A public event for Vyshyvanka Day, an annual celebration of Ukrainian folk traditions, was held in Taipei yesterday, with organizers saying that they hoped to raise awareness of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.
The celebration, organized by Taiwan Stands With Ukraine (TSWU), a volunteer organization founded in Taipei in response to the Russian invasion, was held at an outdoor venue near the Guting MRT Station and featured a picnic and market selling Ukrainian food, beer and souvenirs.
TSWU member and Ukrainian Oleksandr Shyn said that Vyshyvanka Day is dedicated to the tradition of embroidering vyshyvanka shirts, which have become a celebrated symbol globally of Ukrainian culture.
Photo: CNA
While Vyshyvanka Day is normally celebrated on the third Sunday in May, with festive events such as picnics, markets and parades, the war has prevented people in Ukraine from enjoying it to the fullest this year, Shyn added.
“But here in Taiwan, the picnic is a great opportunity to show people that Ukrainian culture matters and that it is a beautiful culture,” he said.
Shyn hoped the picnic would raise awareness and bring in more donations, he said, adding that all of the funds raised at the event were to be donated to groups providing humanitarian aid to Ukrainian refugees.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
“The war is still going on, even though people talk about it less — it is still happening,” he said.
Visitors to the event could buy unique “Ukraine + Taiwan” embroidered stickers, as well as make their own motanka dolls.
Anastasiia Palamarchuk, a Ukrainian who came to Taiwan on an Academia Sinica scholarship and was responsible at yesterday’s event for teaching people how to make the motanka dolls, said that Ukrainians used to keep such dolls in their homes for protection and to bring blessings to their families.
Traditionally associated with fertility, motanka dolls now symbolize healing, protection and family ancestors, Palamarchuk said.
In Ukraine, Palamarchuk said, she made motanka dolls to send to soldiers for good luck.
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
RSS