A nasty piece of work.
taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 2003054671
I have noticed a distinct increase in xenophobia since I’ve been away. Not amongst the populace in general I have to say, but government and pseudo-governmental agencies. Foreigners this, foreigners that.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Notice the uncritical tone of the news report. This is from a newspaper that is not afraid to dress political diatribes up as news.
One step forward two steps back.
He doesn’t look like a pleasant guy. But what on earth could provoke him to launch such a stupid campaign? Jealous because his brother married a Vietnamese lady who’s more beautiful than his wife? Annoyed by a Vietnamese lady taking his parking space? Or just couldn’t think of any legitimate issues to discuss so he thought he’d make one up? :?
Not necessarily xenophobic. Many countries have similar problems.
Oh I think it is. He’s standing next to a poster which reads “How many problems are foreign spouses causing in Taiwan ?”
Notice he blames the spouses not the system. I think he’s making himself pretty clear. Other countries do have these problems, but they generally accept that citizens are free to marry whomever they chose, and society must change to reflect this freedom.
It’s a truism that states always lash out at their foreign residents in times of domestic trouble.
Didn’t notice that. This guy could very well be xenophobic, such attitudes are not uncommon. Then again Taiwanese people are not as “pc” as Westerners and have a blunt way of putting these things. If there are such problems they are in fact caused by foreign spouses. I would be dead set against looking to heap blame on them or saying that they should be held accountable as a group. I am not familiar with the details of southeast Asian women in Taiwan, but I thought the points raised in the article seemed legitimate causes for concern.
I’m sure none of the hundreds of thousands (my guess) of Taiwanese who have emigrated to the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan etc. over the years ever did anything like that. 
His graphic is bullshit too. A picture of a typhoon and a warning of the “storm of troubles” that Vietnamese women will bring to Taiwan. When logic fails one can always fall back on emotional arguments.
It’s more misogynistic than xenophobic, IMHO, in keeping with local traditions:
Disgusting ugly pig man crashes his car while drooling over a betel nut girl - it’s HER fault
Disgusting ugly social outcast pig man buys foreign bride, beats her, allows his mother to also beat her, forces her to blow his ugly pig man friends, treats her like a slave, she runs away - it’s HER fault
“many foreign brides find it hard to assimilate into Taiwanese society,” DPP Legislator Tang Huo-shen said. As opposed, I can only presume, to the sex-starved, mummy’s boy loser who has assimilated so well he has to BUY someone from overseas to “love” him and DOESN’T CARE about culture and language differences as long as the bitch can scrub floors, bear kids and put out.
Oh, but it can’t be HIS fault, can it?
[quote]“many foreign brides find it hard to assimilate into Taiwanese society,” DPP Legislator Tang Huo-shen said. As opposed, I can only presume, to the sex-starved, mummy’s boy loser who has assimilated so well he has to BUY someone from overseas to “love” him and DOESN’T CARE about culture and language differences as long as the bitch can scrub floors, bear kids and put out.
Oh, but it can’t be HIS his fault, can it?[/quote]
Please, send that into the paper, would you? Please?
Magnolia,
Not a bad post there!
Thanks guys! I’ve been livid about it all day and had one too-many lattes this afternoon. Going to exhale now 
I’m sure none of the hundreds of thousands (my guess) of Taiwanese who have emigrated to the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan etc. over the years ever did anything like that. [/quote]
My impression is that US law, at least, is not nearly this lax. If it were that easy, we’d have foreign spouses getting divorces right after marriage all the time. I inferred from the article that under Taiwanese law, there is little or no restriction on obtaining divorce immediately. Sounds like Taiwanese law hasn’t closed this loophole, since it has never had foreign spouses in such numbers before.
Rather anti-foreigner or anti-woman in how he raised what otherwise seems like a legitimate policy issue
Do Vietnamese brides get citizenship through marriage?
If I divorced my wife, I’d have to leave Taiwan within, what, a week?
We are not talking about people getting divorces right after marriage - We are talking about people getting divorced after they have been married long enough to get permanent residence or citizenship. In the U.K. a foreign spouse can get “special leave to remain” immediately after getting married. If the couple are still living together one year later, the foreign spouse can get permanent residency. The couple can start divorce proceedings the next day if they want without affecting the immigrant’s residency. Later, the foreign spouse can apply for British nationality based on length of stay in Britain - It makes no difference whether he or she is still married or not. The law in the U.S. seems to be basically the same, except that the couple must remain married for two years instead of one.
[quote=“ClearedForLanding.com”]At the time of the interview, if two years have not elapsed from the time of marriage, the non-citizen spouse receives a conditional Green Card. This card has the same properties as a permanent Green Card, however a form has to be filed to remove the “condition” (of remaining married for two years). If the marriage does not last 2 years or the government discovers it was not a legitimate marriage, the non-citizen spouse will lose that card.
Source: ClearedForLanding.com[/quote]
(Ever seen Green Card?)
The “storm” image would be quite appropriate if placed inside a teacup.
So why would Vietnamese women want to endure how many years of a fake marriage for Taiwanese citizenship ? There are countries with easier immigration and better living standards. Why aren’t politicians in those countries make a stink ? If it’s not a problem in those countries is it really a problem in Taiwan ? Is this guy talking a load of bollocks
He’s just another halfwit politician doing a bit of grandstanding. His actions stand to hurt a lot of people, but do you think he gives a flying fuck? He just wants to be in the papers.
They say the cream rises to the top, but since in Taiwan there’s not much of a dairy tradition, its invariably the scum that rises.
Actually, they do. Ever since the Lautenberg Act, foreign spouses (a.k.a. “mail-order brides”) have been bringing false domestic-violence charges against their American husbands so that they can get permanent-resident status in the U.S. without having to go through two to three years of having sex with the guy. Some aren’t willing to gamble on that, since the men (for obvious reasons) fight the criminal charges and sometimes even win, and so they stay married for just barely more than the two years that are required before they can get a “green card”.
Well, uh, because they found a Taiwanese man to marry them, rather than an American or a German?
There are a lot more desperate women in impoverished countries who are looking to escape through marriage, than there are horny men in rich countries looking to buy a wife.
A friend of mine recently married a Russian woman whom he met through one of these bride agencies. She was looking for an American husband for at least eight years before he came along.
In the U.S., it’s mostly the feminist lobby which hates the idea of mail-order brides and is trying to throw up roadblocks. A year or two ago in the Seattle area, some jerk murdered his Russian bride (now he gets to be the “wife”); shortly thereafter, the state passed a new law requiring registration and fingerprinting and background-checking for any man who attempts to use a foreign marriage agency (much less actually marry a woman through one). Basically an attempt to dissuade anyone from Washington state who is thinking about picking up a hottie from Kazakhstan. But you can still go to Spokane and marry some corn-fed farmgirl without so much as a blood test, much less a criminal records check.
Just to clarify, under US law, a foreign spouse is granted conditional permanenet residency, which confers all the same work and residency rights as permanent residency status… at the end of two years under conditional PR status, the US citizen spouse and his/her immigrant spouse must jointly apply for the removal of the conditional status. However, the immigrant spouse does not automatically lose his/her conditional or permanent residency status simply because the marriage does not last for two years. Rather, there is a suspicion that the marriage might have been a fraud, which, if proven, would be cause for the INS to revoke the conditional or permanent residency status. However, the INS has the burden of proving that any such marriage was indeed a fraud.
Good one, Juba! 
Well, I don’t think that the guy is xenophobic -he’s just trying to get re-elected. Pounding on foreigners is easy as they can’t vote.