Taiwan Tonight - Formosa English News | Oct. 21, 2026

What will Taipei look like 20 years from now? Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an hopes the city will have a vast green park where Songshan Airport stands today. Meanwhile, DPP's mayoral candidate Puma Shen hopes the capital will be a city where young people can afford to live and build their futures. The vastly different opinions have prompted plenty of debate, both online and offline. I hope that 20 years from now, Taipei can be like this. Just imagine going to Songshan Airport and finding it's a huge green space with dense canopies. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an spoke about his vision for Taipei on a TV program. He hopes that 20 years in the future, lush foliage will cover the area where Songshan Airport is today. You'll see self-driving vehicles on the road. All of them using key chips made in Taiwan. The city is full of vitality and innovation. My daughter is 6 years old now. In 20 years, she'll be 26. Freshly graduated from university, or rather, from her master's program. We hope that this future Taipei will have jobs that aren't a struggle to land. By then, I hope we'll have a city fund that provides each child 500,000 NT when they grow into adults. I hope that my daughter can live in Taipei at affordable housing or at a rental not for sale. When the DPP's mayoral candidate for Taipei, Pu Mo-chen, was asked a similar question, his answer considered the needs of different age groups, such as employment, child rearing, and retirement. Netizens quickly slammed Jiang's response in the comments. Didn't he want to build an AI park? You cut down trees left and right, yet you want greenery. Is Jiang competing in an elementary school speech contest? Would shutting down Songshan meet the needs of any age group? Jiang is a master of answering questions without actually answering them. Both candidates have weighed in on this important issue, and I believe the citizens of Taipei are smart enough to make the right choice. Both candidates have different ideas about what the capital should look like in the future. With election day drawing closer, it remains to be seen who will sway voters. An 11-year-old girl was standing on the pavement when a sturdy man hooked his arm around her neck and started to drag her away. The girl tried to resist, but her small body was nothing against the might of the man. Luckily, the young girl's grandmother noticed a child being pulled away and rushed after them. One family member chased after them and started cursing. Only then did the man released the girl. This terrifying incident occurred on Chiayi's Yushan Road, where the young girl's grandparents run a small restaurant. In the evening, while the family was busy closing up, the little girl was standing at the entrance of the shop when the man, her grandfather's friend, saw her alone and started to pull her away. He was eating here. He wanted to borrow money from me. I said I didn't have money to lend him. He just left and started to play with the girl and started to pull her away, dragging her more than 150 meters away over there. He is a good friend, but even good friends can't do this. She came back crying. She said her neck was locked and she couldn't scream. The family accused the man of telling the little girl that he would take her away and no one would find out. The girl was frightened and couldn't stop crying when she went home. The man said on Facebook that he was just playing around with the kid and asked her to call him uncle. But this incident has left the girl traumatized, driving her family to sue the man. It's very inappropriate behavior. We will take her to have her spirit cleansed and calmed. The case has been reported to the Chiayi District Prosecutor's Office for investigation under the criminal code's charge of coercion. Even though the man was considered a friend, dragging a child away is unacceptable. Given the girl's wishes, the police arrested the man and will deal with the case according to the law. The residents in the Taichung neighborhood are training to become tightrope walkers, but not by their own choice. That's because a road in Da-ya District has a painted sidewalk so narrow that there's barely enough space to set your feet down. At 17 centimeters wide, strolling down the sidewalk at Yahuang Road is not for the faint of heart, especially when there are also electrical boxes and poles to navigate along the way. Let's hear from some locals. It should be widened, or the items blocking the way should be removed. Sometimes the painted pavement is, look over there, how are you supposed to walk on that? It's too narrow. It's not at all like a proper sidewalk. They might as well not have painted it. Nobody goes there to walk on it. A project is underway in Taichung to improve the infrastructure for pedestrians along this road. 1,700 meters of sidewalk have been painted green for people to walk on. While it sounds good on paper, some sections are so narrow you'd have to walk in the actual road with other vehicles. The situation is especially challenging for parents with strollers or for wheelchair users who can't fit within the sidewalk. The city government says the sidewalk will be repainted this week and all the obstacles removed. A child was running and crying, yelling out for his father, but his father continued to drive away without stopping. With much difficulty, it seems, the father finally stopped, but he didn't let the boy get on. The boy then continued to run behind him for several blocks. He was very loud, so everyone on the roads could hear him. The father just sped away and the child kept chasing him. Here at the site of the incident, you can see there is an intersection where three lanes converge and there are no traffic signals set up. If the child was running across and a car didn't stop in time, it could have ended badly. The boy's father purposely tossed him off the scooter in the midst of traffic as a punishment. The poor boy ran after his father, sobbing, which made some onlookers break out in cold sweat. Inappropriate disciplinary methods for children and adolescents are a form of violence. We must never allow a moment of callousness to cause them physical or mental harm. Although this was a moment of anger, the parent left the child exposed and helpless in a dangerous environment, which may leave a lifelong scar in the child's mind. Typhoon Champi continues to approach Taiwan from the east. Though the storm is gradually weakening, the storm circle remains intact. The Central Weather