Wu Po-Min of Kenting, Hengchun blamed travel agencies that cater to mainland Chinese tour groups for his decision, explaining that their falling into debt is pulling down Taiwan businesses as a result.

“Bringing annual losses of nearly NT$1 million ($31,260), Chinese tourists are poison wrapped in honey,” Wu told the Taipei Times. “When Taiwan was first opened up to Chinese tourists, business appeared to be great. Every day there would be bus after bus of tourists parked outside. It was an endless stream of traffic and, for a time, lots of money was made.”

In 2012, Taiwan doubled its quota of independent mainland visitors to the island, amounting to 1,000 a day. To cater to them, Wu and other Taiwan businesses need to pay commissions to travel agencies. This pits restaurants against other each other in price wars.

“However, in recent years travel agencies have been settling bills on a monthly basis, so the nightmare has begun for many restaurants that depend on tourism,” Wu added.

Large travel agencies that send busloads of tourists to restaurants like Wu’s have begun going bankrupt, leaving behind unpaid bills of as much as NT$1 million. According to Wu, Taiwan businesses are now responsible for the debt.

“As recent rumors indicate that the number of Chinese visitors is shrinking, we might as well take advantage of the busy summer season to cut off this ill-fated relationship,” Wu said.

Wu hopes to target a new customer base of Taiwanese and foreign customers. He hopes to raise business standards instead of undercutting offerings to cater to mainland customers.

Since the ban, Wu says his restaurant has suffered a 30 percent decline in business. However, Wu explained the trade-off is “short-term pain for long-term gain”.

What’s more, Wu said his customers have already noticed an improvement. Wu said he was told by a customer,  “Awesome. I do not have to work my way around crowds of loud Chinese tourists to eat — that alone makes it worth it to come here.”

The post Chinese Tourists, Called “Poison Wrapped in Honey”, Banned from Taiwan Restaurant appeared first on The Nanfang.

The one-vehicle collision occurred on a highway leading to Taoyuan Airport. Photos from the scene showed that the tour bus had broken through a highway guardrail, engulfed in flames with thick smoke billowing from the windows. The fire was later extinguished by local firefighters.

Mostly from Dalian in China’s northeast Liaoning Province, the tourists belonged to a tour group organised by the Julong Travel Agency. The youngest victim was just 12 years-old. Among the victims were the bus driver and the tour guide, both of whom were considered locals.

The bus involved in the crash has already come under scrutiny by news media. The bus was manufactured in May 2010, and was due for inspection on July 29. Previous inspections did not detect any problems; but, the bus was involved in five violations from 2012 to 2015, and at least one fine had been waived.

The post 26 Dead In Taiwan Tour Bus Crash appeared first on The Nanfang.

After boarding Air China flight CA186 to Beijing, a flight attendant asked a 27 year-old passenger named Yu what was in his luggage. Yu cleverly responded that he had packed a bomb. The announcement prompted the captain of the plane to abort the take-off. All of the passengers were evacuated from the plane, and their luggage was re-checked. Yu was taken in for questioning by police.

In the end, no bomb was found.

Earlier this week, Chinese aviation authorities reported that as many as one-third of all domestic flights are delayed.

The post Mainland Chinese Passenger Reacts To Flight Delay With Bomb Hoax appeared first on The Nanfang.

The ruling prompted many of China’s state-run newspapers to lash out at the Taiwanese legislature in anger.

The China Daily USA described the ruling as “a meaningless and unnecessary political gimmick that only further poisons trust across the Taiwan Strait.”

The Global Times warned of future repercussions for Taiwanese passport holders who continue to use the altered passports: “The mainland’s influence is much bigger than Taiwan’s” and, “as long as the mainland is willing, it is not hard to stonewall those with the ‘sticker passports’ at immigration control points everywhere in the world.”

Taiwan’s altered passports have influenced the grassroots independence movement in neighboring Hong Kong. Last November saw the emergence of Hong Hong passports that were similarly altered with stickers. Originally labelled as “Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, People’s Republic of China,” the altered passports simply read “Hong Kong” in English and Chinese.

