ENTERTAINMENT
Mayday concerts sold out
All 320,000 tickets for Mayday’s eight concerts at the Taipei Dome next month and in July sold out within 10 minutes, the ticketing platform tixCraft said. Sales opened at 11am yesterday, with a small portion of tickets available earlier that day for families and holders of credit cards from sponsor E.Sun Commercial Bank. The concerts are part of the “Mayday #5525 Live Tour,” which began in December 2023 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the rock band’s founding. The concerts would also be the five-member band’s debut at the 40,000-seat Taipei Dome, which opened in late 2023. The eight concerts are scheduled for June 27 to 29, July 4 to 6, and 11 and 12.
Photo courtesy of B’in Music
ASTRONOMY
Meteor shower expected
The Aquarid meteor shower would be visible in the eastern sky from midnight until dawn over the next few days, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said yesterday. The shower is expected to peak early on Tuesday before dawn, with up to 50 meteors visible per hour, the museum said. The moon would be in its first quarter and set before the meteor shower begins, offering good viewing conditions, with little interference from moonlight it said.
DIPLOMACY
Japanese delegation visits
A five-member parliamentary delegation from Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is scheduled to meet with President William Lai (賴清德) during a four-day visit to Taiwan that runs through Tuesday. The delegation, led by former Japanese minister of economy, trade and industry Yasutoshi Nishimura, a member of the lower house of the Japanese Diet, would also meet with former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement yesterday. Nishimura is joined by four other LDP representatives: Kosaburo Nishime, Kazuo Yana, Hajime Sasaki and Ryusho Kato, the ministry said. Nishimura, 62, has also served as Japanese minister of state for economic and fiscal policy and as minister of economic revitalization. He promoted bilateral cooperation between Taiwan and Japan in the semiconductor industry while heading the economy and trade office from 2022 to 2023, the ministry said. The delegation is also scheduled to visit the Hsinchu Science Park and meet with Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝), it said.
ART
Coffin exhibit returns
Five graduating students from Chinese Culture University yesterday brought back their thought-provoking “coffin experience” exhibit at Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB), following high demand after its initial presentation in March. The team, which call themselves “Wanderers,” are from the university’s Department of Mass Communication. Through photography, they explore the themes of life and death, inviting visitors to lie in an actual coffin to contemplate their own mortality. The students said that by breaking the taboo of encountering coffins only in the context of death, they aim to create a space for visitors to reflect on what truly matters in life — who they love and what remains unsaid. The exhibit, which first debuted at the “Wetland” art space in Taipei in March, attracted about 500 visitors in two days and sparked online discussion. The exhibit would be featured as part of the department’s graduation show, “ViewFinder.” The show is to run from 10am to 7pm today on the second floor of the C-LAB Library Exhibition Space in Taipei.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
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