Now I’ve always said Taiwan is a racist country, so I’m not too surprised by this. And I’m always amazed by Taiwanese people’s defense, which is basically “No we are not.” For those of you not convinced, here you are:
You see, they aren’t racist. They just don’t like people who are different or darker than they are around, so it’s all good… 
Your second quote, the one from the politician, is truly sad. What’s worse is that most people will find a way to sympathize with the petitioners rather than the migrants.
Is anyone really surprised by this? Taiwanese are horribly racist towards SE Asian people (of course, they will never admit it). Saying otherwise is just silly.
Its the TW govts fault. They should have educational clips showing how the MRT and the HSR and other major projects were built by these SE Asians. And how many of the products “proudly” made in Taiwan are being made by SE Asians. And how many of older Taiwanese owe their daily well being to SE Asians who wheel them around and take care of them where their taiwanese relatives will not anymore.
Its the TW govts fault for not extolling all the benefits SE Asians have brought to life in Taiwan.
The animosity against SE Asians have to be educated OUT.
Or Taiwan is to remain in the dark ages and be passed behind just like Japan will be.
You can say exactly the same about Mainland Chinese, Korean, and Japanese in terms of racist attitudes towards darker skinned people. On the other hand, their views towards the fair skinned races (Caucasians) are also “racist” but in the opposite way. Many of you experience this first hand.
The government won’t do anything, the horrific quote in the OP is from an elected official for crisesakes.
I don’t think it’s skin colour, as such. That seems to be just the way halfwit politicans rationalize it. I’m about the same hue as the average Indonesian or Filipino, but people always seem to treat me with the sort of weird, embarrassing deference they reserve for “Americans” (= any white person of European descent). I’ve never met with any overtly racist behaviour. It’s just Taiwan’s ugly “caste system”: these people earn less than us and do our bidding, while we sit on our asses or squash cyclists with our SUVs. Therefore they are lesser humans.
But yeah - the government isn’t going to do anything. They are exactly the sort of privileged chinless wonders who look down their noses at the people doing the hard work.
There are quite a few Taiwanese that aren’t so lovey-dovey towards fair skinned races. And for the ones that display the reverse racism you mentioned, you’re right to call it racist. It’s still a tool to maintain social separation and reinforce the “you as a foreigner” mentality. But I’ve noticed there are times when the perks I get as a Caucasian are especially superficial, and just below the surface lies a degree of disdain towards me you might associate with your run-of-the-mill type of racist perspective.
After realizing this fact myself back in 1998, I’ve always been troubled, and have not yet figure out a way to make it clear to other Taiwanese that they are being racist. Because even if you tell them they are racist, and debate with them till they ran out of defences and shut their mouths, they will still not admit they are being racist.
Taiwanese don’t change their mind. Period. Unless the boss or the parents waiting with a large inheritance to bestow change it for them.
I was just pondering what those nasty foreigners might do to their little precious ones. Talk to them in tagalog? Steal their sunbrellas?
I’m also quite surprised to learn that they have leisure time.
It’s not the racism that surprises me. It’s the overtness of it, the fact that there’s no attempt to even hide it that surprises me.
because they really believe that’s just how things are. kind of like what Clinton said during the DNC, that they are honorable people who believe what they’ve said… It’s just what they said is pretty bad…
It was widely condemned by big-city Taipei liberals and in the mainstream press and expressly compared to the people who didn’t want the house for cancer patients in their neighborhood. This is more a case of small town non-sophisticates not being aware that racism is no longer acceptable in polite company.
Taipei Main Station has now implemented widely reported measures that seem to be intended to prevent migrant workers from hanging out in and around the station on Sundays. While some Taiwanese agreed, many others said they thought it was disgraceful.
The Taoyuan Hillbillies:
I wonder what she thinks the word discrimination means ? I feel quite ill reading this.
You know what I feel sad about? The children of all those 460 thousand immigrants to Taiwan, of which a great majority of those actually arr from Southern East Asia and have darker skin.
The Government recently started an “integration” program. Unfortunately, it is heavily influenced by a certain linguist who likes to come to Taiwan to lecture too much while his theories applied in California have been a disaster. Hence, I believe that the program will become a division -too much emphasis on mother language as being the language of the mother, and may not help the kids integrate.
‘It has nothing to do with discrimination’ :roflmao:
Then she expresses textbook discrimination.
Still mind-boggling!
Shoulda really left ‘skin color’ out of the quote…