A Taiwanese Idea of Ten Iconic Cultural Features of Taiwan

Fun to read, but nothing really new.

Chinese version.

I think Australians and New Zealanders both will be surprised to learn the Maori are indigenous to Australia!

In the United States, there are Indians; In Australia, the Maoris; In Yunnan China, the Miao, and there are many other native communities in other places in the world, whose culture has its value but might not necessarily be considered an iconic feature that can represent the country.

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Interestingly, that sentence about Maoris doesn’t appear in the Chinese version of the article.

Most of these features are iconic bad. Pretty pathetic tbh.

its cool that some taiwanese are as critical as the writer. most follow the cha bu duo outlook and don’t have a problem with any of the things in the list. the iron bars thing is just a negative straight up, and should be done away with as quickly as possible. same for tie pi wu. and those adverts that cover half of building fronts. scooters can go in the bin too, at least if i had my say.

some of the things like night markets sure are dirty and chaotic but its part of the fun. would a sanitised night market be as fun? i’m not sure about that.

not really sure about the tea either. people don’t drink tea in tea cafes like they drink coffee? doesn’t mean there is not, and hasn’t been a tea drinking culture here though.

That’s a shocker. I left him a note on behalf of my Maori cousins.

Who cares about the iron bars? They are such a non-issue.

if they are such a non issue why are they not banned yet?

ontop of being ugly as shit, they are a safety hazard. you can’t escape your building if you need to. i’d say that was a fairly big issue.

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What people need is a fire alarm.

What people need is to not live in firetraps.

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Don’t get the writer. He says that it’s not coherent to say that X is something iconic in Taiwan and at the same time don’t like X or not use it (or whatever applies to each case).

People like him are the ones who ask you “from Spain? do you fight bulls?”. Fucktard.

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These idiots should stop writing.

Also the idiot asks people (supposedly, maybe he didn’t go out and asked anybody) what cultural feature is iconic in Taiwan and then when people say something definitively iconic he objects that that feature is not distinctive. But he never asked what cultural features made Taiwan different.

I find hard to believe that an English native speaker who supposedly makes a living writing articles came up with this trash.

“Give me one example of an iconic cultural feature of Taiwan.”

“Endless neurotic hand-wringing about Taiwan’s supposed cultural failings.”

“What failings are particularly a problem to you?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me dumbass”

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i was assuming it was written as a taiwanese person as a kind of critical look at the cultural features of taiwan? if so i think it does its job. if not i have a bit of a different impression of it.

Until your whole family dies.

Other than that, it’s a non-issue.

http://taiwanenglishnews.com/family-of-four-incinerated-in-own-home-fire-department-cautions/

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No… I mean, maybe you are right but he still does what I say: he asks people what they think that is a typical/iconic cultural feature in Taiwan. People points out things that are very Taiwanese in way or another, things that catch your attention. Then he objects that the person who gave that answer doesn’t personally like that feature and/or that that feature is not unique to Taiwan.

To me this article is half pointless half common places, and entirely unnecessary and somehow annoying.

The writer seems to be only interested in things that can be mainstreamed and monetized. Often that means cuisine/foodstuffs and pop culture/fashion.

Boba and Gua Bao has crossed over somewhat. Taiwan style fried chicken should if it hasn’t already.

Pop culture is more difficult… maybe the Pili Puppet shows have potential to be imported.

I’d like to see blue sandals go global.

So true. Why aren’t they illegal?

So true. They are pointless. Are people really that afraid of some robbers who are willing to climb up to rob you vs dying in a fire trap.