But there is no groom. Chen will marry herself. Uninspired by the men she’s met but facing social pressure to get married, the 30-year-old Taipei office worker will hold the reception next month in honour of just one person.“Age thirty is a prime period for me. My work and experience are in good shape, but I haven’t found a partner, so what can I do?” Chen said.“It’s not that I’m anti-marriage. I just hope that I can express a different idea within the bounds of a tradition.”Her US$5 675 wedding comes after online publicity that has netted 1 800 largely sympathetic comments.“I was just hoping that more people would love themselves,” said Chen, who will go on a solo honeymoon to Australia.Chen said her mother had insisted on a groom at first but later jumped aboard the solo marriage plan.But as Chen cannot officially register a marriage to herself, if she finds a man later she will wed again.“If I had a steady boyfriend, I wouldn’t do this,” Chen said. “it would be offensive to him, anyway”. — Orange news.
MINI FINE A SEASIDE city in Italy is planning to ban miniskirts to improve what the mayor calls standards of public decency.Castellammare di Stabia wants to make use of new powers to crack down on what is deemed to be anti-social behaviour.Mayor Luigi Bobbio said the regulations would help “restore urban decorum and facilitate better civil co-existence”.Offenders would face fines of between £22 and £446.Bobbio’s tough new dress code would effectively outlaw people from walking around the city in everything from miniskirts to low-cut jeans.There would also be a ban on sunbathing, playing football in public places, and blasphemy, if his proposals are approved. Bobbio, from the centre-right People of Freedom party, says he wants to target people who are “rowdy, unruly or simply badly behaved”.“I think it’s the right decision,” a local parish priest, Don Paulo Cecere, told the Cronache di Napoli newspaper. “It’s also a way of combating the rise in sexual harassment.”Castellammare di Stabia is the latest city to make use of powers handed down by Silvio Berlusconi’s government to mayors to fight crime and anti-social behaviour.In other places they have banned sandcastles, kissing in cars, feeding stray cats, wooden clogs and the use of lawn mowers at weekends. — Reuters.
COBRA TAKEOVER TERRIFIED householders had to abandon an entire town after 3 000 illegally bred king cobra eggs hatched out and gave their owner the slip.The eggs — bred to supply the traditional health industry — had been stored in a cage in a house in Xianling, south west China.But the newly hatched snakes escaped through a hole in their enclosure and took over the entire town. “We don’t really know how many survived but we caught 170 of them so we think a lot are still missing,” said a police spokesman.King cobras — which as adults can reach 18ft in length — are among the most deadly snakes in the world and can kill a man with a single bite.Illegal breeder Cai Yong is now facing jail for breeding venomous snakes without a licence. — Orange news