Administration expects to issue a land warning at some point during Thursday night. The storm will be closest to Taiwan on Friday, so be sure to make all the necessary preparations ahead of time. Let's hear from a meteorologist. We expect the storm to reach waters of the east coast of Taiwan on Thursday. On Friday and Saturday, it will veer north in waters of the northeast coast. The projected path has been adjusted westward a bit in comparison with the predictions earlier today. That means its shift north will be a bit slower. The point at which the change in direction happens will impact how close it will get to Taiwan. The combined forces of the storm and northeasterly winds are set to bring rainy weather to the north and east coast of Taiwan on Thursday. Stormy conditions will be felt on Friday when Champi will be closest to the island. Northeastern Taiwan could see extremely heavy rains of more than 300 millimeters. Precipitation won't let up until Saturday afternoon when Champi continues its way toward Japan. Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission has said no to Grab's acquisition of Food Panda in Taiwan. The proposal was announced back in March with Singaporean delivery giant Grab set to buy Food Panda for nearly 20 billion NT. Ultimately, the merger was blocked after a majority of commissioners determined that it would weaken competition in the industry. Let's hear more. The merger would have seen Grab take over Food Panda's delivery business in Taiwan. But Uber, the parent company of Uber Eats, holds a 13.1% stake in Grab, and the two companies have close business ties in other markets. After evaluating Grab's proposal to acquire Foodpanda, the majority of commissioners said it should be stopped. We would like to thank the Fair Trade Commission for making the right decision. Foodpanda is the market leader in Taiwan. When has anyone ever seen the top company in any industry pull out of a market? If it actually does come down to that, we'll ask the commission to consider implementing the relevant measures. Had the merger gone forward, Grab would have become Uber Eats' main competitor. But the close ties between Uber Eats' parent company, Uber and Grab, raised concerns that would impact fair competition. Regulators said both companies would have shared interests and neither would be motivated to lower prices. There could be a risk of coordination to maintain the status quo, which would also make it harder for new competitors to enter the market. During the review, Grab suggested several steps to minimize concerns such as diluting Uber's shareholding and placing limitations on board appointments. But the FTC says the measures would be difficult to implement unless Uber completely divested its stake in Grab. Simple taps can convey a rhythm rich in emotion. This is the daf, a type of Persian drum. The performer Mona is currently the only person in Taiwan who teaches the instrument professionally. The daf binds Mona to her homeland. She moved to Taiwan in 2018 with her husband and brought her music along with. The enthusiasm of her students has transcended language barriers and became her reason to stay. And some Taiwanese, also Taiwanese that were professional musicians, professional percussionists in Taiwan, they were really interested to learn about daf too, and their passion and dedication really impressed me. To fulfill her dream of introducing Persian culture to people in Taiwan, Mona founded a musical ensemble in 2020, seeking out local musicians to collaborate on a unique blend of Eastern sounds. Because there's a family tie between Iranian and Chinese musical instruments, so I thought maybe this would be a good combination to put them together in one band and be the voice of the East from Iran to Taiwan to reform this music again and play in different genres together. Dan Shei was the starting point of her nearly eight years in Taiwan. She says its vibrant old street always reminds her of home. I love crowded, that makes me more excited, that makes me more feel this city is alive. What was once an unfamiliar island has now become her second home. Now daf in hand, she continues her journey playing to the beat of her own drum. There's a car stopped at the front of this intersection with no driver inside. They may have mistaken the white box outlined in the road for a parking space. This incident happened on Section 1 of Jian Guo Road in Chiayi's Minsheng Township. Most people know that the box in front of the zebra crossing is for scooters to turn left, but one driver mistook it for a parking space, carefully parking inside the lines before leaving the car. Yeah, lots of people do this. These days, lots of people can't tell the difference. There are plenty of terrible drivers who have no idea how to drive. The driver violated Article 56 of the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act by parking in a prohibited area. Our precinct will step up enforcement. Police said they would fine the driver 600 to 1,200 NT according to the law. Hopefully this driver will not mistake a scooter turn box for a parking space again. This driver was about to turn right when she noticed a wheelchair user struggling to move. She got out to help them, but when she got back to her car, you can see the disbelief set in. All four doors were locked with her dog trapped inside. What could she do? With the car trapped in the middle of the road, traffic behind came to a standstill. And with the dog still inside, firefighters had to come to the rescue. They broke the rear window to free the pup, but how did it mysteriously lock itself in the first place? Turned out, it was the dog's doing. I thought I'd get out to help move her wheelchair, but when it turned back, I found my car was locked with my keys, phone, and dog all still inside. Since he's super clingy with me, as soon as I got out of the car, he probably wanted to follow me and stepped on the lock button. Anxious seeing his owner walk away, three-year-old Oreo stood on the armrest to see where she went and accidentally stepped on the door lock. It proved to be an expensive mistake. I was still holding out hope he would help me unlock it, so before the fire department got here, I tried playing with him through the glass, but it didn't work. It definitely sucked having to break the window, but as long as everyone was okay and my dog wasn't hurt, that's what matters most. The aesthetic consultant and avid sports fan shared the incident with her over 17,000 followers online who joined her in laughing over this unfortunate accident.