Fans of Hello Kitty, a popular Japanese cartoon character, yesterday morning lined up outside the Taipei Beimen Post Office, as Chunaghwa Post and Sanrio Co launched a series of cobrand products featuring the cartoon cat.
Hello Kitty is a global superstar, whose popularity has already lasted for 45 years, Chunghwa Post chairman Wu Hung-mo (吳宏謀) said at the product launch ceremony, marking the company’s first cooperation with the Tokyo-based firm that designs, licenses and manufactures products featuring popular Japanese cartoon characters.
The secret to the character’s enduring popularity is that Sanrio continues to design products that keep up with the times, Wu said.
Photo courtesy of Chunghwa Post
Some who fell in love with Hello Kitty 45 years ago are now grandparents and share their passion with their grandchildren, he added.
Hello Kitty does not have a mouth, so she does not have to wear a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic, Wu said, adding that the cartoon character helps keep people happy and healthy.
Chunghwa Post and Sanrio have worked together to develop nine Hello Kitty-themed products that people can send as gifts to their relatives during the holiday season, Wu said.
The products include greeting cards, tote bags, thermo bottles, a cooking pot, sticky notes and tape.
“We hope that the products will draw younger people to our services, which few of them purchase nowadays,” he said.
Some Hello Kitty fans said that they started lining up outside Taiwan’s oldest post office before 6am to buy the entire set.
The company has only 888 sets available for sale, Wu said, adding that it hopes that the products would generate NT$35 million (US$1.23 million) in revenue.
More Hello Kitty merchandise would be introduced in the next few years, he said.
People can place orders for the Hello Kitty products at post offices, the Postal Museum in Taipei and on the company’s online stamp shop at stamp.post.gov.tw.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash