TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taipei 101 on Sunday (Aug. 29) flashed seven messages to thank the Czech Republic for donating thousands of doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
On Sunday evening at 5:49 p.m., a shipment of 30,000 Moderna vaccine doses arrived from Prague by way of Istanbul aboard a Turkish Airlines flight. The Czech health minister, Adam Vojtech, had announced the donation on July 26 as relations between the two countries continued to warm.
To express appreciation for the donation, Taipei 101 that evening flashed seven different messages from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., five of which were in Chinese and two in English. The Chinese messages included, "democratic partners," "looking out for each other," "sending true love from a thousand miles," "friendship knows no distance, and "thank you Czech Republic."
The English messages simply read, "TWN〔錯誤字元無法儲存〕CZE" and "thank you" next to the Czech Republic flag. That same evening, video footage of the signs being flashed on Taipei 101 was uploaded to the subreddit for the Czech Republic on the social media site Reddit, where it has received over 1,400 upvotes.