Sri Lanka and Mongolia earlier this month to provide medical services to people in the countries, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which covered part of the missions’ costs. The Taiwan Root Medical Peace Corps provided free treatment for people in southern Sri Lanka on a July 5 to 13 medical mission, Department of NGO International Affairs director-general Ray Mou (牟華瑋) said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Bliss and Wisdom Cultural Foundation sent a mission to Mongolia from July 6 until Thursday last week, Mou said. During its trip, the mission provided clinical services, basic checkups and seminars on health education.
SOCIETY
Global affairs camp to open
A summer camp aimed at increasing young people’s understanding of international affairs and the development of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is to be held next month in Taipei, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The ministry is commissioning the Taipei-based Ming Chuan University to organize the five-day camp, which is to begin on Aug. 13, said Ray Mou (牟華瑋), director-general of the ministry’s Department of NGO International Affairs Lectures. The camp will include discussions on topics such as eradicating poverty, encouraging sustainable development and gender equality, he said, adding that visits to local NGOs would also be part of the itinerary. The camp is open to those aged 18 to 35, and proficiency in English is required, as it is an all-English-language program, Mou added. This is second year that the camp is being conducted solely in English.
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
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
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
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