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Taipei 101: World's Tallest BuildingTaipei 101 has been compared to a stack of bottle-green Chinese takeaway cartons.
Its owners, the Taipei Financial Center Corporation, say it is meant to recall a stick of bamboo.
"Chinese people love bamboo because it's very strong and very flexible," said Cathy Yang, the corporation's assistant vice-president.
"Bamboo is hollow inside. Chinese philosophy teaches us that the hollow bamboo reminds us to be modest and humble inside," she said.
"This makes it easy for us to relate to this building, as it reflects the philosophies people know."
But this is not a modest or humble undertaking. In fact the significance of the building to people in Taiwan cannot be over-estimated.
When he was mayor of Taipei, Chen Shui-bian - now the island's president - encouraged the building's developers to add a few extra stories to the original plans to make it the highest in the world.
According to Cathy Yang, now the tower has been finished, people are starting to take a real pride in it.
"Taiwan has achieved a lot economically in the last 40 years," she said. "But we don't feel we are respected enough around the world."
"By building a tall building like this we will let more people know about Taipei, and we hope to attract more tourists here too."
Taipei 101 is not the tallest structure in the world - that
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1/1/2005 | Viewed 8,057 time(s)
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