The post Taiwan Lifts Punishment For Those Altering Passports With “Taiwan” Stickers appeared first on The Nanfang.

If completed, the 126 kilometer route would be the world’s longest underground railway tunnel.

Plans for the railway line were included as part of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan, which said a cross-strait train route is “planned” and would be completed by 2030.

During the National People’s Congress, currently being held in Beijing, Pingtan County FTA director, Zhang Zhaomin, told media the project is technologically ready to proceed. The People’s Daily Online reported Zhang saying, “The realization of the project depends on the decision of Taiwan.”

But it may not be as simple as that. At a government meeting, Taiwan Minister of Transportation and Communications, Chen Jian-yu, said Beijing has been doing all of the planning: “I have absolutely no information [about the project]. It would be more than just a transportation issue,” Chen said. “China has yet to talk to us through any channel of communication.”

However, Democratic Progressive Party legislator Lin Chun-hsien warned of an impending trap. “They [China] are taking advantage of us,” Lin said. “You should not even bother to waste time doing feasibility research on the project. Just ignore them next time when they bring up a similar project.”

At 126 km, the proposed tunnel would be nearly three times longer than the Channel Tunnel. It is expected to cost somewhere around $80 billion, but funding for the project has not yet been announced.

China has proposed a number of ambitious rail projects before, including an underwater railway line connecting Dalian and Yantai, reducing travel times from ten hours to 30 minutes; a railway line between Beijing and Seoul that runs through North Korea; and connecting China and Nepal with a tunnel directly underneath Mount Everest.

The post Beijing Proposes $80 Billion Railway Tunnel to Taipei, but Taiwan Hasn’t Been Told Yet appeared first on The Nanfang.

The minute-long video depicts a woman from mainland China becoming increasingly angry while she waits for her hand-made dumplings. The woman can be heard asking for her money back, and shouting loudly from her table: “I don’t want to eat now. What’s the big deal with your shop?”

When restaurant staff apologized, the woman further rebuffs them, saying, “I don’t understand what you said. I can’t understand Taiwanese Mandarin.”

A 15 year-old working at the family owned Zhou Jia Steamed Dumplings restaurant in Hualien refunded the customer’s money, and tossed in a few words of advice for free: “You need to understand that you are in Taiwan. There is nothing special about being ‘strong-country people’,” before adding, “Get out! Get out!” The woman and her party then stood up, and left the restaurant.

“Strong-country people” is a term used by residents of Taiwan and Hong Kong to describe mainland Chinese visitors who use their wealth to exert demands for service while traveling abroad.

EJ Insight reports that Hong Kong and Taiwan social media users have voiced their appreciation of the boss’ attitude and have said they will support the restaurant by visiting it in the future.

Here’s the video:

The post Watch: Taiwan Dumpling Shop Has Enough, Kicks Out Impatient Mainland Chinese Customers appeared first on The Nanfang.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office announced that passengers from Nanchang, Kunming and Chongqing can transit through Taoyuan International Airport in Taipei before continuing on to another destination. Mainland passengers will require no additional travel documents beyond the usual passport, tickets, and boarding pass.

Rumours of the reforms first surfaced in February 2014, after years of pushing from Taiwanese officials. Ma Shaw-chang, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Taiwan Straits Exchange Foundation, said at the time: “If Chinese tourists are allowed to use Taiwan as a transit point for their trips, it will mean a lot to the development of the Taoyuan Aerotropolis that the government is promoting.”

In a statement, Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou welcomed the new rules, as has Taiwan’s second-largest carrier, EVA Airlines.

The post China to Allow Transit Stop for Mainland Passengers in Taiwan appeared first on The Nanfang.

In passing the amendments, lawmakers said all schools in the country must get rid of GM foods in order to ensure food safety and protect students’ health.

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator, Lin Shu-fen, argued that genetically modified foods have a “huge impact” on the physical and psychological health of Taiwan’s students, while Kuomintang Legislator Lu Shiow-yen said that consumption of genetically modified foods is “a hidden food safety crisis” exposing students to “unnecessary risks.”

Last month, Taiwan banned the import of genetically modified salmon from the US.

