China-Taiwan Flights Go Daily

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  12.18.08 | 10:03 AM ET

Travel between rivals China and Taiwan got a whole lot easier this week. Airlines launched more than 100 daily weekly flights between the two sides, stepping up a historic opening in travel kicked off last summer with weekend charter flights. Two travelers set to take advantage of the new policy: “Tuan Tuan” and “Yuan Yuan,” giant pandas expected to arrive in Taipei Dec. 23 as a gift from the mainland. Their names linked together—“tuanyuan”—mean “reunion” in Mandarin, a not-so-subtle hint that the Chinese government would like to see Taiwan return to the fold.

Tags: Air Travel, Airworld, Crossing Borders, Wildlife, Asia, China, Taiwan, News and Briefs

Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications. Her essay, Six Degrees of Vietnam, was shortlisted for "The Best American Travel Writing 2009."


2 Comments for China-Taiwan Flights Go Daily

Phillip Charlier 12.19.08 | 12:03 PM ET

correction: It’s not 100s of flights per day. It’s a little more than 100 per week.

Julia Ross 12.23.08 | 10:40 AM ET

thanks for the catch, Phillip.

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