Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Chen Wei-ting, six others indicted over Dapu rallies

Chen Wei-ting, six others indicted over Dapu rallies

Tue, Feb 25, 201

By Rich Chang  /  Staff reporter4 - Page 3

The Miaoli District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted seven people, including Youth Alliance for Miaoli spokesman Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), for interfering with official duties and destroying property among other charges during a series of protests last year over the demolition of four farmers’ homes in Dapu Borough (大埔).
Prosecutors said the seven were charged with violating the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), contempt of authority, obstructing officials in carrying out their duties, causing bodily harm and property damage.
The seven staged a series of protests after the Miaoli County Government on July 18 last year partially or completely flattened the four remaining houses resisting demolition to make way for a science park in the farming village of Dapu in the county’s Jhunan Township (竹南).
One of the protests took place outside the former house of Chang Sen-wen (張森文), one of the four homeowners whose body was found in September last year in an irrigation channel about 200m from the site.
Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻) attempted to visit the Chang family on Sept. 18 after Chang’s body was found, but relatives, friends and supporters of the family stood outside the house to block his entry. Liu was hit by a shoe during the confrontation.
Chen later admitted he threw the shoe, prompting Liu to file a lawsuit against him.
At another rally on Aug. 16 last year, 1,000 people sang to show support for the Dapu homeowners and later threw eggs at the county government building to express their anger at the government. Fifteen police officers were accidentally hit by the eggs, including officer Chang Shih-hsiung (張世雄), who was rushed to a hospital after his right eyeball was injured by eggshell fragments.
Another incident took place on Sept. 14 last year, during which protesters clashed with police when the former dared Liu to come forward and take questions from the public over the Dapu case.
In response to the indictment yesterday, Chen said he did not intend to break the law when he took part in the protests.
“The county government had abused its power by destroying people’s homes and we were simply expressing civil disobedience,” he said.
Chen said that Liu should be held responsible for what happened, since the conflict was all because of the commissioner’s disrespect for a family in mourning.
“Liu told the media that he has taken legal action to defend the dignity of government employees, but I would say that a government employee does not deserve to be respected if he disrespects a family in mourning and upsets people,” Chen said in a statement.

Monday, February 24, 2014

Taoyuan County at a draw for nation’s highest unemployment rate 桃園縣去年失業率4.3% 並列全國最高

Taoyuan County at a draw for nation’s highest unemployment rate
桃園縣去年失業率4.3% 並列全國最高

Taoyuan City Mayor Su Chia-ming, center, hands out mooncakes at a homeless shelter in Taoyuan City on Sept. 25, 2012 before the arrival of Mid-Autumn Festival.
中秋節將屆,桃園市長蘇家明(中)二0一二年九月二十五日在桃園市一處遊民庇護所致贈月餅。

Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Liberty Times
照片:自由時報記者李容萍

The unemployment rate in Taoyuan County remained at 4.3 percent last year, which is the same as the year before and the highest among Taiwan’s six special municipalities, putting it at a draw with Nantou County and Yilan County for the country’s highest unemployment rate. This is the fourth time since Taoyuan County Commissioner John Wu took office four years ago that the municipality’s unemployment rate has exceeded the national average, drawing unified criticism for not improving the employment situation from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidates who hope to run against Wu in the first mayoral election for Taoyuan County after it is elevated to the special municipality level at the end of the year. In response, the Taoyuan County Government Labor and Human Resources Bureau says it has drawn up several plans to resolve the unemployment issue.
Taoyuan County will be upgraded to a special municipality at the end of the year. In the past, the county boasted that it was a major industrial and commercial county, claiming that the county government provided more employment opportunities than any other county or city in the nation. According to statistics from the Ministry of Labor, however, only 950,000 of the county’s total workforce of 998,000 had jobs last year, putting the unemployment rate at 4.3 percent, which is 0.12 percentage points higher than the national average of 4.18 percent. Taoyuan County’s overall job market is performing worse than the country’s other five special municipalities and has one of the highest unemployment rates in all of Taiwan.
Since Wu became commissioner at the end of 2009, unemployment in Taoyuan County has been higher than the national average since 2010, giving DPP hopefuls Peng Shao-chin, Cheng Pao-ching and Cheng Wen-tsan an opportunity in the upcoming first mayoral election for Taoyuan as a special municipality to stand united in their critique of Wu, saying the unemployment rate serves as an indicator for public suffering. Under Wu’s leadership no great strides have been made toward attracting more businesses, and industries are unable to transform. Specific employment policies do not exist and the unemployment rate remains high, which is one reason the DPP candidates are calling on the public to use their vote in the year-end election to bring about change.
TODAY’S WORDS 今日單字
1. criticism n.
批評 (pi1 ping2)
例: China has called the UN’s criticism of North Korea’s human rights abuses unreasonable.
(中國表示聯合國批評北韓侵犯人權無道理。)
2. hopeful n.
成功有望的人 (cheng2 gong1 you3 wang4 de5 ren2)
例: Who are the presidential hopefuls for the race in 2016?
(二0一六年總統選舉希望獲選的候選人是誰?)
3. stride n.
進展;進步 (jin4 zhan3; jin4 bu4)
例: The group has made great strides toward its goal of raising funds for orphans.
(這團體為孤兒募款大有進展。)
In response, Chien Hsiu-lien, head of the labor bureau, says that job opportunities in Taoyuan County significantly outnumber the amount of people looking for jobs, with three jobs available on average for every jobseeker. Most of the job openings, however, are in labor-intensive industries, which Chien says is a deterrent for most young people and also the reason why companies are forced to bring in foreign workers to fill the labor shortage. Taoyuan County’s 83,000 foreign workers pose an indirect threat to the nation’s indigenous workforce, Chien says.
(Liberty Times, Translated by Kyle Jeffcoat)
桃園縣去年的失業率與前年平均相同,維持在百分之四點三,不僅是六都中失業率最高的,更與南投、宜蘭縣並列全國最高,這是吳志揚就職縣長四週年來,第四度高於全國平均值,也讓有意角逐首屆桃園直轄市長的民進黨競爭對手齊聲批評,就業問題始終沒有改善。對此,縣府勞動及人力資源局表示,已規劃多項方案要解決失業問題。
年底就要升格為直轄市的桃園縣,過去自詡為工商大縣,縣府提供的工作機會比其他縣市來得多,但依勞動部統計,桃園縣去年勞動力總人口約九十九萬八千人,其中九十五萬人有工作,全年平均失業率百分之四點三,較全國平均值百分之四點一八高出零點一二個百分點,且在就業表現上,不僅不如另五都,失業率更是全國最高地區之一。
以吳志揚二○○九年底就任縣長後,自二○一○年起到去年,失業率年年均高出全國平均值,讓民進黨有意角逐首屆桃園直轄市長的彭紹瑾、鄭寶清與鄭文燦齊聲批評,直指失業率是民眾感到痛苦的指標,但吳志揚執政以來,招商沒有大成果,產業也無法轉型,更提不出具體就業政策,失業率居高不下,呼籲選民年底用選票改變。
對此,勞動局長簡秀蓮說,桃園縣內提供的工作機會遠高於需求,平均每名求職者可有三個工作選擇,因多數職缺都以勞力密集的第一線作業為主,讓年輕人沒有意願投入,企業主不得不引進外勞填補勞動缺口,而全縣現有的八萬三千名外勞也間接衝擊本國就業人口。
(自由時報記者邱奕統)



Friday, February 21, 2014

Curriculum neglects local literature: experts

Curriculum neglects local literature: experts

By Rich Chang and Jason Pan  /  Staff reporter, with saff writer

Sat, Feb 22, 2014 - Page 3

Accompanied by education experts, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) yesterday said the Ministry of Education’s revisions to the school curriculum contained an excessive portion on classical Chinese materials, while seriously neglecting local languages and literature.
Chen told a press conference that following the ministry’s so-called “slight adjustments” to the national high-school curriculum, classical Chinese and Confucian classics accounted for 80 percent of the nation’s literature curriculum, leaving little space for materials not written in classical Chinese.
Union of Education in Taiwan chairperson Cheng Cheng-yu (鄭正煜) said that Chinese literature, Taiwanese literature and world literature should each account for one-third of the high-school literature curriculum.
“The ministry should not deprive students of the right to learn their native languages and literature,” he said.
National Academy of Educational Research deputy director Tseng Shih-chieh (曾世杰) said that according to the high-school Chinese curriculum guidelines, the ratio of Chinese material written in classical Chinese accounted for between 45 percent and 65 percent, adding that several other versions of high-school Chinese textbooks have a ratio which falls within the guideline.
Meanwhile, a group of academics and language preservationists yesterday called on the government and schools to teach students about native Taiwanese languages, as they marked the UN’s International Mother Language Day.
At a conference in Taipei earlier this week, the group denounced the nation’s education system and government policies, which they said emphasize the predominance of Mandarin.
They said that the predominance of the use of Mandarin amounted to a “linguistic monopoly,” which is killing off Taiwan’s native languages by ostracizing their usage in schools and in society.
“Hoklo [commonly known as Taiwanese] is very elegant. It contains rich treasures, cultural values and the wisdom of our ancestors. It is delightful to speak and to hear, and contains many sounds that cannot be found in Mandarin. We have found that youngsters who are fluent in Taiwanese can pick up English and other European languages much faster,” said Ho Sin-han (何信翰), dean of the School of Taiwanese Languages at Chung Shan Medical College in Greater Kaohsiung.
Ho stressed the importance of Taiwanese speaking their own mother tongues, saying that the international trend is to base creative cultures on “localization” and “traditional community knowledge.”
The group said that the government’s policy of deliberately marginalizing other languages by upholding the supremacy of Mandarin has driven native Taiwanese languages to the brink of extinction.
Local languages, including Hoklo and Hakka, which were once commonly spoken in public, are now mainly used at home.
Linguistic groups and activists said that many native Taiwanese languages are heading toward extinction, including the Austronesian mother tongues of the nation’s 14 officially recognized Aboriginal groups, along with three critically endangered lowland Pingpu Aborigine languages — the native languages of the Pazeh, Kaxabu and Siraya.

Aborigines protest education reforms

Aborigines protest education reforms

NO COMMON ANCESTRY:Citing studies, Aboriginal awareness groups dismissed claims that the nation’s Aboriginal tribes are China’s ‘56th ethnic minority group’

By Alison Hsiao  /  Staff reporter

Members of various Aboriginal rights groups protest in front of the Ministry of Education building in Taipei yesterday. They called on the government to end what they called the colonial assimilation education and China-centered historical perspective that the Republic of China government has promoted since its arrival in Taiwan in 1949.

Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times

A group of Aborigines yesterday protested in front of the Ministry of Education (MOE) building in Taipei, calling for an end to what the protesters called colonial assimilation education and deploring the China-centered and Han-centered history perspective instilled by the Republic of China (ROC) government since its arrival in Taiwan in 1949.
The ministry’s recent announcement of adjustments to be made to the high-school history curriculum, and the way they were decided upon, have set off a furor among the political opposition parties and in education and culture circles.
More than a dozen Aboriginal awareness groups joined the protest yesterday, criticizing repression by “alien regimes, of which the ROC is the ongoing one,” and the continuing deprivation of Aboriginal people’s rights to their languages and lands.
“We spoke Japanese, but we were not imperial subjects; we speak Mandarin, but we are not yan huang zisun (炎黃子孫, descendants of emperors Yan and Huang),” Taiwan Aboriginal Society chairman Tibusungu Vayayana (汪明輝) said.
Yan huang zisun is a phrase used by the Chinese government and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to refer to a common ancestry among people of Chinese ethnicity.
“The 14 official Aboriginal tribes and those that have not been adequately recognized in Taiwan are not ‘the 56th ethnic minority group of China,’” he said, responding to a claim made by a member of the pro-China Anti-Independence-Oriented-History Front last week.
“We belong to the world’s indigenous community,” he said. “Studies have suggested that Taiwan was the place of origin of all Austronesian-speaking people.”
Tibusungu called for an autonomous education system for the Aboriginal people to “return the children back to their home in their native land,” citing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ROC Constitution and the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act (原住民族基本法), which affirm or vow to protect cultural plurality and indigenous people’s autonomy.
Pangcah/Amis Guarding Union representative Daong said the “Han-centered textbooks” oversimplify and largely ignore the history of the nation’s Aborigines.
“The history textbook, for example, talks about Qing official Shen Bao-zhen’s (沈葆楨) policy of ‘Opening up the Mountains and Pacifying the Aborigines’ (開山撫番), but fails to mention the Kaliawan Incident in 1877” that resulted in the near extinction of the Kebalan and Sakizaya tribes, he said.
He brought up a list of rebellions and battles involving Aborigines fighting against invasive regimes that are “unfamiliar even to the ears of children of the tribes involved.”
Huang Chih-huei (黃智慧), chairwoman of the Millet Foundation, which aims to promote and preserve Aboriginal cultures, criticized the ministry’s claim that the curriculum has to abide by the Constitution.
“The government touted the ROC’s 103th birthday this year. How transient that is compared with the whole history of Taiwan. Not to mention that the history of the ROC Constitution, promulgated in 1946, is even shorter,” she said. “The Constitution is a product of history, not the other way around. It is just preposterous to say that history-writing has to follow the Constitution.”
Atayal priest Omi Wilang said they were told when they were young to be “proud Chinese” and tribes were forced to take up Chinese last names.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

New labor minister pledges better work environment

New labor minister pledges better work environment

FROZEN SALARIES:As the Council of Labor Affairs was upgraded to the Ministry of Labor, labor groups held protests against the failure to improve workers’ wages

Staff writer, with CNA

Members of several labor groups yesterday smash ice carvings reading: “Ministry of frozen wages” outside the newly upgraded Ministry of Labor in Taipei.

Photo: CNA

The Council of Labor Affairs was formally upgraded to the Ministry of Labor yesterday, with the new minister pledging to improve the country’s labor environment, while members of several labor groups clashed with police outside the ministry building in a protest against low wages.
Minister of Labor Pan Shih-wei (潘世偉) said at the opening ceremony, which was attended by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), that the ministry plans to prioritize certain tasks to safeguard the welfare of workers and ensure the sustainable development of businesses.
The creation of the new ministry is part of the government’s restructuring plan.
Pan said the ministry would try to help the country “move upward” and seek to improve workers’ incomes and job opportunities.
However, he said that greater public consensus is needed to tackle current labor issues as they are much more complicated than in the past, given the globalized economy.
The ministry will seek to facilitate more dialogue between employers and employees, improve labor education and retirement and insurance systems, and push for a better work-life balance for workers, Pan said.
It will also aim to lower employment discrimination, improve gender equality in the workplace, create safer and healthier work environments, strengthen workforce development, improve employment security and participate in more international organizations, he added.
Several labor groups, including the Taiwan International Workers Association and the National Alliance of Laborers from Closed Factories, gathered outside the ministry building in protest against low wages.
Average real wages declined 3.4 percent between 2000 and 2012, and 3.5 percent between 2008 and 2012, the groups said, citing official statistics.
They accused the government of having failed to improve wages for workers, saying that all the wealth has gone to corporations, while their employees have been left in poverty.
The protesters were kept 200m away from the building by police. The groups had planned to give the labor minister an ice sculpture as a gift, to symbolize salary freezes.
Pan said after the ceremony that some companies had increased wages, which he believes is a sign of economic recovery.
“We will work on this more and find opportunities to talk to businesses,” he said.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

MAC Minister Wang in historic meeting

MAC Minister Wang in historic meeting

NO SURPRISES::The issue of a potential meeting between Ma Ying-jeou and Chinese President Xi Jinping at an APEC summit in Beijing was not raised at the meeting

By Chris Wang  /  Staff reporter

Wed, Feb 12, 2014 - Page 1

Taiwanese and Chinese officials yesterday held the first direct and the highest-level talks since 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) fled to Taiwan following its defeat by the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War.
The historic meeting between Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and his counterpart, Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), in the Chinese city of Nanjing, which agreed to establish a communication channel for future engagement, marked the first time in 65 years that government representatives from across the Taiwan Strait had held talks in their official capacities, despite more than a dozen agreements having been signed during President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) two terms in office.
Wang, who led a 20-member delegation on a four-day visit to China, told a press conference after a three-hour closed-door meeting at the Purple Palace Nanjing Hotel that his ministry and the TAO had agreed to establish a direct and regular communication platform and reached a consensus in principle on several issues.
The communication channel would go hand-in-hand with the current semi-governmental mechanism between the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and the Association of Relations Across the Straits (ARATS), as they are complementary rather than adversarial, Wang said.
The issue of a potential meeting between Ma and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at an APEC summit in Beijing later this year, which has drawn suspicion from the opposition parties in Taiwan, was not raised at the meeting, nor was the sensitive topic of China’s demarcation of an East China Sea air defense identification zone, Wang said.
The minister said that he had “no regrets” about not discussing the potential Ma-Xi meeting because “it was not on the agenda in the first place.”
Due to concerns about unexpected developments, the Legislative Yuan put Wang on a tight leash, passing a resolution prohibiting the minister from signing any written document during his visit.
The first highlight of the meeting came before the talks started as hundreds of reporters tried to anticipate how the officials would address each other, a barometer for a breakthrough in bilateral relations.
Wang referred to Zhang as “TAO Director Zhang Zhijun,” while Zhang simply addressed Wang as “Minister Wang Yu-chi,” leaving out the name of Wang’s ministry, before the two shook hands and made their opening statements.
However, China’s state-owned Xinhua news agency referred to Wang as the “responsible official of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council” in its Chinese-language reports and as “Taiwan’s mainland affairs chief” in its English-language coverage.
Both officials reiterated in their statements that the so-called “1992 consensus” serves as the foundation of bilateral engagement, which would be strengthened under the current framework in the future.
“It’s not been easy for us to be sitting at the same table today,” Wang said.
At the meeting, they agreed to seek a solution on health insurance coverage for Taiwanese students studying in China, pragmatically plan for the establishments of SEF and ARATS offices in each other’s territory and study the feasibility of allowing humanitarian visits to detained nationals once the offices have been established.
Taiwan raised the issue of reciprocal exchange of news information, but did not protest China’s refusal to issue visas to two Taiwanese reporters who wished to travel to cover the visit.
Wang also brought up Taiwan’s hope for parallel progress between economic integration with China and the rest of the world, without receiving a positive response from the Chinese side.
In his opening statement, Zhang said cross-strait relations “cannot afford to suffer from another decline” after they have dramatically improved since May 2008 — when Ma took office.
A Xinhua report said the meeting has reached “positive consensus” on many fronts, including an insistence on the “1992 consensus,” opposition to independence for Taiwan and strengthening exchanges.
The report urged follow-up agreements under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and to study the feasibility of bilateral cooperation on regional economic integration.
Zhang also accepted Wang’s invitation for a return visit, it said.
Wang is scheduled to visit the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum today, before delivering a speech at Nanjing University on youth exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.
He is due to attend a forum and hold talks with Chinese think tanks tomorrow, before wrapping up the trip and returning to Taipei on Friday.

Taiwan Academics slam curricula changes

Academics slam curricula changes

CHERRY-PICKING::An Academia Sinica associate research fellow said the wording and the references cited by the ministry are the result of a particular political ideology

By Alison Hsiao  /  Staff reporter

Wed, Feb 12, 2014 - Page 1

The proposal by the Ministry of Education that high-school curriculum guidelines should say that the right to self-determination is restricted to people under colonial rules is aimed at depriving Taiwanese of their right to determine the future of their own country, while downplaying the White Terror era is an attempt to legitimize authoritarian rule, academics said yesterday.
Amid strong criticism, the ministry announced the full versions of adjustments to be made to the history, civic and social studies, Chinese language and geography curricula on Monday night.
The adjustments published remain unchanged from those proposed earlier that had sparked great controversy.
Among the so-called “minor adjustments,” the attempt to define self-determination and the downplaying of the White Terror era under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime are particularly politically contentious.
In the section of the civic and social studies curriculum on human rights, “self-determination,” which appears in the current curriculum as one of the examples of human rights issues commonly seen in the world, is rephrased as “self-determination of colonies.”
The reason given for the change is that “self-determination most of the time refers to colonies fighting for self-governance or independence... However, applying the notion to nations in general is controversial,” according to the new curriculum guidelines publicized on the ministry’s Web site.
The Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples adopted by the UN in 1960 is cited by the ministry as supporting evidence.
The ministry’s guidelines also refer to the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action which “clearly states that the notion shall not be construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent states.”
Academia Sinica associate research fellow Fort Liao (廖福特), upon hearing the rephrasing and the declarations cited, retorted with the examples of Scotland, Quebec and Kosovo.
Liao said the wording and the references cited by the ministry are intended to block Taiwan’s independence and are the result of a particular political ideology.
While textbook revision always relies on a set of political views, he said, the adjusted wording harbors the intention of disguising its political outlook by cherry-picking.
“Why doesn’t it mention the two international covenants [the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights]?” Liao asked. “Both covenants start with the article: ‘All peoples have the right of self-determination,’ and both covenants have been ratified by our government and already made legally binding in the nation.”
The explanation given is a misunderstanding at best and deliberately misleading at worst, Liao said.
The downplaying of the White Terror era in the adjusted civic and social studies and history curricula has also been criticized.
In the adjusted civic and social studies curriculum, “the White Terror, prisoners of conscience and Germany’s Nazis,” used as examples in the current curriculum of why human rights have to be protected, are erased and replaced by “the persecution of people by a government’s abuse of power” and “a colonial government’s discrimination against colonized people.”
The justification for the deletion is “to generalize and raise it to a higher level” and that “White Terror cases are fully discussed in history textbooks.”
Academics criticized the juxtaposition of “the White Terror era” and “anti-communist policies” as overlooking the case-by-case differences of the White Terror era victims and trying to legitimize the persecution of political dissidents during authoritarian rule as an anti-communist policy.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

FEATURE: Working holidays: exploitation or experience?

FEATURE: Working holidays: exploitation or experience?

PROS, CONS::The popularity of working holidays amid claims of exploitation in menial jobs has alarmed some who say it shows that young Taiwanese see no future at home

By Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

Sun, Feb 09, 2014 - Page 3

The wide availability of jobs and the opportunity to live in a foreign country are prompting many Taiwanese to seek employment in Canada via working holiday programs.
One such Taiwanese is Judy Wang, who went to Banff in Canada’s Alberta Province to look for temporary work.
According to Wang, the strong demand for service workers during the high season at the popular Canadian travel destination is now primarily met by holiday workers from around the world.
Prior to arriving in Canada, Wang studied hotel management in Switzerland and worked at a five-star hotel in Taipei. She left her job in the Taiwanese capital in 2005 and went to Australia as a part-time holiday worker.
“Being a holiday worker is not a waste of time,” Wang said. “You take whatever job is available. I once worked late-night shifts at a hotel and the experience taught me how to make managerial decisions. The value of gaining this type of on-the-job experience cannot be measured by the money you make.”
Despite the loneliness and cultural shock holiday workers may suffer while living abroad, as well as the sometimes frustrating search for work, Wang said the experience made her realize the importance of having strong language skills.
She also said it gave her the impression that young Taiwanese are less competitive than their peers in Japan, South Korea and China.
“They [young Japanese, South Koreans and Chinese] are much more willing to travel to other countries and experience different cultures, even if their English is poor,” she said. “It would be good if more young Taiwanese did the same, and the earlier the better. If they stay in Taiwan and don’t experience life elsewhere, there is no way they can compete with their counterparts from other countries.”
However, not all holiday workers see the value of the program.
Like Wang, Evelyn Chuang (莊凱涵), who works as assistant brand manager at a food company in Taipei, went to Australia under the working holiday program. Chuang made the trip in 2009, after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in management science from Chiao Tung University.
“I had planned to study overseas while I was in school. However, that plan was put on hold after I got a job at a foreign company upon graduating,” she said.
“After working there for two years, I started to research MBA programs in the US and found that I could not afford to go to any of the top 30 schools because the tuition fees are too expensive. Given this, a working holiday seemed like a cost-effective way to live abroad. I chose Australia because it was the only country at the time allowing non-students to apply for working holiday visas,” Chuang said.
Yet Chuang said she regretted going to Australia, as “it was frustrating at the beginning when I spent little more than one month sending out resumes and did not hear back from anybody except Chinese restaurants.”
“I realized that having a college degree from a Taiwanese university is useless when you go to apply for jobs in Australia,” Chuang added. “If you are of Chinese descent and do not have professional skills, you have to settle for menial work.”
Although Chuang said her work experience in Australia did not make much of a difference to her career, she said it did help make her more able to endure hardships and willing to take on challenging tasks.
She added that holiday workers are more likely to get what they want out of the experience if they have a specific goal in mind.
“I knew friends whose sole motivate for going to Australia was to make money and they did manage to make their first pot of gold within two years,” Chuang said.
Another holiday worker, Eric Liang (梁幼銘), 27, chose to go to Germany in May last year because he did not want to work in a English-speaking country.
“I studied materials science and engineering in college, and Germany is known for its research in this field, plus I wanted to become proficient in German,” he said.
Before landing his current job in a cafe in Berlin, Liang traveled to the German cities of Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Aachen and Heidelberg.
“I worked on a horse farm in Dusseldorf, as well as another farm in Aachen,” he said. “None of those jobs was easy, but the experience I gained working on the horse farm was the most valuable because since I could only speak German there, I got a lot of practice.”
Ministry of Foreign Affairs data show that the number of Taiwanese holiday workers has increased from 12,000 between 2004 and 2007 to 65,000 between 2008 and 2012.
There are nine countries that accept holiday workers from Taiwan: Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Germany and Belgium, with the first three as the top destinations among Taiwanese.
Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said in a statement last year that the programs “help broaden our young people’s horizons” and “give them the chance to experience different cultures.”
However, critics say there is a dark side to the schemes, as seen in a story carried by Chinese-language weekly Business Today last year.
The article was about a National Tsing Hua University graduate who went on a working holiday in Australia and whose experience there critics said indicates that Taiwan can now list “cheap youth labor” as one of its prime exports.
In the story, the graduate gave a graphic description of working at a slaughterhouse in Australia and recounted how he realized after arriving there that he could only make money by taking the jobs that “Australians don’t want.”
He also told the weekly of the working conditions at a farm he was employed at, saying: “We got up at 5am every morning and gathered at the taskmaster’s house to receive our assignments for the day. Then, about a dozen backpackers crammed into a van that dropped them off at different farms. The image reminded me of World War II movies I saw in which confused, panicked Jews were sent to concentration camps. This might seem like a gross exaggeration, but that is exactly how I felt at the time.”
Yet what some found most disturbing about the story was when the student listed the reasons why he would rather work in a slaughterhouse in Australia than take a nine-to-five office job in Taiwan.
“I knew from day one that I came here for a practical, but shallow, reason: to make money. It’s not about having a life experience or making new friends. I worked as a financial consultant at a Taiwanese bank for two years, yet I could barely save any money after paying for living expenses, while repaying student loans and my parents,” he said.
Youth Development Administration director-general Lo Ching-shui (羅清水) said that young people who want to join such programs need to have a clear idea of why they want to do it and whether the experience can fulfill that purpose.
Lo did not comment on some students seeing working holidays as a fast track to prosperity, nor did he mention Taiwan’s low wages as one of the reasons college graduates seek better-paid work overseas, even if that means doing a menial job in a poor working environment.
He said that his agency’s position is to encourage people to try jobs at home and overseas.
“Working holidays give young people the chance to experience different cultures and learn to adapt to unfamiliar circumstances,” Lo said.

Protect rights of migrant workers, flash mob urges

Protect rights of migrant workers, flash mob urges

By Loa Iok-sin  /  Staff reporter

Mon, Feb 10, 2014 - Page 1

Foreign workers and rights advocates yesterday staged a flash mob demonstration in the lobby of the Taipei Railway Station, urging the government to extend the protection of the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) to all foreign workers, and calling attention to the abuse of migrant workers.
At 11:30am, a group of migrant workers from the Philippines and Indonesia, as well as rights advocates from Taiwan and Malaysia, showed up in the lobby of the Taipei Railway Station unexpectedly, dancing to Philippine music while holding signs in English that read: “Justice to all migrant workers” and “we are women, we are workers, we are not slaves.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are here to show our support to migrant workers in Taiwan and elsewhere, to call on the government to grant equal rights to migrant and Taiwanese workers,” members of Philippine workers’ organization Migrante International and Indonesian workers’ organization ATKI-Taiwan told onlookers drawn by the music and the dance in Mandarin and Indonesian through loudspeakers.
“We also need your support in our campaign. Please join us in our action if you would, thank you very much,” they added.
Event spokesman Wong Ying-dah (汪英達) said there is a globally coordinated campaign in which rights advocates are to show up unexpectedly in public places and dance to raise public awareness about women’s rights on Valentine’s Day.
“However, we feel that in Taiwan, foreign domestic helpers — who are mostly women — are in worse conditions, so we decided to focus the campaign on the issue of migrant workers,” Wong said, adding that since this year’s Valentine’s Day falls on Friday and most foreign workers have to work, they decided to move the event to yesterday instead.
“Working conditions are bad for foreign domestic helpers, because they are not covered by the Labor Standards Act, so while the legal monthly minimum wage is more than NT$19,000 [US$626], foreign domestic helpers are getting only NT$15,840 — and their actual salary is lower after deductions,” Wong said. “In addition, as domestic helpers, they usually have to be on standby 24 hours a day, and many of them rarely get days off.”
AKIT-Taiwan president Lukman, a factory worker from Indonesia, echoed Wong, saying that one of his organization’s members had only one day off a year.
“And whether you’re working at someone’s home or at a factory, you can only get NT$12,000 to NT$13,000 a month on average, after deductions,” Lukman said. “That’s why we’re calling for help from the Taiwanese government.”

Sunday, February 9, 2014

What Happens in Fukushima, Japan, Affects Taiwan and the World

Kyodo: ‘Massive’ amount of Fukushima data wrong? “Figures can’t be trusted” — NHK: Strontium-90 by ocean at 160,000 times limit — Tepco: Actual levels “exceeded the upper limit of measurement… We are very sorry”


Kyodo, Feb. 7, 2014: TEPCO to review “massive” radiation data due to improper measurement – [TEPCO] said Friday that it will review a “massive” amount of radiation data it has collected at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant because readings may be lower than actual figures due to improper measurement. “We are very sorry, but we found cases in which beta radiation readings turned out to be wrong when the radioactivity concentration of a sample was high,” TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono told a press conference. [...]
Kyodo/Jiji, Feb. 7, 2014: [TEPCO] said it will re-analyze past water samples because some of the figures can’t be trusted.
NHK, Feb. 7, 2014: TEPCO to review eroneous [sic] radiation data — The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has decided to review radiation data after finding the initial readings may be much lower than actual figures. [TEPCO] says it has detected a record high 5 million becquerels per liter of radioactive strontium in groundwater collected last July from one of wells close to the ocean. That’s more than 160,000 times the state standard for radioactive wastewater normally released into the sea. [...]
Yomiuri Shinbun translated by EXSKF, Feb. 7, 2014: [...] 5 million Bq/Liter of radioactive strontium was detected from the groundwater sample taken on June 5 [...] about 1,000 times that of the highest density in the groundwater that had been measured so far (5,100 Bq/L). TEPCO didn’t disclose the result of measurement of strontium [...] On February 6, TEPCO explained that they had “underestimated all of the results of high-density all-beta, which [in fact] exceeded the upper limit of measurement.” [...] The company recently switched to a different method of analysis that uses diluted samples [...]
Jiji Press, Feb. 7, 2014: TEPCO May Have Underestimated Radioactive Water Spill Impact [...] Nuclear Regulation Authority may have to revise its provisional assessment of the spill [from a tank in summer last year], now put at Level 3 on the International Nuclear Event Scale of zero to 7, if the actual amount is far larger than has been announced, an official of the NRA Secretariat said. TEPCO’s measurement method is considered unreliable, the official added. [...]

