CULTURE
Vampire exhibit to open
An exhibition featuring artifacts associated with vampire legends is to open tomorrow in Taipei to help the public gain a deeper understanding of the mythical beings. The “Dracula: History and Art of Vampires” exhibition will showcase more than 80 items associated with vampires, including Dracula, the central figure in Bram Stoker’s eponymous 1897 Gothic novel, National Museum of History director Chang Yui-tan (張譽騰) said yesterday. Among the highlighted items are a 16th century portrait of Vlad III Dracula, Spanish painter Francisco Goya’s demonic prints featuring bat-like creatures and Oscar-winning costumes from the 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The original manuscript and first edition of the novel Dracula will also be displayed at the exhibition, according to the museum. The museum has cooperated with an Italian designer to create Dracula’s “home,” Chang said.
SOCIETY
Immigrants bike for children
A group of immigrants and their children will set off tomorrow on a bike ride that will take them on a nearly 1,000km tour around the nation to raise awareness for children suffering from abuse and neglect. The eight immigrants from China, Vietnam and Indonesia will take nine children on the 12-day journey starting from the National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei, the trip’s organizer, Good Shepherd Social Welfare Services, said yesterday. The group will pedal counter-clockwise around the nation, making stops at four Good Shepherd service centers in Greater Tainan and Taitung and Hualien to visit children there. Supplies ferried by care will also be donated to those centers as part of the event.
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
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