Sure it is. And that’s a fact. But all you sanctimonious westerners better read your newspapers back home. There’s more corruption, even in the Lotus Land of Canada, than you remember.
http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id=F988F7C0-9232-4177-8A9B-523BB08CF74E
http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id=17AAC65F-DA97-4F24-862C-6C12481B53FA
http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id=26A3FFDE-6AD8-4492-8ADD-7B3261D3E1BD
I’m shocked, shocked, to find corruption in Canada.
By the way, only the far west coast is refered to as Lotus Land.
I think the important thing is that the wrongdoing was fully exposed, and people made accountable. That is something that does not happen in Taiwan nearly often enough.
This is a good point Mao. But it does indicate the difficulty I have with those who imply that the difference is something deeper and that Taiwanese do things that Western people (not just Canadian–although they’re the best) don’t do.
the west isn’t perfect. it’s just that a number of factors that make the chinese mentality worse in this respect like fatalism, lack of solidarity, face, outlook towards power and authority, persistence of certain features of social hierarchy, little emperor syndrome, and fear of ‘foreign imperialism’. briefly, this means that the chinese consciousness has a chip on its shoulder, cannot let go of the past, and therefore cannot move forward. (oh sure, there’s airplanes and trains and computers here, but that’s not what i’m talking about)
I think the point is that ‘cultural factor’ (whatever they may be) don’t do very well in explaining why there’s bad stuff in the world. There used to be a lot of this bad stuff in the West–slavery, property rights problems, voting for women problems, not to mention corrupt. Have you seen the Untouchables? There really used to be corrupt mayors in America. POlice Chiefs used to take money too.
All that stuff disappeared not because we got more Christian or less Chinese. Those things disappeared because we devloped systems that made them archaic.
I think the point is that ‘cultural factors’ (whatever they may be) don’t do very well in explaining why there’s bad stuff in the world. There used to be a lot of this bad stuff in the West–slavery, property rights problems, voting for women problems, not to mention corrupt. Have you seen the Untouchables? There really used to be corrupt mayors in America. Police chiefs used to take money too.
All that stuff disappeared not because we got more Christian or less Chinese. Those things disappeared because we devloped systems that made them archaic.
I think it really depends on which countries you compare Taiwan to. If you are comparing it to other second rate non-nation states it does fairly well in almost all areas. If you compare to post industrialised nations of course Taiwan can’t compare but you have to take into account all the things the this little island has overcome.
Hay ‘E’, I was wondering where you’d got to. Happy Valentine’s Day. What’s a second-rate country? Can you tell me the name of some of them? Are they those countries where most of the people live? And especially the brown ones–the brown-skinned people I mean. Are the second-rate countries the ones where people who aren’t white live? I think it’s clear that you mean a first-rate country is one that produces a lot of garbage and uses mostly brown-skinned people to make the stuff they use. I can understand that some neo-Nazi skinhead might think that countries that can control and manipulate others are just rising to the top–survival of the fittest is how I think they say it. But I’m a little surprised to find that what you mean by first, second, and so on, when it comes to countries means how much garbage they can produce.
And just another one of those quick questions: why do you live in such a horrible place anyway? Are a missionary of the good and clear Western ways?
[quote] tinman wrote:
So how would you rate Japan?
That’s just what I wonder about you. I’ve lived in Japan, and I can assure you, the foreigners who live there aren’t any happier about the human rights situation.
What is it? What makes a nation a second-rater? You used the term, not me. Is it the income? Is it the skin colour of the natives? Is it their religion? Is it that they don’t speak English very well?
Or is just that you don’t like the way they do things?
I don’t know whats wrong with corruption. I like the fact that I can pay my way out of a situation by smoothing some palms if need be.
Unless you are the Philippino nanny who gets raped by her employer/owner.
Unless you are the Philippino nanny who gets raped by her employer/owner.
Well rape and murder are a bit over the top. I have always believed that rape should be a capital crime and if it is not should be avenged by the rapee or her family. That would have sorted OJ out proper like.
Wow, that’s a great system, lynch mobs out for an eye for an eye 
It’s not as if vigilantes ever dangle the wrong person from that tree or anything.
Considering the alternatives, Rule of Law seems to work out the best for the most people.
[quote=“mod lang”]Wow, that’s a great system, lynch mobs out for an eye for an eye
It’s not as if vigilantes ever dangle the wrong person from that tree or anything.
Considering the alternatives, Rule of Law seems to work out the best for the most people.[/quote]
Where in my post does it say anything about lynch mobs? A brother or father meeting out justice for their the rape of their sisters, wifes, or daughters is hardly a lynch mob that hangs the wrong bloke.
Umm, it has happened plenty of times before. Lots of black American men have been dangled from that rope for “raping” white women.
Obviously you come from a sheltered little society such as backwoods whitebread Canada and are naively unaware of the dangers of fathers, brothers, and their assorted 100+ cousins running amok lynch-mobbing “obvious” criminals (usually whose only criminal activity is being in the wrong place at the wrong time).
“These are the trees my forefathers swung from”
- Arrested Development, “Tennessee”
[quote=“mod lang”]Umm, it has happened plenty of times before. Lots of black American men have been dangled from that rope for “raping” white women.
Obviously you come from a sheltered little society such as backwoods whitebread Canada and are naively unaware of the dangers of fathers, brothers, and their assorted 100+ cousins running amok lynch-mobbing “obvious” criminals (usually whose only criminal activity is being in the wrong place at the wrong time).
[/quote]
Sorry to disappoint you but I have never even been to Canada much less hail from there. I have lived in major cities ever since birth.
The blacks were hung by lynch mobs due to racism not vendetta - southern rednecks would hang blacks for any old offence cause they thought it was fun - guilt or innocence for them is imaterial.
We prefer bullets to lynching; not too many trees in the city.
It’s certainly less corrupt than China, and I would have to guess that it’s less corrupt than South Korea as well. I used to live in Sichuan, and bribery was endemic there. You needed to give money (or some other kind of guanxi) to somebody in order to do pretty much anything. I am not exaggerating - I had to bribe somebody in order to be allowed to use the library at the university where I was a teacher, requests for directions at the front desks of hotels were ignored unless you greased the clerk’s palm, my students fully expected to have to pony up up to a year’s salary just to get a job, you had to ‘know somebody’ to buy a train ticket, etc. Taiwan looks pretty good after a year in Sichuan. My pet name for Chengdu used to be ‘the first circle of hell,’ but I’ve mellowed some since then.
That’s the point I’ve been trying to make. Anyone who calls Taiwan a ‘third-world country’ (what ever that is), just hasn’t been anywhere. It’s a little annoying to be called names for stating what is simply a fact; Taiwan is not and, in the lives of almost anyone posting on this site, has not been that bad of a place to live.