As the year comes to a close, the Chinese-language United Daily News and Taiwan Realty Co have unveiled their respective “words of the year,” with both picks showing a sense of pessimism in a year marred by food safety scandals and rising home prices.
The United Daily News’ choice, “fake” (假), garnered nearly 18,000 votes from 62,000 respondents in a telephone survey conducted between Nov. 14 and Thursday.
The winning word was selected from a list of 57 candidates compiled by the paper and the Far Eastern Y.Z. Hsu Science & Technology Memorial Foundation.
“Fake” garnered the most votes and enjoyed the largest margin of victory yet seen in the six years that the poll has been held.
More than half of the candidate words this year had a negative connotation, United Daily News chief editor Sunny You (游美月指) said, reflecting the high level of public unease and distrust.
Echoing the negative sentiment was Taiwan Realty’s word of the year: “worry” (憂).
“Worry” was selected by 23 percent of the 1,367 respondents who took part in the poll, which is now in its fifth year and was conducted between Nov. 20 and Friday.
The online survey allowed participants to vote for up to three words from 20 options, each carrying a description explaining why that word represented the property market this year.
The description for the winning word chosen by 314 respondents said: “Worrying about not being able to buy a home with one’s current income,” Taiwan Realty said.
According to the real-estate agency, the average price of a house has risen by between 1 percent and 8 percent across the five municipalities in the time since the registration of actual transaction prices became mandatory on Aug. 1 last year.
The average price of all housing units rose between 2 percent and 12 percent during that period.
Amid little to no income growth, rising property prices have forced buyers to choose smaller homes, said Yeh Li-min (葉立敏), head of a Taiwan Realty research unit.
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
Weather conditions across Taiwan are expected to remain stable today, but cloudy to rainy skies are expected from tomorrow onward due to increasing moisture in the atmosphere, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). Daytime highs today are expected to hit 25-27°C in western Taiwan and 22-24°C in the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung, data on the CWA website indicated. After sunset, temperatures could drop to 16-17°C in most parts of Taiwan. For tomorrow, precipitation is likely in northern Taiwan as a cloud system moves in from China. Daytime temperatures are expected to hover around 25°C, the CWA said. Starting Monday, areas
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
Taiwan has recorded its first fatal case of Coxsackie B5 enterovirus in 10 years after a one-year-old boy from southern Taiwan died from complications early last month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. CDC spokesman Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) told a news conference that the child initially developed a fever and respiratory symptoms before experiencing seizures and loss of consciousness. The boy was diagnosed with acute encephalitis and admitted to intensive care, but his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he passed away on the sixth day of illness, Lo said. This also marks Taiwan’s third enterovirus-related death this year and the first severe
RSS