Cheng Hsiu-wei (鄭秀煒), who began a career in floral design by selling flowers as a street vendor, won a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show for outstanding floral design on May 24 in London. Now she says she hopes one day to decorate Buckingham Palace with orchids from Taiwan.
“This is not only a dream. Dreams come true when they are heartfelt,” she said.
Cheng began selling earrings, necklaces and nail polish at a street stall after graduating from college.
Photo courtesy of Cheng Hsiu-wei
After she was married, Cheng and her husband opened a flower stall by their home in Chungli, Taoyuan County, with a start-up cost of less than NT$3,000.
After earning some money, they opened a flower shop, but business was slow. She decided to close the store and moved all of her flowers outside for a final sale.
At one point a Buddhist nun went through her store and told her: “Flowers make people happy. Selling flowers could bring good fortune.”
After that, Cheng changed her mind and decided to keep the store open.
However, Cheng altered her business strategy after studying floral design with the aim of turning flowers into stylish works of art.
“I studied floral design in Germany and Switzerland, and often watched flower shows in Japan, the US and European countries. Over a decade, I invested more than NT$10 million [US$347,000] in learning floral design,” she said.
However, her floral designs did not prove popular in Taiwan. Traditionally, Taiwanese like to decorate weddings with red flowers, which represent good fortune. On one occasion, clients were so upset that she added white lilium formosanum to red roses that they plucked them out.
Most clients did not like her designs and her husband recommended that she limit herself to selling flowers, while providing simple arrangements free of charge.
Refusing to give up, Cheng began to explain her design ideas to her clients.
“Because of my insistence, my floral designs gained acceptance with a growing number of people,” she said.
The Chelsea Flower Show is seen as the Oscars of floral design, she said, adding that this was the only flower show officially visited by Queen Elizabeth II.
Cheng made her first entry at the Chelsea Flower Show competition last year, where she won a silver medal.
“We were not as well prepared in 2010, given the limited amount of time we had to plan and design our display,” she said.
“This year we chose to use 100 different orchids in the pavilion,” she said, adding that the display resembled a church filled with 4,000 orchids, from 100 different varieties.
The hard work finally paid off, Cheng said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by