More than 500 publishers from 29 countries are attending the Taipei International Book Exhibition this year, which opened at Hall 1 of the Taipei World Trade Center yesterday.
President William Lai (賴清德), Minister of Culture Li Yuan (李遠), Italian Economic, Trade and Cultural Promotion Office Representative Marco Lombardi and Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the opening ceremony.
“There is no guarantee for financial gains if you invest in the stock market, but gains are guaranteed if you invest in yourself by reading books. Knowledge is power, and it is worth it to buy and read books,” Lai told the opening ceremony.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
“Culture is the root of the country and soul of Taiwan. Book publishers are important in transmitting culture. I thank and salute everyone in the publication industry,” he said.
The president also purchased 48 books after visiting different stands at the fair, from Taiwanese writer Ping Lu’s (平路) trilogy of Taiwan, the Taiwanese comic Day Off, an autobiography of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co founder Morris Chang (張忠謀), The Evolution of Deliberative Democracy in Taiwan (台灣審議民主的進化時代) published by the National Taiwan University Press and the Chinese translation of US psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.
Readers aged 18 to 22 can enter the exhibition free of charge with “culture coins,” Li said.
Photo: Hu Shun-hsiang, Taipei Times
The Ministry of Culture began distributing culture coins to teenagers aged 13 to 15 this year, with each person to receive 600.
However, due to budget cuts, they can only receive one coin in return if they use two at the fair, instead of two, Li said.
Readers in the previous exhibitions could redeem their admission fee by buying a book at the fair, but the benefit is now available only to those visiting on weekdays, Li said.
Li, who was a writer and screenwriter before serving as culture minister, also expressed hope that more Taiwanese books could be adapted into movies and TV dramas.
The book fair this year, with the theme “Follow Your Fancy in Reading,” features several pavilions, including those for independent publishers, non-governmental organizations, children’s books, digital and artificial intelligence (AI) publications, Taiwanese comics and publications from Italy, which is the theme country this year.
The exhibition is also presenting books published by Hong Kong writers, some of whom are scheduled to talk at forums during the show.
“Freedom, democracy, human rights and rule of law are vanishing quickly in Hong Kong, causing many of Hong Kong’s artists and writers to come and settle in Taiwan,” Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. “Creativity needs to develop in a free space, which has slowly disappeared. They can regain their creative freedom when they come to Taiwan.”
The digital pavilion features a story jointly created by eight writers with AI called The Hotel of Crossed Destinies.
The exhibition’s forums are also to feature authors from overseas, including Japanese writer Banana Yoshimoto, Italian writers Davide Cali and Fabiano Massimi, and Czech writers Magdalena Platzova and Marek Torcik.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
Taiwan has activated backup communications for its northernmost territory, the remote and strategically located island of Dongyin (東引), after poor weather conditions apparently shifted the wreckage of a ship onto an undersea cable causing it to break. The vulnerability of undersea communication cables linking Taiwan with its outlying islands has been a persistent cause of concern for Taipei, whose government has on several occasions blamed Chinese ships for intentionally causing damage. Dongyin, home to about 1,500 people, sits in a strategic position at the top of the Taiwan Strait and the island has a heavy military presence. It does not have an
RSS