DistantNews
Support us
🇹🇼 Taiwan /Culture & Society

Tainan Resident Thought Hotpot Festival Car Prize Call Was a Scam

From Liberty Times · () Chinese

Translated from Chinese and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Outcome reported
  • Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen announced the winners of the city’s Hotpot and Barbecue Festival and drew a Tainan resident for the grand-prize car.
  • The winner initially thought the mayor’s phone call was a scam and responded with surprise after learning about the prize.
  • The festival also introduced professional awards, while restaurants won popularity contests across hotpot, barbecue and vegetarian categories.

A Tainan resident who won the grand-prize car in Taichung’s Hotpot and Barbecue Festival lottery initially thought a call from Mayor Lu Shiow-yen was a scam. After hearing about the car, the winner calmly asked, “Really?” leaving the mayor amused.

Lu announced and presented the festival awards, including new professional honors called the Golden Hotpot, Golden Barbecue and Golden Vegetarian awards. This year’s professional winners were The Pot Chao Fu branch, Ohta Wagyu Cuisine and Shan Li Jian Yue Kappo Hotpot, respectively.

The popularity vote also named winners in five categories. Twelve Duan Hotpot Hall’s Taiping branch led both the hotpot brand and hotpot neighborhood-food categories. Yuma Barbecue’s Zhonggang branch won the barbecue brand category, while Kao Zhuang Yuan LEVEL UP’s New Wenxin branch took the barbecue neighborhood-food category. The vegetarian category went to Twelve Duan Hotpot Hall’s Shalu branch.

Taichung’s Economic Development Bureau said businesses added their own incentives during the voting period, including air tickets, meal vouchers and other discounts. Businesses in the mountain, coastal and Tun districts performed strongly and won seven of the 15 popularity awards, including the entire vegetarian category.

Lu said the festival’s four editions reflected continued growth in Taichung’s food and beverage market. The city had 23,360 food and beverage businesses in 2025, up from 21,424 in 2022, while sales rose from about 93.6 billion Taiwan dollars to 123.3 billion Taiwan dollars.

Really?

— Unnamed Tainan winnerThe resident’s surprised response after Mayor Lu Shiow-yen called to announce the car prize.
About this summary

Originally published by Liberty Times in Chinese. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog