While I agree that it is time to overhaul the outdated civil service exams, I think the Examination Yuan is showing yet again the total incompetence of the DPP government. First of all, it was clearly racist (to me, anyway) to include questions on the exam in Hokkien, when many people can’t speak the dialect, and the purpose was obviously to stack the deck in favor of “local” civil servants.
The part that bothered me the most, however, was the statement by the Examination Yuan that " … questions on future national examinations would not reflect the examiners’ political ideologies or touch on controversial areas such as racial or sexual discrimination." First of all, the examinations shouldn’t have reflected the examiners’ political ideologies in the first place … that should go without saying. The worst part is that they are NOT going to test things such as sexual or racial discrimination … I think these are things that civil servants SHOULD be educated about. What happened to the DPP’s big platform of human rights!!!
It’s not obvious to me at all. Questions like that were obviously not going to stand. Sounds like a clever tool to help reform exams with utterly pointless inclusion of classical Chinese, certainly a good thing. Speaking of racist the educational and civil service systems have long been stacked towards “mainlanders,” inclusion of classical Chinese shows bias to me, of a far more long-standing and pernicious basis than a few questions in written Taiwanese which I would personally have to see to believe that any reader of Chinese couldn’t understand in two seconds if they wouldn’t confuse 99% of hoklo speakers.
[quote]daltongang wrote:
a few questions in written Taiwanese which I would personally have to see to believe that any reader of Chinese couldn’t understand in two seconds if they wouldn’t confuse 99% of hoklo speakers.
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I can understand that a passage written in Hokkien using Chinese characters would be unintelligible to non-Hokkien speakers, or at least extremely difficult. I just wonder how they wrote the 15% or so words for which there is no standard Chinese character. Also I can imagine that some hokkien readers may also have been confused.
Anyway. I do agree with emphasisng mroe Taiwanese, and less Chinese culture and history. I also think that it would be a fair requirement of civil servants to be fluent in at least two of Taiwan’s languages. Of course, they went about it the wrong way without announcement or guidelines.
In a related issue, I do think the suggestions for a new senior high school history curricullum are good. I think it was to be 6 months of Taiwan’s history, 6 months of Ancient Chinese history and then 1 year of world history, which include China form the Qing onwards. Personally I think a good one wouldbe 4 six-month units:
China to the Ming Dynasty
The History of Taiwan
East Asia (focusing on China, Taiwan and the relations with foreignpowers) from the age of discovery until WW2
For 40 years the bureacracy was “stacked” with “non-locals” who didn’t understand Taiwanese and had no incentive to learn. This despite the fact that a large swath of the population that these civil servants were serving spoke only Taiwanese. I suppose this is the good old days some poeple would like to return to.
Besides, there was only 1 question in Taiwanese, so it’s akin to giving a few points of extra credit to people who have the language skills to serve a multi-lingual population. Contrast that to other multilingual societies like Quebec and Catalonia that require ALL their civil servants to be bilingual.
Ironically if they had announced instead that the exam would include a few questions in English I’m sure you’d be doing backflips in approval, even though the ratio of English speakers to Taiwanese speakers on this island is approximately 0.
Even some supporters of a revised Taiwan-centric curriculum expressed ambivalence towards the proposed curriculum. It seems to go beyond the notion that Taiwan and China have been distinct political and historical entities since 1948 (something nowadays accepted by almost everyone except the Chinese on the mainland and a few diehards on this board). By placing Qing and early-Republic history in the sequence of world history, it seems to suggest that it is no more related to Taiwan’s history than events in Europe or Japan.
The defenders of the curriculum respond that China’s history from the Qing onwards is really a story of how China responded to external forces, so it properly belongs in the context of modern world history.
I think just like with many things, the devil will be in the details.
[quote]The defenders of the curriculum respond that China’s history from the Qing onwards is really a story of how China responded to external forces, so it properly belongs in the context of modern world history.
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That’s why I like it. Most history course are not just ‘The history of everything in this place from that time to that’. They have some kind of theme. So a study of China, Taiwan and East Asia fromt he Qing til now, would be good with a theme of the changes brought about by the arrival of the European (and Japanese) powers, the forcing of China onto an international stage, and position of Taiwan int his relationship.
And you base your assumption on what? I’ve never had to use English when dealing with government people, so it doesn’t really matter to me personally one way or another.
I think you missed the main point of my original post. Beyond the issue of whether or not to include questions in Hokkien, I was criticizing the Examination Yuan’s statement that issues like racial and sexual discrimination will not be included on future exams because those issues are too “controversial” … I think these are exactly the kinds of things that civil servants should be learning about (much moreso than English, classical Chinese, or whatever). Personally, I do agree with removing a lot of the Sino-centric elements of the test (like the classical Chinese stuff). Also, I never said I thought the exam should be Sino-centric, or that the system under the previous regime was right/fair … just because they (the KMT) did it before, doesn’t mean the DPP has to do it now … two wrongs don’t make a right. The tests should be fair … to locals, “waishengren”, hakka, aborigines, etc. All of the other stuff aside, I think the DPP’s motives are clear. “Revenge” or whatever isn’t the way to make Taiwan a better place, and I think the DPP has been going out of its way to stir up ethnic divisions among the population.
Here are the new examination guidelines. I think Item 2.2 is saying that exam questions should not be ethnocentric or sexist. This is significant because it may be possible to throw out future exam questions on these grounds. The real progressive element though is the prohibition against “obscure classical passages” and “irrelevant Sinology.”
There was also an interesting article in today’s China Times about the controversy. Li Yuti, a member of the Yuan, said that he was responsible for the controversial exam questions. Li said that in past examinations, the geographical and history sections of the exam, included only seven questions about Taiwan’s history and geography out of forty. The others were all about China. On this exam, all of the questions were about Taiwan, but only one question required knowledge of Taiwanese. His comments about people lacking a ‘Taiwan heart’ verge on bigotry though.
One of the key elements in Chen’s re-election strategy is to gain a few percentage points among Hakka voters. Hakkas voted solidly for Soong in the last election largely because of lingering historical resentment against Minnan Taiwanese. With Chen agressively courting Hakka voters (Hakka TV, Cabinet level Commission on Hakka affairs etc.) the pan-blue camp is naturally eager to stir up some ethnic resentment against the Minnan.
Goes to show once again that a little knowledge is dangerous is in the inept moronic hands of The Taipei Times.
The guidelines you posted are for the Chinese subject examination. Why would an exam to test Chinese language abilities deal with ethnic or sexual discrimination in the first place?
Item 2.1 was also mistranslated. Rather than mandating that the questions “should not reflect the examiners’ political ideologies,” it actually says the questions “should not involve political ideology.” It can mean that the questions should not reflect any ideological bias and also that the questions should not test knowledge of any political ideology. Given that this is an exm of the Chinese language and the extreme partisanship that clouds everything else on this island, I think such an explicit rule is a good idea.
[quote=“Bu Lai En”] Most history course are not just ‘The history of everything in this place from that time to that’. They have some kind of theme. So a study of China, Taiwan and East Asia fromt he Qing til now, would be good with a theme of the changes brought about by the arrival of the European (and Japanese) powers, the forcing of China onto an international stage, and position of Taiwan int his relationship.
Brian[/quote]
Brian, I agree with what you’re saying. But I also think it’s apparent that through the proposed curriculum the DPP is bolstering the view that Taiwan and China have really been separate historical entities since Qing times. While I personally favor this view, it is not (yet) the concensus view in Taiwan.
What would happen if the pan-Blue won the next Presidential elections? Would the new government then rollback the changes? I think the curriculum should be designed so that it wouldn’t be subject to ad hoc revisions.
I’m not sure that a popular consensus should be the basis for deciding a history curriculum. I also think that if the Pan-blue alliance wins, they will revise the curriculum again. Actually this is a great opportunity to give a real history lesson. Why not be honest and say that there are two competing views of Taiwan’s past. Provide references to the primary materials cited by both sides and allow students to develop their own views.