Taipei Times
Date:  Oct 29, 2015
By: Lin Meng-ting and Jonathan Chin  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

Two students from Kunshan University have set up a promotional storefront for their

company, Wood Song, in the Tua-Bak-Kang Cultural Park in Tainan’s Sinhua District (新化), which offers their original African-inspired musical instruments and lessons.

Chen Chih-hsuan (陳志軒) and Wang Cheng-hao (王承皓), both visual communication design students, said they founded the musical instrument business together to sell their wind-and-string inventions, which are inspired by traditional African instruments and made with Taiwanese woods.

The products include the Wood Song flute, Wine Bottle flute and the Wood Song zither, they added.

The name of the company reflects their passion to create visually appealing wooden objects with the musical qualities of instruments, Chen said.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-10-29
By: Hsieh Chia-chen, S.C. Chang, Central News Agency

Former Vice President Vincent Siew will represent President Ma Ying-jeou at the Asian

Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ meeting in Manila next month, the Presidential Office announced Wednesday.

Siew, who was a senior economics and trade official, has attended six APEC annual meetings, either as a government minister or as an envoy of Taiwan’s president, and has built good connections with most of the APEC leaders, the Presidential Office said.

It said Siew has solid experience in explaining Taiwan’s trade and economic development to other APEC delegates and has made a great contribution to promoting trade and economic cooperation with APEC members. One of the themes at this year’s APEC meeting Nov. 18-19 in the Philippines will be “enhancing the regional economic integration agenda.”

The Taiwan delegation will seek opportunities to advance its agenda to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).     [FULL  STORY]

Architect’s Journal
Date: 28 October, 2015
By: Merlin Fulcher

Tainan City Government has launched an open international contest for a 30-hectare

baseball stadium and training complex

Located in the city’s coastal Annan District, the project will deliver a new 25,000-capacity ‘international standard’ stadium with administrative and broadcasting facilities.

A second ‘deputy’ stadium and two little league arenas will also be delivered on the 30 hectare site which is opposite the National Museum of Taiwan History.

Other planned facilities include a gym, training pitches, dressing area and public spaces.

Located in southern Taiwan, Tainan is already home to the Uni-President Lions baseball team and is also the birthplace of several of the country’s most famous baseball players.

According to the brief: ‘The city’s baseball participants and fans are growing up to hundreds of thousands, and it apparently has become the baseball development centre of Taiwan.     [FULL  STORY]

Forbes
Date: Oct 27, 2015
By: Ralph Jennings ,
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Wake up and smell the Internet debate. So many Western people wonder why Asians

deftly sleep by day in public – in libraries, on buses and during classes – that some have started online forums to find out. One commentator launched a photo blog in March called Asians Sleeping on Public Transit and floats the idea of “genetic predisposition to narcolepsy.” A productivity-wary Western office manager with an Asian staff will be understandably perturbed.

What’s really going on? Sleep experts from Taiwan point to two causes that would apply here and throughout parts of East Asia where people doze off mid-day, far from their beds. One reason is childhood sleep habits, from chaotic nights to required naps. The other, disruptive nighttime noise in the major cities.

Kindergarten teachers in Taiwan lay down their children for 90 minutes to two hours per day after lunch. Elementary schools usually carry on that habit by requiring children to fold their hands over their desks and lower their heads. Some teachers inspect each submerged head and chastise any that stir.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-10-28
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Kuomintang chairman and presidential candidate Eric Liluan Chu

on Wednesday presented plans for legislative reform, including a more neutral speaker.

Chu, who is waging a tough campaign for the January 16 presidential and legislative elections, has previously emphasized he would like to see Taiwan move toward a Cabinet system with fewer powers for the president.

Meetings of the Legislative Yuan should become more effective, negotiations more transparent, and the speaker should be impartial, he told the regular weekly meeting of the KMT’s Central Standing Committee Wednesday.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-10-28
By: CNA

The director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) on Tuesday suggested that Taiwan’s

government and people read the full text of a Trans-Pacific trade pact before deciding whether to join it.

On Taiwan’s wish to join the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade bloc, Kin Moy said, “We believe Taiwan has work to do.” He was responding to questions about Taiwan’s TPP bid and if Taiwan’s allowing of imports of US pork that contains ractopamine, a leanness-enhancing drug that is banned in Taiwan, would be a condition for being included in the TPP.

US pork imports have been a thorny issue in the trade relations between Taiwan and the US.

Citing remarks by Deputy US Trade Representative Robert Holleyman recently in Taipei, Moy said that the US encourages all of its trading partners to implement food policies that are based on international standards and that are science based.     [FULL  STORY]