Striving to serve the local Taiwanese community and preserve the traditional culture of Taiwan, the Yokohama Overseas Chinese School asked visiting Lien Fang Yu (連方瑀), the wife of APEC envoy and former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) for help with the school’s development.
Arriving to a warm welcome as students of the school performed the traditional lion dance and waved the Republic of China flag, Lien Fang visited the Yokohama Overseas Chinese School — founded by Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) in 1897 — as part of her visit to Yokohama’s Chinatown.
Lien Fang arrived in Yokohama on Thursday, accompanying her husband, who is to take part today and tomorrow in APEC summit meetings on behalf of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
After the welcome ceremony, Lien Fang was briefed about the school by school president Shih Huei-chen (施惠珍), before she visited a fourth-grade classroom.
It was during the briefing that the school president told Lien Fang that the school was in constant financial hardship and asked her to deliver a message to the government in Taipei that the school needs more help.
“We’re always having financial difficulties,” Academic Affairs Office director Yang -Ching-huei (楊靜蕙), told the Taipei Times.
“Although we do receive some funds from the Overseas -Compatriots Commission, we depend mostly on tuition fees as a source of income,” she said. “Since our main goal is to serve the Taiwanese community here, we’re charging far less than most other Japanese schools.”
She said the Yokohama Overseas Chinese School charges ￥22,000 (US$268) per student per month at elementary and junior high school levels, and ￥25,000 per student per month at the high school level, while other private schools in Japan charge about ￥50,000 per student per month on average.
“Other than regular expenses, the buildings on campus need some serious renovation work. As you can see, these buildings are very old,” Yang said.
Yang is a retired teacher from Taiwan, who has devoted her time to serving overseas communities since her retirement, which led her to teach in Thailand before moving to Japan.
Although there are also Japanese students and ethnic Chinese students from other countries, 71 percent of the students are either from Taiwan or children of local Taiwanese families, which is the result of the schooling staying “focused,” said Chiang Pin-huei (江品輝), a teacher at the school who moved from Taiwan to Japan about a year ago.
Chiang said that since about half of the teachers are Japanese, both Japanese and Mandarin are used as the instructional languages of the school.
Another teacher at the school, Chang Ma-yun (張瑪雲), said that because of the lack of funds, teachers get paid very little and have to take on more than one person’s work.
“You asked which subject I teach, well, I teach everything because we don’t have enough money to hire more teachers,” Chang said.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS