Just heard it in the news: The Taiwanese government is considering to stop the teaching of Classical Chinese in schools.
What the f#%&#%?! The 本土化 policy is getting too extreme here. 國父 and Confucius are foreigners, no more Classical education?! 愛臺灣?
If you really love Taiwan, don’t play around with the education of your kids!
Ah-Bian, you’ve totally lost it!!! : :loco: :loco:
If this is true, it’s really a shame (although I’m sure the junior high and high school kids will be ecstatic). The Ministry of Education has become more and more politicized and are taking their “educational reform” much too far. Their changes are for political reasons, and politics should never take priority over education. If they want to put more emphasis on Taiwanese literature, history, geography, etc. that’s great … but to completely dismiss such an important part of Chinese culture as the classical language, or relegate it to a much lower level of importance is ridiculous. If that happens and kids here don’t have a good foundation in classical Chinese, then Sinology in Taiwan will become a dead field. Sad, sad, sad …
First reaction on reading this was to think of the North American education system.
Alot of schools in Canada and America do not have Shakespeare, or even anything predating 18th century literature in their curricula either.
We’ve all read/posted on the whack aspects of life in Taiwan, so it makes me wonder if by studying less of Confucian values and classic litterature (which they can do in future studies if so desired), wouldn’t the average Taiwanese student be better off learning a skill they can apply to their future jobs/lives?
Look, do you guys actually read/listen to the news or do you just guess. The amount of literary Chinese in the high school curriculum will be reduced by 10 to 20 percent depending on grade level.
And why shouldn’t it be reduced anyway? People in Taiwan write modern Chinese very poorly these days. They should spend more time learning how to write clean, accurate prose in the vernacular, not memorizing texts in a dead language that they don’t understand very well anyway.
Are most modern westerners uneducated because they don’t know Latin and Greek? Classics is still taught and studied even if it isn’t part of the curriculum.
And Sinology is thankfully dead in Taiwan anyway. Almost by definition it is the philogical study of the Chinese literary tradition by westerners.
Then what would you call 漢學?
Great point. Yet I would say that the timing of this announcement is unfortunate for those who prefer there to be a perception that the Ministry of Education doesn’t act out of electoral interests.
It’s important not to overreact to this
From what I’ve seen, this is indeed a very minor change. (Too minor, in my opinion. I quite agree with Feiren’s remarks, other than perhaps the observation on sinology, which might make an interesting topic of its own.) What’s more, the change is apparently not even a particularly recent one. So it looks like if there’s any politicization of this going on, it’s not from the pan-green side.
Do you remember how upset everyone was when schools in US and England quit teaching Latin…wheew!
Thanks for posting the links, Cranky. I’m glad to see that they are only “minor” changes. I think what is more important, though, is changing the way in which they teach classical Chinese as opposed to their teaching at all. The rote memorization of the texts is a completely useless method of learning classical Chinese. And I agree with you that I wouldn’t agree with Feiren’s comment that Sinology is dead in Taiwan … if that were so, all of my professors, the researchers at Academia Sinica, etc. would all be out of jobs. With academics in the mainland still being plagued by party ideology (such as classifying “Dream of the Red Chamber” as “anti-feudal”), Taiwan is one of the last bastions of traditional Chinese literary studies. There’s some interesting stuff going on in the West, but as much or more pure crap as well.
Well, good to know that it’s only going to be minor changes. The report in the news last night was saying something quite different. But then again, who trusts the Taiwanese news…I should have know.
I agree with zhujianlun on the issue that it is too early to say that Tu Cheng-sheng is some kind of green marauder. But knowing his background I don’t see much hope for the Taiwanese education system! He’s the former director of the National Palace Museum, lost his job because he was corrupt and turns out to be the new minister of education. I don’t really see his qualification for that job…?!
That’s the first I’ve heard of this. Where, exactly, did you come by this information? The same source that told you the government is going to stop teaching Classical Chinese? :s
Maybe a different channel? 
He definitely was Director of the National Palace Museum, was kicked out and is now Minister of Education.
The reasons why he lost his job at the NPM might not be 100% correct, but I heard in the news something about taking art objects home or giving them away etc. :loco: i.e. corruption.
Sorry, too busy to look the story up, but if you do, let me know.
[quote=“mesheel”]He definitely was Director of the National Palace Museum, was kicked out and is now Minister of Education.
The reasons why he lost his job at the NPM might not be 100% correct, but I heard in the news something about taking art objects home or giving them away etc. :loco: i.e. corruption.
Sorry, too busy to look the story up, but if you do, let me know.[/quote]
You are making the charge, you look it up. Tu Cheng-sheng was brought to the NPM specifically to clean up corruption. If you can show a source of your allegation it would be nice. Otherwise you’re just rumor-mongering.
Tu most certainly did not lose his job at the National Palace Museum. He did a great job there of cleaning up and modernizing one of Taiwan’s most conservative and probably corrupt institutions. Now LTH has tapped him to modernize and localize the Ministry of Education. This is very important to LTH and the TSU because they want to take this opportunity to get rid of the old curriculum and its greater China ideology.
BTW, Tu is a well-known expert on the city in ancient China.
Mesheel: you seem like a nice person, but you are almost pathetically uninformed about Taiwan. Check your sources and make sure you understand what you think you heard before you post this kind of hearsay.
I’m as informed as Taiwanese TV news allow me to, i.e. not well… 
Feiren, everyone makes mistakes. No reason to jump all over them with adjectives like “pathetic.” I, and I think most here, greatly respect you for your vast knowledge of Taiwan, China, and Chinese language, but your delivery could stand for a little tweaking.
[quote=“Feiren”]
Are most modern westerners uneducated because they don’t know Latin and Greek?[/quote]
Yes! But not for that reason alone! :fume: 
For a look at the education system being replaced, check the last couple of posts in the “Books on Taiwan” thread in this section… you decide which system is more manipulative for political purposes… If anything, the Taiwanization of the education system erodes party manipulation and focuses on the modern reality of Taiwan as the economic, cultural and tangible center of citizen’s lives. Written Japanese is rooted in Classical Chinese, but it would make no sense for the Japanese to learn it… Much of the old curriculum was designed to socialize Taiwanese children to become loyal to the ROC and the KMT.
Unfortunately for the KMT, the high ideals and patriotic slogans taught in schools, juxtaposed to the reality of official corruption, ethnic disparity and accepted levels of cheating within the educational system, resulted in the emergence of cross-ethnic cynicism of the KMT regime, thus eroding the authority of the state and the nationalism it promoted. A seperate Taiwanese national identity naturally displaced the former system. The localization movement IS a form of nation building and DOES have the hallmarks of nationalism within a political narrative. But, the current efforts are directed at unifying Taiwan under a common destiny.
I suppose you mean Kanbun. Yes it does make sense to learn it and they still do. As well as foreigners who’s major is “Japanese Studies”.
The KMT tried to shape the national identity that they wanted, and the DPP is now trying to do the same thing. I think neither of them has the best interests of Taiwan at heart. Education should never be politicized, and it is being used here as a political tool. The current administration is using education (as the Chinese always have, including the KMT) to maintain their grip on power.
As I’ve said before, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to include more Taiwanese history, literature, geography, etc. in the school curriculum. I think it’s great. But the government should 1) not try to force it’s own vision of a “national identity” on the people, and 2) the education system has more pressing needs, such as abolishing the ridiculous culture of testing that literally is suffocating the students, thus getting rid of the need for cram schools and constant studying which deprives kids here of leading a fulfilling life. They need to teach more about democracy, civic duties and responsibility, current events, and how to exercise one’s rights as citizens, etc. These are the reforms that the education system really needs. But unfortunately, teaching them to think for themselves would threaten the position of whoever is in power, whether it is the KMT or DPP, and I don’t see Taiwanese politicians being able to look beyond that anytime in the near future.