Taiwanese baseball player and New York Yankees pitcher Wang Chien-ming (
Wang, 27, is the only Taiwanese on this year's list, and the third, after President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and film director Ang Lee (李安), to be included in the top 100 since the magazine began running the series in 2004. Wang is also the only baseball player on this year's list.
Wang said through his agent that he was honored to receive the award, and that he would work even harder to live up to people's high expectations of him.
Author Bette Bao Lord, the Shanghai-born wife of former US ambassador to China Winston Lord, wrote the introduction for Wang on the magazine's Web site, comparing him to the first black American to play in the Major Leagues, Jackie Robinson.
She said that Wang, like Robinson, is "chipping away the culture barrier."
Lord, who immigrated to the US from Shanghai in 1946 when she was eight years old, chronicled her own struggles to adapt to US culture and her adoration of Robinson in her book In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson.
Lord described Wang as "one of my tribe."
"In his island home, he is already a supernova. Whenever he pitches, whether it's a live telecast or a rerun, Taiwan ditches its political woes and personal cares to huddle in the most unlikely places -- from bars to beauty parlors to boardrooms -- to cheer Chien-ming," she wrote.
"No matter that the fan shouting alongside is [a] mandarin or mendicant, from the mainland or local born, a great-great-grandma with bound feet or a bare-bottomed tot, the voices are one," Lord wrote.
The 100 people on Time's list are divided into five categories -- leaders and revolutionaries; artists and entertainers; heroes and pioneers; scientists and thinkers; and builders and titans. Wang is listed as No. 57 under "heroes and pioneers."
Editors at the magazine said that more than 100 candidates had been nominated for the category, but only 19 were chosen in the end.
Time began accepting recommendations for more than 1,000 candidates at the end of last year. It made its decisions after holding an online vote and soliciting the opinions of correspondents from around the world.
The magazine will publish the cover story, The People Who Shape Our World, in its May 11 issue.
During the 2006 season Wang won 19 games for the Yankees, the highest win total in baseball.
He finished second in Cy Young Award balloting, despite making one of the lowest salaries in baseball.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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