A snail racing event was held in Hualien County on Saturday for the first time in five years, with dozens of mollusks crawling to the finish line in a bid for the prize of fresh organic sweet potato leaves.
Eighty-one people from all over Taiwan brought their snails to Fenglin Township (鳳林) to participate in the snail racing championship, which was introduced in 2019.
Due to the overwhelming number of sign ups, an extra event was added to the three races that had been planned for this year, said Cheng Jen-shou (鄭仁壽), one of the organizers.
Photo: CNA
The championship was open to all kinds of snails, the organizers said.
The snails were placed on a cloth marked with two concentric circles, and they raced 33cm to the outer ring.
Twenty snails competed in the first race, with the winner finishing in 1 minute and 25 seconds.
A participant from Taitung County surnamed Chen (陳) said she had collected 10 snails in the wild about a week ago and began training and feeding them with sweet potato leaves.
She later chose the best among the 10 and named it “Yeh Lo Ma,” Chen said.
On Saturday, the snail won the second race in Hualien, with a time of 2 minutes and 15 seconds.
A woman surnamed Yeh (葉) said she was a little disappointed with the performance of her snail, but added that it was understandable.
The snail was in “postpartum period,” she said, as it had laid some eggs the day before the race.
The aim of the snail racing competition was to provide some humorous entertainment and to attract visitors to Fenglin, which was described as a relatively slow paced township, Cheng said.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS