The offices of the three presidential candidates in the Jan. 11 elections have all released campaign memorabilia to raise funds.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) campaign office spokesman Liao Tai-hsiang (廖泰翔) said that its most popular product has been the “Spicy Ing Fan” (辣英粉) rice noodle package — a wordplay on the Chinese phrase for “spicy noodles.”
The office in October released the first batch of 10,000 packages, each containing a bottle of chili sauce produced in Hualien and two packets of rice noodles produced in Hsinchu, priced at NT$1,450 (US$48.12).
Photo: screen grab from Facebook
The first batch and a second batch of identical size sold out almost immediately upon their launch online, Liao said.
The office also released 6,000 “protect Taiwan combat suit” packages — each containing a cap, a T-shirt and a wristband — which has also been popular among supporters, he added.
As Tsai is a cat lover, the office also launched a special package online for cat lovers that contains several products, including an EasyCard, a canvas bag, a cardboard cat house and a cat scratch board, it said.
Photo: CNA
The campaign office of Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, has launched products bearing his slogan “Taiwan Up.”
More than 30,000 products have been sold, raising more than NT$60 million, it said.
The office has also launched a special “Taiwan Up” package priced at NT$2,020 each, which includes a notebook, a canvas tote bag, a towel and a cap with the “Taiwan Up” logo on them, and a T-shirt with a cartoon black shiba inu, the campaign’s mascot, printed on it.
Photo: CNA
A total of 1,021 “Iron Han” bomber jackets were sold at a charity auction on Saturday, raising NT$10.8 million, the office said.
Twenty of the jackets were signed by Han and five of them were auctioned off by him, with one fetching NT$800,000, it said, adding that Han also took the jacket off his back and put it up for auction, fetching NT$1 million.
The campaign office for People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) has launched toy bricks that, when assembled, represent the party’s main policies.
They are a baby stroller, a house, an ambulance, a robot, a notebook computer, a book of the six major laws and a scale, it said, representing the government taking care of children until six years old, workers having homes, minorities being properly taken care of, industrial investments and political parties being regulated by law.
Office director Yu Wen-jen (游文人) said the idea of launching toy brick products was brought up by United Microelectronics Co honorary vice chairman John Hsuan (宣明智), who is a PFP legislative-at-large nominee.
The slogan, “We must fight in this ‘round’(局),” which includes a wordplay on the Chinese word for “orange” (橘), the part’s color, is printed on the packaging of the products, he said.
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