Under the arrangement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, New Zealand Representatives of the National Party, Anne Tolley, Maurice Williamson, and seven other people visited Mayor Hu at the Taichung City Government on the afternoon of 11th. Both sides shared ideas of national conditions, customs, culture, and constructions. Mayor Hu’s humor brought the house down. 

Under arrangement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, New Zealand Representatives of the National Party arrived today in central Taiwan, especially to visit Mayor Hu in the VIP room. All Representatives and their families were very curious about the wall charts, in particular about Mayor Hu’s prior election posters, such as “For townspeople, who fears Bian?” “Surpass Kaohsiung and Taipei” “Xiaoling, promise you’ll love me again”, not to mention his makeup as Pavarotti. All were delineated by Mayor Hu. In the “Surpass Kaohsiung and Taipei” poster, Taipei is represented by a horse or “Ma” in Chinese, the family name of Taipei Mayor-Ma Yingjiu, to which every Representative burst out laughing, understandingly.

Some representative showed interest in the construction projects, and tax of Taichung City and they received a full explanation from Mayor Hu. He noted that Taiwanese major construction was often cooperative work between the central government and counties. Yet, whether a project can, or indeed should be done, is not called by any one person, but by the public. The Mayor used the Hualian Highway as an example, saying that Taiwanese major construction projects had to undergo public opinion polls as well as all sorts of evaluations, however, only public opinion was referred to by the government.

Mayor Hu mentioned his first visit last year and his good impression of New Zealand. Owing to many friends of his whom live there, it is safe to say he is most familiar with New Zealand. Hu mentioned that he hoped to build exchanges and cooperation between the two countries. New Zealand Representatives expressed their desire for an exhibition in Taichung City, the project details had been submitted to the city planners, and they had not yet received a clear response. Mayor Hu immediately gave his word to help the project through and hoped the fruits of the project would be seen soon.