The first Taiwan-affiliated Mandarin learning center in Belgium was inaugurated on Friday, with its principal expressing hope that the school can enhance local understanding of Taiwan.
The Taiwan Center for Mandarin Learning would provide an opportunity for locals to learn more about Taiwan and to further engage with the country, said the center’s head Kuo Feng-hsi (郭鳳西), who has lived in Brussels for more than 50 years.
Many people in Belgium have a good impression of Taiwan and are interested in learning more about the country, Kuo said at the plaque-unveiling ceremony.
Photo: CNA
The language-learning center offers a great opportunity for people in Brussels, including diplomats, to learn about Taiwan and Taiwanese culture, Belgian lawmaker Emmanuel de Bock said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC), a Cabinet-level body which serves expatriates of Taiwan, has assisted overseas Taiwanese compatriot communities and operates 66 such centers in the West.
Among them, 54 are in the US, with two each in France, Germany and the UK, one each in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ireland, Sweden, while the one in Brussels is the latest addition, the OCAC said.
Taiwan is one of the few places in the world that uses traditional Chinese characters, which are enriched with cultural quintessence, making Taiwan the top choice to learn written Chinese, Department of European Affairs Director-General Remus Chen (陳立國) said.
Coupled with various scholarships offered by the Taiwanese government, the language center aims to attract more international students to study in Taiwan, he added.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
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