A few years ago, I reported the startling discovery that numerous Taiwanese college students have no clue as to when World War II was (even allowing for different plausible answers). Lo and behold, while grading exams last week I discovered that many of them don’t recognize the flag of the PRC.
Here’s the context: The exam question asked (in another language which they were studying) “What country are you from?” And I had drawn a little guy with a flag on the back of his shirt. I suppose I should mention that this was in black-and-white, but still… The flag had one big star in the corner, with four little ones in an arc–oh, you know. Anyway, a lot of students understood the question, but thought the answer was Britain, Korea, or Germany.
How could this happen? Is it because they’ve grown up seeing the ROC flag superimposed on maps of China?
this does not surprise me. i find that alot of TW people are rather “ignorant” of the “outside” world. they all know that they need to learn english for their future and career, but not many of them, at all, know about world history, geo-politlcal ideas and even have much social understanding of the world in general. they have had a very, how can i say, insulated, up bringing.
I have met some TW people (adults) who are not even aware of Simplified and Traditional written chinese. This also astounds me.
In addition, and what horrifies me the most, the vast majority of TW people i know do not how to read between the lines of media and historical documents. they take everything at face value and accept the media as the gospel truth. I grew up, and was in fact, in doctrinated to question everything andbe critical of the media etc and this does not happen to TW people. this, more then anything, horrifies me.
Funny you should say this. From what I’ve been told, by the Taiwanese & Chinese I know, the standard procedure here is to “read between the lines” of all the newspapers and innuendo that passes for “news” on the TV shows to get the ‘real’ stories.
I think this is SOP for the leading paper on the island - The Apple - and accounts for its popularity. Daily deciphering of what is really being reported.
I was recently teaching a lesson about names and their meanings to a middle school class. I was telling that a lot of mainland Chinese have more nationalistic surnames like 國強 or 偉民. I mentioned how another common surname was 紅軍 (Red Army) and everyone proclaimed, “Oh my God! Shi Mingde is in China!” I told them, no, the other red army, the People’s Liberation Army. “Huh?” You know, they kicked the KMT out of China. You know, Mao Zedong. “Who?” I wrote the Chinese characters 毛澤東. “Who??” Whereupon one student, bless his soul, said, “Oh, Mao Zedong. I think I’ve heard that name.”
Recently my upper level class was learning religious vocabulary. They were asked to match a picture of a person with a symbol representing their religion - one for Christianity, one for Islam, and one for Judaism, with a cross, a crescent and star, or a star of david. When they saw the picture of Ayatollah Khomeini (to be matched with Islam) every one of them stopped me and asked me “Is that Jesus?”
Somehow it reminded me of hearing how an Egyptian-American friend asked his little son who the man on the TV was (Saddam Hussein) and how the little son replied “Grandpa!”
[quote=“superemma”]When they saw the picture of Ayatollah Khomeini (to be matched with Islam) every one of them stopped me and asked me “Is that Jesus?”
Somehow it reminded me of hearing how an Egyptian-American friend asked his little son who the man on the TV was (Saddam Hussein) and how the little son replied “Grandpa!”[/quote]
Reminds me of how one person in Asia told me I look like Bill Clinton and another told me I look like Brad Pitt. Clinton, Pitt, whatever, we all look the same. But that’s a different matter.
I had a Junior High Intermediate level GEPT class (passed GEPT 1 and 2) on Thursday, with very good English ability totally unaware of what a Buddhist is. I even had pictures. In colour. They had no idea what or who Buddha, the Dalai Llama or Buddhism is. None of them knew any Buddhists either.
I was astounded, as this is a class that is usually pretty jacked up.
There’s plenty of ignorance of the “inside” world. Several students I talked to were astounded to learn that the French occupied Keelung from 1884 to 1885, during the Sino-French War.
This is by no means a Taiwanese phenomenon I know plenty of people back home who are woefully ignorant of the rest of the world. It is an embarrassment, to be sure, but not a localized one.
They all think I’m a american (I was a suspected australian once)
They are all suprised that we have our own language in Norway and that we don’t speak english like the americans.
The only other culture I can think off with soo litle knowledge about the outside world is US.
A american woman on vecation in Norway thought I was a student from england because she did not exspect anny locals to speak english Thank god I speak bether than I write.
My gf was suprised that my 78yo grandmom could understand and speak english and that all my famely members knew the history about Mao taking over china and CKS had to go to Formosa.
What scare me far more than the level off knowledge is the ignorance I see on the roads every day.
If I had Euro for everytime a Euro thought Mexico was in South America.
The only differences I see between Americans and Euros is Americans admit they’re ignorant whereas Euros open their yap and prove to everybody they are.
I met some Germans in Miami who thought they could drive to New Orleans in time for lunch.[/quote]
LoL
That reminds me of my late step-grandma’s neighbor who thought you could just drive from Tokyo to Beijing and on to Hong Kong.[/quote]
Well you could, as long as you had ferry tickets.
And why couldn’t you drive from Miami to New Orleans in time for lunch? It’s only 1,000 miles or so. Leave after lunch, get there in time for lunch. See? Easy peasy.
From my home town in Belgium I could drive to Austria in the morning, have a coffee and be back home before 1:00 AM the next day … or go to Paris, have lunch and be back home before prime time TV starts …
Just about any rural people anywhere don’t know that much about the outside world because foreigners don’t come there and it isn’t relevant to their lives - it’s much the same as city people having no idea what to do in the country or about what goes on there. Nothing to be suprised about, just the way people work: no reason to know stuff outside of the sphere of relevance you yourself occupy.
Thank god I speak bether than I write.