A water caltrop vendor in Pingtung County has been receiving unwanted attention after a foreign tourist commented that the vendor appeared to be selling bats as food.
People are jumpy due to reports of the 2019 novel coronavirus, with rumors attributing its spread to Chinese eating bats and other wild animals, said the vendor, who asked to remain anonymous.
The rumors about his stall appeared to have started after the tourist mistook an image of a water caltrop on signage as being an image of a bat, he said.
Photo: Chen Yen-ting, Taipei Times
The fruit of the water caltrop curves downward on two sides, resembling the silhouette of a flying bat.
“I get shot even while lying down,” the vendor said, adding that it was not the first time that such confusion had occurred.
There are numerous sellers along 10km of Kanding Township’s (崁頂) Nanjhou Road, all of whom have signs featuring water caltrops, the vendor said.
Many foreign visitors are unfamiliar with the water caltrop — an aquatic plant native to temperate parts of Eurasia and Africa that has been cultivated in China and the Indian subcontinent.
In Taiwan, the plant is mostly grown in Tainan’s Guantian District (官田), but farmers set up shop in areas with many travelers, the vendor said, adding that the road was a great place for a stall because of its proximity to a highway that brings visitors from Taitung County and Pingtung’s Kenting National Park (墾丁國家公園).
“Now we can laugh about it, but every time there is news about bats, this type of confusion emerges,” the vendor said, adding that he hoped visitors would give the water caltrop a try.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
RSS