Plse. help: What measures are you expecting from cities?

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
1

Dear friends,

I would like to ask for a favor:

The Taiwanese Society for International Law requests me writing a report about political measures by city/provinces regarding foreigner’s human rights in Taiwan. For that report, I need some ideas or input, for instance:

In which matters do you need support or assistance by the local authorities?
Have you any bad or good experieces with local authorities? (discrimination, special assistance for foreigners?)
Where is some space for improvement? (english language abilities, better understanding of other cultures?)

Thanks for any idea. Please don’t argue about the immigration or labour law because that is a matter regulated by the Central government.

2

Anything at all would be a good start.
I lived in Taoyuan with my girlfriend (although we moved out of the place just over a year ago) and we had some serious trouble with our neighbour.
My girlfriend is local, but that didn’t seem to matter.
The woman was mentally unstable and she kept banging on our door (sometimes for hours on end), kept calling us all sort of abusive things, spat on our door etc.
Things went like this for several months, then one day when we were going out for dinner, she decided we weren’t going to be allowed to leave and blocked us from entering the elevator with a broomstick. In the end I decided I had enough and took the stairs at which moment she hit me over the arm with the broomstick.
We decided to go to the police and they informed us that they could do nothing, as I was a foreigner…
So yeah, much can be done to improve things here, since as a foreigner, you have no rights at all, or at least so it seems.

The story goes on as a few months later she ended up in a fight with my girlfriend and both ended up in hospital. Then finally the police got hold of her family and she got sent to mental hospital for a whole 3 months. Once she got back home, things started over again. We decided to move, despite the fact that my girlfriend owns this place. We’d just suffered too much without being able to do anything about this matter.

A few months later we get a letter from the court telling us that she’s sued us. For what we don’t know, but as things turned out, the old lady passed away without anyone noticing until a couple of weeks after Chinese New Year. We still had to show up in court and waste time and money (take a day off work) to attend. Only last week we got the all clear as the case had been dismissed in our favour.

No-one at the local police station spoke English, my girlfriend had to translate for me. No-one seemed to care as I was a foreigner. The same pretty much happened at court, as not even the court officials spoke English, so again, my girlfriend had to translate, which is just crazy, as she could’ve told them just about anything.

So hopefully this story will help with your project. At least in my situation, I didn’t have a particularly good experience with the Taiwanese legal system.

3

[quote=“hiker”]Dear friends,

I would like to ask for a favor:

The Taiwanese Society for International Law requests me writing a report about political measures by city/provinces regarding foreigner’s human rights in Taiwan. For that report, I need some ideas or input, for instance:

In which matters do you need support or assistance by the local authorities?
Have you any bad or good experieces with local authorities? (discrimination, special assistance for foreigners?)
Where is some space for improvement? (english language abilities, better understanding of other cultures?)

Thanks for any idea. Please don’t argue about the immigration or labour law because that is a matter regulated by the Central government.[/quote]

I don’t really understand what you are looking for? What local authorities can we discuss? Police, civil servants, local village chiefs, legislative members, EPA officials, tourism officials, etc? Can you please provide clearer details of who we can discuss and what issues? You have clarified that we cannot discuss labour or immigration. So what’s left?

4

TheLostSwede, thanks.

To Focus it: No english speaking staff at courts, police station and passive police?

Mucha-man,
yes: local police, offcials behaviour etc at the lower level (city, hsian). I let the topic open to get information as that kind by TheLostSwede.

5

[quote=“hiker”]Dear friends,

I would like to ask for a favor:

The Taiwanese Society for International Law requests me writing a report about political measures by city/provinces regarding foreigner’s human rights in Taiwan. For that report, I need some ideas or input, for instance:

In which matters do you need support or assistance by the local authorities?
Have you any bad or good experieces with local authorities? (discrimination, special assistance for foreigners?)
Where is some space for improvement? (english language abilities, better understanding of other cultures?)

Thanks for any idea. Please don’t argue about the immigration or labour law because that is a matter regulated by the Central government.[/quote]

The foreigner is seriously disadvantaged against in the “family law system” in Taiwan, please read my postings on my personal situation for further information. I don’t think that officials being able to speak English is a big issue, it’s the underlying system, particularly the police and enforcement courts. And the actual problem is deeper than even a prejudice against foreigners. It’s because the whole society still operates on a basis of face and guanxi- and foreigners suffer more than local people because we don’t know how to play the face game and don’t have as many guanxi. The actual law in Taiwan (which I understand is in part based on German law) is not the problem, it’s the backward nature of Taiwanese society that renders the law useless.

The questionnaire that you have been asked to put to us foreign residents is meaningless because it does not address the root of the problem. Like most things in Taiwan, it just gives supercial, and false, appearance that something is being done and that people care. You have been prohibited in discussing labour and immigration law because that is regulated by local government, yet they want you to comment on an issue that is completely unregulated and not legislated such as “understanding of other cultures” ?

All I can say is that I hope that you are getting well paid for this report, and that you are able to explore the deeper issues. Is this the Chinese (Taiwan) Society of International Law and the Taiwanese Society of International Law ? (I.e. the Judean People’s front of the People’s Front of Judea ?) Both are mentioned on the MOFA website as being non-profit organisations but it is not clear if they are linked in any way to the government. By the way, neither of these websites have an English section, to me that doesn’t give the impression of having a real international outlook !

Sorry to be cynical, but I saw through all the crap a long time ago.

6

Thanks, I understand your meaning.

It’s the Taiwanese Society of IL, closer to the independence. I am not paid for that report because I am a member of that society. The persons are really interested. Expressing foreigner’s view can be helpful for us.

I hope you can solve your problem. In my opinion your dificulties are not a problem of law but of enforcement.

Regards and best wishes

7

I’m still having a problem with the whole concept so I am going to try to work through my confusion.

I live in a nice neighborhood in Wenshan District. Once in three years there was a disturbance on my street,. The cops were there in 2 minutes to resolve it. In recent years cops on scooters ahve started to patrol along the bike paths and riverside parks at night to make sure no one is causing trouble. It works and we have a nice safe and more or less clean neighborhood.

Taipei City has most of the laws and by-laws it needs: for noise, traffic, littering, etc. It even has a number to call to register complaints: 1999. If you call on this number your complaint is registered on their computers and they have to call you back at some point to see if the matter has been resolved. It seems to work well though the things I have complained about, neighbors burning leaves, have not always been dealt with to my satisfaction.

And that may be the issue: enforcement. I don’t think we as foreigners have any or many (family law may be an exception as pgdaddy has written) special needs that are not covered by law already. So the issues we face with not having our complaints dealt with is the same as all Taiwanese face.

Pro bono legal advise would be welcome. I know there was a program years ago though I am not sure if it is still ongoing. Having this advise available by email would be helpful.

I would also like a website that explains in English Taiwan’s criminal law, and its court system.

8

[quote=“Mucha Man”]Pro bono legal advise would be welcome. I know there was a program years ago though I am not sure if it is still ongoing. Having this advise available by email would be helpful.

I would also like a website that explains in English Taiwan’s criminal law, and its court system.[/quote]

For instance - that is a input which I need. I agree, Taiwan is a country/state (whatsever) with legal system but in my opinion with some problems left.

Thanks.

9

Cities?

Start with central government bodies …

[quote]It shows again after my debacle at the post office yesterday that the people in charge, that make up rules are incompetent, don’t care about correctness and that government bodies in Taiwan don’t communicate …
If our ARC, that is issued by the government is not recognized as a valid ID proof by a government agency for redeeming vouchers why should banks or private institutions do so?

In fact our ARC has the same validity as ass wipe paper with a picture pasted on … :s

[/quote]

10

correct, but unfortunately, my report’s content is limited to measures by cities …

11

More publicity on how to get help from your local Labour Bureau in case of difficulties at work would be useful. The service exists, and is reasonably effective, but not many people seem to know about it.
A one-stop, free database of the local laws translated into English would be lovely.

12

Thanks Kitkat.

I friend of mine has suggest to refine my questions:

My questionairy is not bad aimed, neither to Taiwan nor to foreigners. That Taiwanese Society is really interested in the position of foreigners and the improvement of Taiwan’s legal system at the cities level. I need to know problems for foreigners as pgdaddies difficulties.

I agree that my questions are dificult to understand or imprecise but I got the corresponding imprecise topic for my report. Please compare it with Maoman’s request to fill in a government questionairy (3 days before?). I did it but mean that the questions are not so usefull. We try to understand the Taiwanese intention and “translate” it in our real requests and opinions.

Why shouldn’t foreigners as us in kind manner express their opinion? It is a justified to ask for translations of Taiwanese law, as it is fair to critizise the enforcement system.

13

Things in Taipei have really changed in the last ten years to make foreigners more comfortable.

I have found Police to be extremely patient with foreigners when called to a bar or apartment where foreigners are guilty of making too much noise. The police seem to understand the local plaintiff (complainer) is usually a bit of a jerk and they always find an amicable solution. Basically, police do not go out of their way to fuck over foreigners, if anything they try to find a solution.
Traffic cops have also been cool with me, be it on a scooter or in a car, they have never hassled me.

That being said, when you need the help of the police, they might not be as keen to roll up their sleeves and give you the same effort they would a local. But perhaps we are holding them to Western standards where policing is more thorough. Perhaps the police here are just a little more apathetic than what whitey considers the norm.

I think much of the problem the foreign community has with Taipei City officials, police, regulations etc… is there is too much ‘chabudo’. People leave well enough alone to a fault and sometimes the public (locals often complain about this) feel like they aren’t complete protected, they get a ‘good enough’ solution, not a fair or just one.

14

Overall, I’ve seen huge improvements and developments in the last ten years! That being said, there is still room for improvement.

Some ideas:

  • If a (working) foreigner shows an interest in staying longterm, it would be beneficial to all involved to offer language classes at “non-working” times.

  • Help us to be independent. Give us the means to help ourselves without our “nanny”, especially in the first few months. Few things are more demeaning than needing to rely on others for every little thing.

  • (Not sure this can be done at city level, but…) Legislate non-racism for businesses, utilities and banks. No matter how long we’ve been here, no matter how great our credit rating may be, we’ve got a LOT more hurdles to jump when getting credit/debit cards, avoiding security deposits and getting cellphone contracts. We don’t exist for the sole purpose of fleecing Taiwanese businesspeople, honest. (Maybe make this take effect after three or four years, to weed out the riffraff.)

  • Make it easier for foreigners to own businesses independently. Chances are, if we’re here long-term, we’re not siphoning our money out of the country, but spending it here and contributing to the local economy. Let us participate in the economy without having to marry locally or seek a Taiwanese business partner; we’ll be giving jobs to local people and boosting the economy if we’re successful.

  • Open the job market more. Most foreigners can only work in a few select types of occupations. Believe it or not, some of us have things to offer that don’t involve “teaching” English in a substandard environment or being an engineer. Let us be a part of Taiwanese society in the way that Taiwanese expats can be part of society overseas. Sometimes we may have more to offer than a local applicant; why not take advantage of that?

15

Okay, so so far, we have the following that would help:

Clear information on a website and/or a booklet on the laws in Taiwan. I would hope this would include by-laws on noise, traffic, pollution, etc. I would also hope this could include a simple explanation of the court system and the different levels of courts. I know there are three levels (district, high and supreme) but is there also what we in the west call a small claimes court? Somewhere to go to take your neighbor if his dog destroyed your property for example.

The rights of western fathers and mothers should be spelt out clearly.

It would also be good to list lawyers and legal firms that have English speakers and any pro bono services.

The main problem for foreigners is a lack of information. Fortunately forumosa has a number of lawyers who are usually able to advise us.

16

[quote=“nemesis”]

  • Make it easier for foreigners to own businesses independently. Chances are, if we’re here long-term, we’re not siphoning our money out of the country, but spending it here and contributing to the local economy. Let us participate in the economy without having to marry locally or seek a Taiwanese business partner; we’ll be giving jobs to local people and boosting the economy if we’re successful.

  • Open the job market more. Most foreigners can only work in a few select types of occupations. Believe it or not, some of us have things to offer that don’t involve “teaching” English in a substandard environment or being an engineer. Let us be a part of Taiwanese society in the way that Taiwanese expats can be part of society overseas. Sometimes we may have more to offer than a local applicant; why not take advantage of that?[/quote]

THIS, times a million!

17

Okay, at a city level, this isn’t unique to foreigner use, but we need more rubbish bins everywhere in the cities. This measure will make everyone feel more comfortable, so that our choices when it’s +35 degrees aren’t “litter” or “carry it indefinitely”.

It would also be nice if local events were published in an English guide or at an online site; a lot of great things go on all over the place, and I often find out about them after the fact. A central website that’s updated regularly would work wonders; so many of the “helpful” websites available to foreigners have more outdated information and dead links than helpful information and good links.

18

At a city level? Recognize that foreigners that have residence and pay taxes are contributing members to the community.

I am involved in sports programs that offer development for both foreign and local athletes and recently we have been threatened with having our city/national sponsored status to get public welfare rates for our facility use removed because we share the use between foreign residents and local citizens. The opposition argues that the rates should be available to citizens only.

The fact that local organizations can think that they can use this as leverage indicates that there is a problem of perception between what locals and foreigners are entitled to… :unamused:

19

[quote=“hiker”]Thanks, I understand your meaning.

It’s the Taiwanese Society of IL, closer to the independence. I am not paid for that report because I am a member of that society. The persons are really interested. Expressing foreigner’s view can be helpful for us.

I hope you can solve your problem. In my opinion your dificulties are not a problem of law but of enforcement.

Regards and best wishes[/quote]

Sorry if I seem cynical, I just hope that this organisation is not using you in any way to give them an acceptable international face.

Anyway, I will be happy to provide you or them with any details of my story as a case study in the underlying problems of the family law system as regards foreigners.

All the best to you too, Hiker. You sound like a nice guy and it’s a shame we never managed to take that hike together before I left TW !

20

Pgdaddy, you have to leave?

First or second week of January, we want to hike the Northern Cross Highway, beginning on Friday morning, stop in Baling, down to silin hot spring, overnight stay, on sunday evening to yilan, than back to TPE or whatever.

That society is critical against the government, part. against the new government.