Okay, what’s up with the Taiwan News recently? Did someone run out of valium?
Some recent headlines:
Public Construction Commission incapable of answering to query in English
Ministry of Finance unable to comprehend English text
Again Ministry of Finance is not responding to English press query
Executive Yuan has difficulty in getting the point of a question
Office of the President cannot answer query without prepared statement
Seems like someone there just doesn’t fucking get it.
Ah, you missed the proclamation that Taiwan is now a bilingual country, and all government agencies must respond immediately to queries in fluent English. Never fear though, because senior civil servants are being sent on a week-long “Happy to English” [strike]gambling junket[/strike] course in Macao, so the expected service levels will soon be in place. 
Believe it or not the government side of the English life in Taiwan has gotten drastically better. I saw my first Chinglish street sign (put there by the government) in years while in Kenting the past few days and all it reminded me of was how long it has been.
Taipei itself had tons of crazy shit all over the place in the pre-Ma days. Even though there are slip ups every once and awhile (like printing the bus signs in romanized japanese instead of English or pinyin).
The immigration office is not the worst place on Earth ever since it transferred to the current agency it is run by and everyone has fluent English even if they dont know the correct answers to anything. (Imagine how bad it was before)
Hanyu pinyin is slowly winning the battle against DPP Bastardized pinyin.
And most importantly my favorite Chinese pub now has a menu that isnt google translated and is about 99% correct.
Not to be too optimistic but I just see some progress on the horizon. Every long journey begins with a few steps.
Well, this public shaming of our beloved government organs has to stop!
I agree. Almost every day I have email or telephone dealings with one local or central government unit or another, and I think things are getting steadily better. Where there is a problem, it often seems to be “cultural” rather than weak language skills. There are still some government workers who, as far as I can tell, don’t get the idea that they’re public servants and should help tax-payers who have questions. Or that by answering a few questions, they could be helping Taiwan…
Taiwans public officials are usually efficient and fairly reasonable, a lot of us need to experience more of our home countries bureaucracies to realize this.
I remember when dealing with American bureaucrats, such as getting FBI reports, processing times are measured in months, not days (which is the case in Taiwan).
[quote=“monkey”]Okay, what’s up with the Taiwan News recently? Did someone run out of valium?
Some recent headlines:
Public Construction Commission incapable of answering to query in English
Ministry of Finance unable to comprehend English text
Again Ministry of Finance is not responding to English press query
Executive Yuan has difficulty in getting the point of a question
Office of the President cannot answer query without prepared statement
Seems like someone there just doesn’t fucking get it.[/quote]
You can’t blame the news guys. How well would a paper sells if it said this:
Public construction commission only able to answer 85% queries in English
Some employees at the Ministry of Finance unable to comprehend English test about derivative structured finance
Etc.
No-one would buy the paper then. Shockers sell.
[quote=“E04teacherlin”][quote=“monkey”]Okay, what’s up with the Taiwan News recently? Did someone run out of valium?
Some recent headlines:
Public Construction Commission incapable of answering to query in English
Ministry of Finance unable to comprehend English text
Again Ministry of Finance is not responding to English press query
Executive Yuan has difficulty in getting the point of a question
Office of the President cannot answer query without prepared statement
Seems like someone there just doesn’t fucking get it.[/quote]
You can’t blame the news guys. How well would a paper sells if it said this:
Public construction commission only able to answer 85% queries in English
Some employees at the Ministry of Finance unable to comprehend English test about derivative structured finance
Etc.
No-one would buy the paper then. Shockers sell.[/quote]
Agreed, Apple Daily loves to do this, and even though everyone thinks that Apple Daily is just a bunch of gossiper, that paper sells better than all other papers combined. Same thing with tabloid papers in the West…
Exactly. And I always tell them when I am satisfied (which is actually most of the time). 
Exactly. And I always tell them when I am satisfied (which is actually most of the time). [/quote]
Me three. For example, where else would your tax officials be your favorite? Best service, best English, best in all aspects.
Good point. Pretty much every year I go in with a completed tax form, they check it for me, and in about 10 minutes it’s all done and they’ve found a way to lower my tax bill/increase my refund. I wouldn’t say it’s done with the best English, but it’s a lot better than my Chinese, and it’s sure appreciated. (I need to remember to tell them that next year.)