After overcoming several challenges, a woman from Madagascar has finally met with her relatives in Taiwan, realizing her father’s dream of many years.
Her father, who is a member of the Amis community, which is concentrated in Taitung County, went to Madagascar in his 30s — about 40 years ago — with a Taiwanese mission to help with the development of agriculture in that country.
After he arrived, he married a local woman, according to Taitung police, who helped the woman to find her relatives.
Over the past few years, the man, surnamed Yang (陽), began to miss his family in Taiwan, but his poor health meant he was unable to make the long flight back, so he asked his wife, Razafzna, and daughter, Yang Yuh-jen, to go instead.
Carrying a letter from her father to his family members in Taiwan, the daughter arrived with her mother earlier this month, and they traveled to Taitung County to look for their relatives, police said on Tuesday.
They said they faced many challenges, because they were unfamiliar with the county and do not speak Mandarin.
They said they later decided to turn to police in the county’s Malan Village for help.
The police went through their records and found some residents surnamed Yang, who also had a relative who went to East Africa about four decades ago.
Seeing the letter and the genealogy presented by the younger Yang, a Taiwanese woman identified the man who wrote the letter as her elder brother.
The daughter was happy to have realized her father’s dream, police said.
After the man got married, he had returned to Taiwan only once, but did not get to meet any family members, because they had moved away from the area, police quoted the women as saying.
The two women have returned to Madagascar.
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56