The organizers of the Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) on Tuesday introduced some of the main pavilions and activities of the event, and goodies available for visitors.
Earlier this month the book fair’s organizers introduced this year’s guest of honor, the Netherlands, and international writers who are to attend the event. On Tuesday they held another press event to showcase pavilions with a predominantly Taiwanese focus.
These include a children’s pavilion, a digital pavilion, a Taiwanese comic book pavilion, a literature pavilion, and a pavilion dedicated to independent bookstores and publishers.
Photo: CNA
The children’s pavilion is to spotlight a large model of a ship and feature ocean-themed decorations to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Dutch sailors setting foot in Taiwan, said Jeffery Lin (林峻丞), founder of the New Taipei City-based social enterprise Culture, Art and Nature, which curates the pavilion.
The pavilion is to feature story books about the sea and maritime adventures, and children are to be able to read the storybooks on display and have audio recordings of their recitations made, which could be downloaded via a link, he said.
Three Taiwanese podcasters as well as an unnamed “VIP” are to visit the section to read select books to children, he said.
At the digital pavilion, visitors are to be asked to take part in story writing via an app on a console or their mobile phones, which has customizable book covers featuring users’ portraits, said Tahan Lin (林大涵), CEO of crowdfunding consultancy company Backer-Founder, which is responsible for designing the pavilion.
The goal is to familiarize people with e-books and e-book platforms, while promoting the idea of “you as a book” that can be shared and potentially help others, Lin said.
The goal is to upload at least 5,000 e-books made by visitors, who, after sharing their stories online, are to receive a prize supplied by the event sponsors, said Tahan Lin.
The Taiwan comic book pavilion is to feature 32 works selected by comic book editors, publishers and copywriters, and written by Taiwanese comic book artists, who are considered to possess the potential to be popular overseas, as well as works that dominate the bestseller lists of online booksellers Kingstone and Books.com, said Yeh Tzu-hao (葉子豪), a section chief at the Taiwan Creative Content Agency, which overlooks the section.
The literature pavilion is to feature literary works chosen by a selection of publishers, said Nikki Lin (林巾力), director of National Taiwan Museum of Literature, which organizes the pavilion.
Meanwhile, the section dedicated to independent bookstores and publishers is to feature recordings of sounds associated with 31 independent bookstores in Taiwan, Taiwan Association for Independent Bookshop Culture secretary-general Lin Hung-ju (林虹汝) said.
The section is also to feature “independent listening rooms” where visitors can listen to music inspired by the sounds, Lin Hung-ju said, adding that visitors are also to be able to take home a program introducing the pavilion and the philosophy behind its design.
In an effort to support local publishers and promote reading, visitors are to receive discounts equivalent to the ticket price, which is NT$150 for the general public and NT$100 for students older than 18 and visitors who are 65 or older, Ministry of Culture Department of Humanities and Publications head Yang Ting-chen (楊婷媜) said.
In addition, residents who are 16 to 22 years old are to be able to use “Culture Point” e-vouchers when they shop, she said.
Visitors arriving from south of New Taipei City, including Yilan County, are to be granted free admission upon presenting an on-the-day transportation ticket stub, the ministry said.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to