The Tourism Bureau yesterday said it had sent its regards to a Taiwanese tour guide who was slapped by Chinese tourists after their flight was canceled.
Flights between Kinmen and Taiwan were unable to cope with the number of tourists flying to Taiwanese mainland after heavy fog earlier this week caused airlines to divert and cancel most flights.
Tempers flared among some Chinese tourists after they were informed that they would not be able to catch a flight or book a hotel for days, forcing them to sleep under military blankets in the airport.
A group of Chinese tourists were caught on television slapping a female Taiwanese tour guide on Thursday after she informed the tourists that their flight had been canceled.
Bureau officials said they had sent their regards to the tour guide, adding that it had also reported the names of the Chinese tourists involved in the incident to China’s Cross-Strait Tourism Association and asked the association to demand that the tourists not slap people again.
In related news, three military cargo planes that were mobilized to fly hundreds of stranded Taiwanese vacationers from Kinmen County have arrived back on the Taiwanese mainland.
The Ministry of Defense-operated C-130s returned after picking up more than 400 tourists, although news reports yesterday said hundreds of vacationers were still unable to catch a flight out.
Kinmen airport officials said that each of the three C-130s made two round trips taking an average of 70 passengers on each flight from Kinmen to Taiwan. Four of the flights were made to Taipei and a further two to Taichung.
According to information from Kinmen’s airport, flights have been operating normally since yesterday morning after parts of the heavy fog lifted. Airlines have also promised extra flights during the next few days to ensure that the last of the stranded passengers makes it home safely.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
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