The Taiwan Cultural Year in Europe initiative launched earlier this year is introducing Taiwanese culture across 26 European countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) announced today.
The campaign “would help the nations of Europe see a side of Taiwan other than technology,” the ministry said in a news release.
The Ministry of Culture, MOFA and the National Palace Museum have collaborated with 30 overseas missions to put on more than 70 events throughout the year, Department of European Affairs Director-General Eric Huang (黃鈞耀) told a news conference.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
This year’s slogan is “From Tech to Culture, Taiwan Leads the Future,” while the logo combines the word “Taiwan” with a Roman column and semiconductor chip motifs.
The event was formulated in February by MOFA and the Ministry of Culture, overseen by Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and Minister of Culture Li Yuan (李遠).
The cultural events are to showcase the nation’s rich cultural heritage and creative spirit, while reflecting its shared values with Europe, including democracy and diversity, Huang said.
"Through a series of cultural activities, Europe can gain a better understanding of Taiwan's rich culture, and allow more Europeans to see the richness of Taiwan through prisms other than technology, economic activity and security," Huang told today’s news conference.
Important events attended by Taiwanese representatives so far this year include Italy’s Venice Biennale, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and Napoli COMICON, he said.
The National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra embarked on a concert tour of Austria and Lithuania last month, while the Taiwanese Indigenous Children’s Choir — VOX Nativa — performed in the Vatican, Germany and Austria, and were granted an audience with the Pope, he added.
In the latter half of the year, pieces from the National Palace Museum are to be exhibited in the Czech Republic and France in September and November respectively, MOFA said.
Meanwhile, U-Theatre, a performance group combining Taoism, drumming and art, is to perform in Italy, Greece, France and Bulgaria in September and December, its Web site states.
The National Chinese Orchestra and Ju Percussion Group are to also be touring Europe in the coming months, Huang said.
Additional reporting by CNA
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS