Dalai Lama expenses furor brews

Last month, Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan County, Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties and Tainan and Kaohsiung cities jointly issued an invitation to the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, asking him to visit Taiwan to hold religious services for those who lost their lives and to comfort the victims of Typhoon Morakot.

Upon receiving the request from the Control Yuan, the MOI sent inquiries to the local governments on Tuesday, a move that riled DPP lawmakers — such as Tainan City’s William Lai (賴清德) and Kaohsiung City’s Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) — who questioned whether it was a retaliatory measure because China had voiced opposition to the visit.

Huang denied the allegation and said both the Control Yuan’s request and the ministry’s inquiries to local governments were part of standard procedure when handling a public petition. Huang said there was no political motive behind it.

So far, Kaohsiung and Tainan counties have replied and said the expenses were covered by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the de facto representative office of the Tibetan government in exile in Taiwan.

The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) yesterday denied allegations by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the media that its request for details of any government money spent on the Dalai Lama’s visit to Taiwan by local governments was politically motivated. “As the government authority in charge of religious affairs, we received a request from the Control Yuan to see if government money was spent by the seven local governments that invited the Dalai Lama to cover his expenses,” Civil Affairs Department Director Huang Li-hsin (黃麗馨) told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday. “The Control Yuan made the request because they received a public petition asking if government money was spent to cover the expenses of the Dalai Lama’s visit and whether this was in violation of the separation of religion and state clause in the Constitution.”

“The Dalai Lama wouldn’t even let me pay for his lunch when we stopped for a lunch break in Jiasian Township (甲仙)” after visiting the disaster-torn Siaolin Village (小林), Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) said.

“Not a cent of the expenses for the Dalai Lama’s visit came out of the Kaohsiung City treasury,” Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said.

Sonam Dorjee, secretary-general of the Tibetan representative office, confirmed that the office had covered the monk’s expenses.

Huang said she did not think it would have been a problem if the local governments had covered the expenses.

“Separation of religion and state as stipulated in the Constitution means that the government is responsible of protecting everyone’s freedom of religion and should refrain from interfering in religion,” Huang said. “Government agencies sponsor religious events on a regular basis, so I don’t see a problem with it.”

That explanation, however, did not convince Taiwan Friends of Tibet chairwoman Chow Mei-li (周美里), who believes the probe should not have started in the first place.

“As the government authority in charge of religious affairs, the MOI should have told the Control Yuan there was no problem, instead of sending inquiries to the local governments,” Chow said.

Chow said she would file similar petitions to question the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission’s sponsoring of a Tibetan Buddhist service to commemorate the typhoon victims at the end of last month and whether President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had violated the separation of religion and state by taking part in several religious services for typhoon victims.
This story has been viewed 1916 times.

The Bai Ling Experience

Falling from the Moon

It’s hard not to instantly like Bai Ling, with her languid, deep voice and striking fashion sense which she wears with a nonchalant attitude. She also loves to talk — so much so that I have trouble keeping up, especially when she switches subjects mid-sentence. “Kozuki!” she suddenly exclaims, catching the name of a restaurant over my left shoulder. “Sounds Japanese.” It’s easy to classify her as eccentric with her otherworldly ideas of nature and spirits, however, it’s obvious that she’s not affecting a persona; she believes every word she says.

“I’m totally not in this world,” she admits, “and I feel like I’m not really existing as a human being, but part of me is. I have eight little spirits living inside of me. They’re all different personalities.” According to Bai, most people only know the crazy party girl spirit, with her short skirt and exposed nipples, but that same spirit is fearless and doesn’t care about what anyone else thinks. “She’s fire. She’s a burning fire. That passion, for me, is so magical.”

René S. Garcia Jr.

Contributing Editor

It’s 10:00 p.m. on a slow Sunday evening, and I’m standing outside the Red Corner restaurant in Thai Town, waiting for my interview with Bai Ling to start. I’ve read her blog, looked at her pictures and listened to stories about frequent nipple-slips. I’m prepared for every Hollywood cliché I can think of, but when I see her appear across the parking lot walking unassumingly toward me, she smiles warmly, and every preconception melts away. Suddenly, I just want to know everything about her.

When it comes to reconciling her natural views with the artificial world of Hollywood, Bai dismisses the premise outright. She doesn’t see obstacles; she sees opportunities. Where others may see problems, she sees puzzles that are fun to solve. “I’m taking all the negative words away from life,” she says. “When you take a situation as a difficulty, you become bitter.”

