More than 500 Muslims yesterday gathered at Taipei Railway Station to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the ninth month on the Islamic calendar.
The group mainly comprised of Indonesian migrant workers who shared dishes and exchanged blessings at the gathering, which was organized by the Taipei Foreign and Disabled Labor Office.
The office distributed gifts, such as environmentally friendly utensils and fans, to attendees who uploaded their photographs to Facebook and handed out picnic blankets to those who took part in a Chinese word game.
Photo: CNA
Department Commissioner Lai Hsiang-lin (賴香伶) handed out traditional fragrance sachets to the attendees and extended the Taipei City Government’s well wishes.
“The city government would like Taiwanese to treat migrant workers who are working and living here just as they would treat a fellow compatriot,” Lai said.
Surwanti, an Indonesian caregiver who has been in Taiwan for 14 years, said she was happy to attend the event, adding that her employers treat her well and support her attending Muslim religious events.
As a Muslim, she was touched that Taiwan organized such an event to make her feel at home, she added.
Amalina, an Indonesian domestic helper who has been in Taiwan for four years, said that even though she was far from her family, she was happy to take part in the event, because she was able to spend Eid al-Fitr with her friends.
Taipei Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) said the celebration was important for Indonesian migrant workers and other Muslims in Taiwan, as they had shown their faith by fasting during the month of Ramadan.
“I think that fasting is not only a religious rite, but also a symbol of human rights, as there are many places in the world that are going through rough times, and fasting shows our devotion” to helping others, Tsai said.
The event also gave Taiwanese an opportunity to understand the cultures of migrants to promote friendship, said Tsai, who estimated that there are about 40,000 Indonesian migrant workers in the city.
Eid al-Fitr begins with the first sighting of the new moon, so it varies from country to country depending on geographical location.
In Taiwan, Tuesday was the 30th and last day of Ramadan, during which Muslims abstain from eating and drinking from dawn to dusk, the Taiwan Imams Committee said.
There were 270,890 Indonesian migrant workers in Taiwan as of the end of April, Ministry of Labor statistics showed.
Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority nation in the world.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching