We’re a relatively new podcast that explores the “why” behind some of Taiwan’s cultural behaviors and/or traditions. Experimenting with something new, where we ask our listeners if they have any questions they’d like us to pass on to our interviewees, or stories and experiences they’d like to share.
Our next episode has to do with policing in Taiwan. If you have anything you’ve been curious about (or angry about, or speechless about, yada yada), please let us know!
We get a lot of good comments from listeners after episodes are released, but it would be cool to have some of their own questions answered when possible.
Can comment below, or on our Facebook page under this post. Looking forward to hearing from you guys! Thanks!
In 2014-2015, the Fulbright ETA program in Kinmen had a “coordinator” that forced ETAs to rent apartments and scooters that he owned, but had friends pretend to be landlords and scooter rental companies so Fulbright wouldn’t know he was running his own personal, profitable business scamming ETAs.
Things kept disappearing from apartments and some ETAs called the police. The police repeatedly said there was “no evidence” that anyone had broken in, so they would not look into the matter further. They prevented the filing of police reports.
Eventually, the ETAs demanded that Fulbright look into what was happening and asked the coordinator to return some of the money he had scammed the ETAs with, but not all. They didn’t fire him or press charges. They didn’t even change the locks on the apartments, despite the ETAs insisting that things were still going missing. Things continues to disappear from the apartments that this coordinator owned and had keys to, and the police continued to say that they didn’t have any evidence that anyone had broken into the apartments, therefore there was “no need” to file police reports. Fulbright and AIT refused to help look into the matter, obviously afraid of the loss of face. Rather than press charges against or at least fire the coordinator and immediately move the ETAs to new apartments, Fulbright continued to use those apartments the following year, where still more personal possessions went missing.
One of the questions we have prepared is about guanxi - to what degree it has over policemen doing their job, what kind of “conveniences” it brings to those who have it, etc.
Oh yeah. Fulbright’s guanxi in Kinmen is why Fulbright has been able to take over all the teaching positions on the island, despite schools explicitly asking for licensed teachers (I am among the very large number of licensed teachers who left Kinmen public schools due to the nonsense brought on by Fulbright’s presence). Their relationship with the police would be a nightmare (or an investigative journalist’s dream) to look deeply into, as they helped cover up so many shady things in the time I lived there (two ETAs also tried smuggling weed into Kinmen from Taipei for sale and there was basically no media coverage about it and they basically just got deported, instead of fined and imprisoned for years or whatever the usual charge is)
My apartment is in a building above the office of a candidate for city mayor. They’ve been blocking public, marked parking spaces with traffic cones for their own use (and the parking of their car plastered with ads for the candidate). I complained to the building management that they were doing this, but they said it was public land and therefore a police matter. I contacted the police, who said they won’t do anything because it’s private land.
I again contacted the building management, who provided me with a map of the range of the building’s property. It clearly does not extend past the arcade (otherwise, they’d be selling those parking spaces). I shared this with the police, who insisted it’s private land (it’s really not, there are street lights and traffic signs right next to the parking space).
Hmm, I wonder why they’re unwilling to upset a candidate for local mayor…