There is of course a financial cost to Taiwan’s new policy. When the new requirements take effect next semester, the cost of school meals could increase by as much as NT$5 each. As a result, the Ministry of Education’s budget for subsidizing school meals for 262,000 disadvantaged elementary and junior school students would increase by NT$235.8 million ($7.17 million).

Meanwhile, public fears over genetically modified foods have been raised throughout mainland China and surrounding territories.

This past August, China’s Ministry of Agriculture released a statement saying all genetically-modified foods are safe. While no official measures have been taken yet in Hong Kong, a voluntary labeling system has been adopted by food retailers in the special administrative region.

The post Taiwan Bans GMO Foods From Schools appeared first on The Nanfang.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Ting Wen-yi claimed that mainland Chinese authorities pressured event organizers to compel Ting to change her sash, despite her objections. Event organizers denied the accusation, claiming they had simply made a printing error. When Ting refused to change sashes, she was swiftly banned from standing on stage and barred from having her picture taken.

Even still, Ting showed her patriotic fervor in her Facebook post:

I told them 30,000 times that Taiwan is Taiwan. I was born in Taiwan, my sash says Taiwan, I represent Taiwan, and I’m going to use the name of Taiwan in appearing at this pageant.

Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Eleanor Wang confirmed that pressure from mainland China was the reason behind the sash change.

Since the controversy erupted, Ting has been openly critical of the way contestants are treated at the Miss Earth competition:

Over the last three nights, we were shuffled from nightclub to nightclub, wearing beautiful clothes to talk and dance with men. I felt like a club hostess. So it might be a blessing in disguise that I’m out of this contest. We paid large sums of money to enter the contest, but we’re treated little better than prisoners.

When Miss Earth began in 2001, representatives from Taiwan were referred to as “Miss Taiwan R.O.C.” However, according to the Shanghaiist, in 2007 contestants were forced to change their titles. That same year, the representative from Tibet was forced to change her sash to one that read “Miss Tibet-China”. Since then, delegates from Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau have disappeared from competition.

In other beauty pageant controversy, Miss Canada, Anastasia Lin, said she has still not yet been invited to the Miss World competition being held in Sanya, China. Lin claims she has been banned from entering China due to her stance on human rights issues and religious freedom.

The post Miss Taiwan Ejected From Miss Earth For Refusing To Be “Miss Chinese Taipei” appeared first on The Nanfang.

Public reaction to McDonald’s plans to expand into West Lake, a Chinese tourist landmark often referred to as “heaven on earth”, was predictably dismissive. The Qianjiang Evening News criticized the plan, writing, “In the future, will Uncle McDonald (Ronald McDonald) with his red hair, and big smile on his face, be sitting on a bench just metres away from the Broken Bridge?” Online netizens reacted much the same. “This is a joke,” one person wrote on Weibo. “Can we turn Mao’s old house into a KFC?”

However, the outrage was not enough to sway the proposal. In addition to McDonald’s, a Starbucks also opened on the property two months ago.

Before approving the proposal, former Deputy Director of the Zhejiang Provincial Administration of Cultural Heritage, Chen Wenjin, argued the residence was a cultural resource and that any commercial proposals should pass the scrutiny of government agencies and experts.

Chen also said the administration would ensure that the residence’s facade and internal structure remain unchanged, and that the residence would continue to serve the public good.

Chiang Ching-kuo was given the two-story residence by the mayor of Hangzhou after the Kuomintang successfully repelled the Japanese invasion during World War II. Ching-kuo’s father, Chiang Kai-shek, was given another residence, also on the West Lake property. Chiang Ching-kuo is said to have planted many of the trees on the property.

After the Kuomintang was ousted from mainland China by the Communists, Chiang Ching-kuo eventually succeeded his father and became President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) where he enacted press and free speech reforms, and allowed local Taiwanese to obtain positions of power in the government.

This isn’t the first time Western fast food franchises have set up shop in culturally-significant locations. In 2007, following a campaign initiated by former CCTV anchor Rui Chenggang, public outcry forced Starbucks to close a store it had opened at the Forbidden City in Beijing.

The post Kuomintang Leader’s Former Home Turned Into… a McDonald’s appeared first on The Nanfang.