National Chengchi University (NCCU) and the Ministry of Education are investigating an alleged fight between a professor and a student over a disagreement over wing chun, a Chinese martial art, the university said yesterday.
A post on a Facebook page used by NCCU students said that during a lecture on insurance law, a student told the professor that “wing chun is only used for close-quarters combat and can only best farmers.”
Notable practitioners of wing chun include Ip Man (葉問) and Bruce Lee (李小龍).
Photo provided by National Chengchi University
The professor asked the student to spar with him and the student was given the first opportunity to strike, the Facebook post said.
The professor taunted the student, repeatedly saying: “Come on,” and hit the student in the head and stomach multiple times, despite the student acknowledging that he had been wrong about wing chun, the post said.
The student nearly fell out of a window, a comment on the post said.
The professor insisted that he had not instigated the fight and was simply giving the student an opportunity to learn that wing chun is not useful only in close-quarters combat, the post said.
Commenters claiming to be part of the class wrote that the professor has said: “Brute force has, since the days of antiquity, always been the most efficient manner of resolving conflict.”
Another comment jokingly said that “wing chun is not used only to beat farmers, but also students,” while another said that the student “learned his lesson for mouthing off to the professor.”
The NCCU Student Affairs Office said that the institute’s military instructor was concerned about the student’s injuries and called on people in the class who recorded the incident to show it the footage.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Monday called for greater cooperation between Taiwan, Lithuania and the EU to counter threats to information security, including attacks on undersea cables and other critical infrastructure. In a speech at Vilnius University in the Lithuanian capital, Tsai highlighted recent incidents in which vital undersea cables — essential for cross-border data transmission — were severed in the Taiwan Strait and the Baltic Sea over the past year. Taiwanese authorities suspect Chinese sabotage in the incidents near Taiwan’s waters, while EU leaders have said Russia is the likely culprit behind similar breaches in the Baltic. “Taiwan and our European
The Taipei District Court sentenced babysitters Liu Tsai-hsuan (劉彩萱) and Liu Jou-lin (劉若琳) to life and 18 years in prison respectively today for causing the death of a one-year-old boy in December 2023. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that Liu Tsai-hsuan was entrusted with the care of a one-year-old boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), in August 2023 by the Child Welfare League Foundation. From Sept. 1 to Dec. 23 that year, she and her sister Liu Jou-lin allegedly committed acts of abuse against the boy, who was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries on Dec. 24, 2023, but did not