Beyond simply thinking good thoughts, she also tries to view situations fairly from all angles. Recently, she was caught running late for the Toronto premier of her new film, A Beautiful Life, and didn’t have time to find a proper room to slip into her gown. So she used an airport restroom to change, which quickly turned into a bad idea. Women started pouring in, accosting her and wanting to find out if she was Bai Ling. The women pressed her, even after Bai asked them to leave her alone and not look at her while she dressed. Finally, Bai ran flustered to her awaiting limo where she finished getting ready. Then, in a moment rare for most people, she laughed off the situation. “That lady probably thought I was the crazy one since I was naked in the ladies room.”

More than just PR for her film, Bai went to Toronto for a humanitarian cause as well. She participated in the Rally for Kids with Cancer, coming in a respectable 9^th place out of 21. “I was so busy and tired, but I promised I’d go. I just hope all this money will go to the hospital and to the children. No matter what part I supported, if I’m not there, it’s going to be less. So I’m there.”

When it comes to good causes, Bai Ling tries to separate herself from other celebrities by truly being part of the event or situation and taking a very active role. When Taiwan was hit by the Morakot typhoon recently, Bai secured her own passage to the most heavily damaged area, even after she was warned that there would be no press there. For Bai Ling, this was not a PR stunt and she didn’t just want to donate money. She asked for the most difficult job, whether it was cooking food or scrubbing floors. Bai also offered comfort to the survivors by listening to their heartbreaking stories of losing everything. “I held their hands,” she says, “and I felt like their family.”

Adorable ‘teacup pigs’ are latest hit with Brits

‘Fantastic pets’
Their name comes from their size: At birth, the piglets weigh about 9 oz. and are the size of a teacup. At full growth at the age of two, they top out at 12 to 16 inches — about knee-high — and weigh a modest 65 pounds.

“It’s about the size of a small spaniel,” Croft said. “They make fantastic pets. They’re really clean. They’re highly intelligent and just love to be loved. They give so much back to you.”

Pigs are known to be highly intelligent; they beat dogs in animal IQ tests. They’ve also enjoyed surges in popularity as pets before. In the United States, potbellied pigs were something of a fad a generation ago — but their popularity faded when their owners realized that they got rather large and hard to care for.

“People love pigs so much, but it’s almost impossible to keep a full-grown pig in the house,” Croft explained. “Now that we’ve gotten them down to this size, they’ve become extremely popular.”

Teacup pigs, which are also called micropigs, are a mixture of those potbellied pigs with the Tamworth, Kune Kune and Gloucester breeds. When Croft first saw them, she was so smitten she gave up her day job and started breeding them at her Little Pig Farm in England.

Most people go into business to earn a living. Jane Croft did it to literally bring home the bacon.

The 42-year-old breeder has become something of a sensation in her native England, thanks to her unique product line: cute-as-a-button miniature pigs that never grow up.

Croft sat cross-legged Wednesday in a stall filled with straw, cradling a squirming litter of tiny little piggies that will all be going to market. They’re called teacup pigs, she told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira and Ann Curry — and they’re the hottest pet sensation to hit Great Britain in years.

Porking over cash
Mind you, this bacon doesn’t come cheap. The piglets cost up to $1,100 each, and Croft sells them only in pairs and only to people she feels are qualified to keep them. In Great Britain, owners must be licensed to keep livestock, as the pigs are considered to be farm animals.

Don Emmert / AFP/Getty Images Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley in the “Harry Potter” films, is the proud owner of two teacup pigs.

“They have to reach very, very strict criteria,” Croft explained. “I won’t sell to anybody who’s going to keep one alone in a house; they have to be home all the time. They have to have a garden. They have to have company. I don’t like them going on their own. They’re only sold in pairs.”

Since the pigs are highly intelligent, she said, they get bored easily, which is why she will not sell to people who can’t be home to entertain them.

The pigs are also clean. “You can litter-train them like a cat. You can take them for walks,” Croft said. The mini-porkers also are said to be good for people who are allergic to dogs or cats, because they have hair instead of fur.

Popular piggies
So far, the pigs are not officially available in the United States, but it seem just a matter of time before someone starts breeding them. They have the sort of cute quotient that proves irresistible to pet lovers.