More than a dozen groups yesterday morning performed as part of the Double Ten National Day ceremony in front the Presidential Office Building in Taipei, including dancers, drummers and marching bands from the US and Japan.
The 112th annual ceremony, themed “2023 Taiwan National Day — Celebrating Taiwan’s Democracy and Enduring Resilience,” started at 8:53am with the Taipei Municipal Chien Kuo High School Marching Band performing Home Is Where the Heart Is.
They were followed by a series of performances by a drum troupe, dancers and combat demonstrations by the Republic of China (ROC) Armed Forces and Army Academy. Also featured were a traditional folk performance and lion dance performance by the National Center for Traditional Arts, before a military honor guard and marching band performance ended the opening section.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
After honored foreign guests left the Presidential Office Building to attend the ceremony, the second section of the ceremony began with the ROC national flag being carried overhead by a CH-47 Chinook medium transport helicopter, escorted by two Black Hawk helicopters, as attendees stood for the national anthem.
The anthem was performed by six CPBL baseball players and the National Magong High School choir, while livestream video showed naval officers of the ROCS Yushan, an amphibious transport dock, in Kaohsiung’s Toshien harbor (左營軍港).
After addresses by Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫?) and an overseas Taiwanese representative, the National Day praise this year was performed in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), which included a poetry recitation about the difficulties in achieving democracy and freedom in Taiwan, and a song called Taiwan Always Exist, which called for Taiwanese to support each other.
Photo: AP
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) delivered her National Day address titled “A calm and confident Taiwan: Moving our country forward, making the world a better place.”
The third section of the ceremony included a special performance by the Emerald Knights marching band from Tokyo University of Agriculture’s Second High School, which played theme songs from Japanese anime, such as One Piece, Chibi Maruko-chan and Slam Dunk.
The University of California, Los Angeles’ Bruin Marching Band also performed, playing Baila Esta Cumbia by late US Tejano singer Selena.
Photo: AP
Toward the end of the ceremony, National Taiwan Sport University students performed a martial arts demonstration, followed by recognition for national athletes who won medals at the FISU University Games in Chengdu, China, in July and August, the U-18 Baseball World Cup in Taiwan last month and the recently completed Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
The finale was a flyover by six AT-3 trainer jets of the air force’s Thunder Tiger Aerobatics Team that left trails of blue, red and white smoke, representing the colors of the national flag, over the Presidential Office Building.
Photo: AP
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS