Representative Adel Althaidi of the Saudi Arabian Trade Office in Taipei yesterday said he hopes a World Arabic Language Day celebration event in Taipei would help build bridges with the Taiwanese, encouraging cultural and civilizational exchanges and understanding.
The World Arabic Language Day celebration event was held at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall yesterday morning.
World Arabic Language Day is celebrated on Dec. 18 every year to commemorate the day in 1973 when the UN General Assembly adopted Arabic as an official language, Althaidi said.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
The day has been celebrated every year since it was established by UNESCO in 2012, highlighting the importance of the Arabic language, he said, adding that the day has special meaning to all Arabians from all over the world.
To sustain attention on the Arabic language and demonstrate the important role that the language plays in human civilization, facilitating humanities and cultural exchanges among people of different countries, the Saudi Arabian Trade Office in Taipei is glad to participate for the first time in the National Central Library’s Taiwan Reading Festival this year, Althaidi said.
The office set up an Arabic language reading tent for children and young people at the festival, he added.
The event would hopefully allow more people to get to know and understand the Arabic language and its culture, and further enhance international communication and cooperation, National Central Library Director-General Wang Han-ching (王涵青) said.
This year is the first time the trade office participated in the Taiwan Reading Festival, establishing a reading tent and having a professional storyteller read stories from Saudi Arbian children’s books, Wang said.
The Arabic language is a medium of communication used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, and in the era of rapid globalization, respecting and cherishing multiculturalism has become a shared responsibility of all people, she said.
The National Central Library in recent years has been dedicated to expanding international exchanges and its global influence, interacting and cooperating with foreign cultural and educational institutions in Taiwan, she said.
The library has also worked with embassies of diplomatic allies and representative offices of other countries in Taiwan to hold book donations, reading promotions and other cultural events, Wang said.
It also invited officials from the representative offices to attend the annual Taiwan Reading Festival for displaying their culture and reading materials, the director-general added.
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
TAKE BREAKS: A woman developed cystitis by refusing to get up to use the bathroom while playing mahjong for fear of disturbing her winning streak, a doctor said People should stand up and move around often while traveling or playing mahjong during the Lunar New Year holiday, as prolonged sitting can lead to cystitis or hemorrhoids, doctors said. Yuan’s General Hospital urologist Lee Tsung-hsi (李宗熹) said that he treated a 63-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙) who had been sitting motionless and holding off going to the bathroom, increasing her risk of bladder infection. Chao would drink beverages and not urinate for several hours while playing mahjong with friends and family, especially when she was on a winning streak, afraid that using the bathroom would ruin her luck, he said. She had
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
RSS