in the early days of the founding of the united states, politicians used to have pistol duels to the death. taiwan’s parliamentary fights are pretty tame compared to that as well.
The United States also had a nasty civil war , as did many many others. However now is 2014, it would be better if things didn’t descend into fisticuffs in parliament.
I may have posted this earlier, if so, then I apologize.
I don’t think the elites or political classes want Taiwan to be anything other than continue to be the personal sandbox that it’s been.
I often, not always, but often, miss a sense of pride in the local people. There is a lack of will to be perfect and many settle for less than perfect in their work. People on this board sometimes talk about “Chabudoism”. I wouldn’t use “chabuduo” to describe the work attitude of many, I would use “zhe yang jiu hao le”. You can hear it all the time. “It’s good enough like that”. Starts with workers on construction sites and ends with politician high up there. It seems that many people see it as a kind of virtue. “Be smart, do not more than needed.” This is quite different from countries like Japan and Germany who value perfection and quality very much and have many people who go the extra mile, because they want to create something good they can be proud of. In Germany you don’t hear “It’s good enough like that”, you get an earful from your boss “Do it again! That’s not good enough!” I think the Japanese go overboard with perfectionism and the Germans go overboard with quality, but in the end quality products sell the best. Of course, consumers can be blamed for it too, if you don’t value and demand quality products and are not willing to spend good many for good products, you get what you deserve, crap stuff and you live in a country with a lower-quality environment. I would wish that people in Taiwan have more pride when it comes to what they do. There are quite a few, like coffee shop owners, organic farmers, designers, etc. but the majority seems to be after quick money more than anything.
yup, the last two posters are totally correct. i get the same impression when i talk to other taiwanese people and friends. they’re just so mellow and laid-back.i actually get frustrated when i talk to them as i think i’m more nationalistic for taiwan than they are even tho i’m american, my home is here and i’ve only been in taiwan once in my life. maybe if i grew up in taiwan i’d have the same lack of zeal and attitude of complacency that they have. im not sure why i even care about taiwan if they dont, really. 
Taiwanese basically want to avoid trouble, go to the nightmarket and watch康熙來了, not really much more from life.
[quote=“OrangeOrganics”]
Taiwanese basically want to avoid trouble, go to the nightmarket and watch康熙來了, not really much more from life.[/quote]
that is a gross generalization. you are totally leaving out those who want to avoid trouble, go to the nightmarket, and watch Korean soaps
Or avoid trouble and play online games…
Ha, too close to the truth. But seriously the gentleness and passivity of Taiwan is one of my favorite things about the place but also one of the major drawbacks. My professor (Taiwanese) after being away for a long time compared Taiwanese to meerkats. Only coming up to check for trouble and scurrying away if it arises.
The sunflower movement showed there is more to Taiwanese than that, at least the younger generation, but they are fighting very strong entrenched moneyed interests in the older generation, who have absolutely no desire to change things. This moneyed set wants low taxes on capital, low social spending and high asset prices and low wages for their employees and service personnel. As long as their families are okay, they will be okay.
The civil servants are happy too, job for life, good pensiods, no interest in changes.
My wife explained to me that after regular people work 60 hours weeks, they don’t have much time or energy for other stuff except vegging out. Hence popularity of crap chat shows and soaps. But also to be fair there are many Taiwanese that I have met that are more active than me personally.
This overloading of people’s time starts when they are really young, and continues through working lives.
I think that’s why so many of us long-time Taiwan politics/society observers got so excited when the Sunflowers went into bloom.
I’m going to make a big generalization here: Old people are what’s holding back Taiwan and many other countries.
makes sense, I propose my newest Taiwanese flag design based on this concept
and also propose the new independent Taiwan be named “10.10”
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]
I’m going to make a big generalization here: Old people are what’s holding back Taiwan and many other countries.[/quote]
if only there’s a way to get rid of them while not becoming them at the same time…
[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“Hokwongwei”]I agree that Taiwan’s economy is too focused on a select few sectors, as other posters have pointed out, but I don’t think it has the infrastructural capability to diversify into just about everything like we have in the US. Geography is a big factor: in a country as huge as the US, you can have one place focused on politics (DC) and another focused on money (Wall Street) and on software (SF Bay area) and on entertainment (LA). College graduates know where to go to pursue a job in a particular field.
The main problem as I see it is manufacturing = everywhere but Taipei, and Taipei = center of every industry but manufacturing. We need a lot more diversity of industry across the country, but it’s probably folly to expect something on the American scale of things.[/quote]
I think Taiwan has quite a few industries that it already does well in or could really take off with proper support: electronics, machine tools, tourism, agriculture, medical, film and TV, publishing, bicycles, and conferences come to mind immediately. But as a small country it really needs an industrial policy, something it hasn’t had apparently in a decade. It needs to protect the environment and restructure agriculture for example so that this ties in with tourism. But everything is at odds with other things. Agricultural land gets developed, farmers are encouraged to stay dependent on out-of-date technology and techniques which further ruins the land and blights the landscape, tourism suffers so only mass cheap tours are viable. It’s stupid beyond belief sometimes.
I always like the example of Penghu. One of the most beautiful and unique archipelago in Asia, with a world-class venue for windsurfing, and all the gov can think of is casinos. :fume:[/quote]
I agree, agriculture needs to be savaged asap. Desperately.
But it’s not gonna happen under this administration. Not even the next or the one after that, tbqh.
Anyway if we’re comparing TW with other countries in this region, I still think that Japan remains the only real developed country in Asia. South Korea, Singapore, and HK all have their very underdeveloped issues, and they are just as awful as the ones here, or even worse.
I don’t get it, what could be more developed than scooters, family mart, costco and asus?
You’re not the only one. A huge number of economic indicators and reports have indexes titled things like “Asia (except Japan)” because our northerly neighbors are way way past most of the rest of this continent. The only thing about Japan is that one they achieved developed status, they didn’t know where to go from there and have sort of just stagnated.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]
You’re not the only one. A huge number of economic indicators and reports have indexes titled things like “Asia (except Japan)” because our northerly neighbors are way way past most of the rest of this continent. The only thing about Japan is that one they achieved developed status, they didn’t know where to go from there and have sort of just stagnated.[/quote]
I call that following America’s lead…
Japan just got old and they are unwilling to welcome large scale immigration, so they just ‘stagnate’, but their ‘stagnation’ is pretty awesome compared to most countries development around the world!
The US on the other hand is not stagnating but inequality is growing rapidly, I think the situation is quite different.
But even inequalities in the US is nothing compared to inequalities in third world countries. In most developing countries the rich is often on par with Mark Zuckerburg (as in .5% of the population) but the poor can’t even afford to eat (rest of the population) with not much in between. Even the poor in the US is pretty good compared to the poor in developing countries.
I see plenty of Taiwanese looking at Brazil like it’s a beacon of the world or something. Most don’t realize that Brazil’s inequalities are really bad. The rich is very rich and powerful while the poor can’t eat, have no education and the system actively prevents the poor from getting out of poverty. The rich in Brazil often are in serious collusion with the government, and the policy there towards the poor is basically “bury them”. Some Brazilians I meet in Taiwan says they are glad to be making 22k in Taiwan.
You’re not the only one. A huge number of economic indicators and reports have indexes titled things like “Asia (except Japan)” because our northerly neighbors are way way past most of the rest of this continent. The only thing about Japan is that one they achieved developed status, they didn’t know where to go from there and have sort of just stagnated.[/quote]
A stagnating Japan is still miles better than Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore combined.
[quote=“Taiwan Luthiers”]But even inequalities in the US is nothing compared to inequalities in third world countries. In most developing countries the rich is often on par with Mark Zuckerburg (as in .5% of the population) but the poor can’t even afford to eat (rest of the population) with not much in between. Even the poor in the US is pretty good compared to the poor in developing countries.
I see plenty of Taiwanese looking at Brazil like it’s a beacon of the world or something. Most don’t realize that Brazil’s inequalities are really bad. The rich is very rich and powerful while the poor can’t eat, have no education and the system actively prevents the poor from getting out of poverty. The rich in Brazil often are in serious collusion with the government, and the policy there towards the poor is basically “bury them”. Some Brazilians I meet in Taiwan says they are glad to be making 22k in Taiwan.[/quote]
The Brazilians I know were very upset about the result of the election. Apparently the whole BRICS thing is a joke(for now). Other than China, none of them really took off.
Singapore is highly developed. A few slums does not the third world make.