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Workers’ groups put on New Year rally in Taipei

Workers’ groups put on New Year rally in Taipei

By Loa Iok-sin  /  Staff reporter

Thu, Feb 06, 2014 - Page 3

Burning incense and exploding firecrackers next to a table full of offerings appeared to be a regular commencement of work ceremony on the first day of work after the Lunar Near Year holidays, but the display was organized jointly by several activist groups — mainly the National Alliance for Workers of Closed Off Factories (NAWCF) — to pray for luck in rallies and protests this year.
Beginning yesterday morning, NAWCF members from Miaoli County, Taoyuan County, and New Taipei City (新北市) boarded a train bound for Taipei, after each group held a rally to explain the campaign’s purpose.
A group of laid-off workers, joined by members from other civic groups, were at Taipei Railway Station for a demonstration, followed by a traditional kaigong (開工, commencement of work) ceremony.
“Today is the sixth day of the first lunar month and traditionally, many businesses organize a kaigong ceremony to mark the end of the Lunar New Year holiday and the beginning of business in the new year,” NAWCF spokeswoman Chen Hsiu-lien (陳秀蓮) told people at the railway station. “We are holding the ceremony here to declare that we will continue to fight for justice for workers.”
During a wave of factory closures about 17 years ago, thousands of factory workers were laid off and did not receive welfare payouts after their employers fled, the groups said.
“We insist that what we were granted was not a loan, but something we’re entitled to. We urge the CLA [Council of Labor Affairs] to honor its promise made 17 years ago,” Chen said.
The council has asked the workers to repay loans it made to the workers.
Lin Tzu-wen (林子文), a laid-off worker and a unionist who was arrested last year for violating the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), said that the workers may resort to harsher action if the government fails to positively respond to their call.
“Last year, we jumped onto tracks to block railroad traffic at Taipei Railroad Station and many of us are still pending the prosecutor’s decision on whether to indict us,” Lin said. “If we dared to block trains, we will do something more if the CLA wouldn’t withdraw lawsuits against us, I’ve been to jail, I’m not afraid to be locked up again.”

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Hundreds oppose revised curriculum

Hundreds oppose revised curriculum

‘DE-TAIWANIZE’::A public petition describes the ‘adjustments’ as an attempt to bring back an authoritarian system of education and distort the minds of Taiwanese kids

By Stacy Hsu  /  Staff writer

Sun, Feb 02, 2014 - Page 1

Hundreds of academics and members of the public yesterday threw their weight behind a petition urging the Ministry of Education to revoke its recent decision to revise the national high-school curriculum, which pro-localization groups describe as an attempt to “brainwash” the nation’s youth.
The petition was launched at 11pm on Friday by the Alliance of Youth Defending Taiwanese History (捍衛台灣文史青年組合), a civic organization composed of “professors and students proficient in the nation’s history.”
At press time yesterday, the petition had received 427 signatures.
It was initiated in the wake of the ministry’s approval on Monday of a new curriculum on Chinese literature and social sciences that it said contained “slight adjustments” based on the Constitution.
The changes would see the era of Tokyo’s rule referred to as the “Japanese colonial period” and China as “Mainland China” in textbooks. Critics say the ministry is seeking to “de-Taiwanize” high-school textbooks and make them more “China-oriented.”
“Taiwanese history and culture had witnessed the rule of the Dutch, the Spanish, the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, the Japanese and the Republic of China [ROC]... However, only after the removal of Article 100 of the Criminal Code in 1992 did Taiwanese break free of the shackles of an authoritarian educational system and gain a new perspective on the island,” the alliance said in its petition statement.
The article had allowed charges of sedition to be filed against those suspected of plotting to overthrow the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime.
The statement said it was the relentless effort of a group of academics since the 1990s that helped contribute to the inclusion of “various kinds of academic research on the island” into the national education curriculum and schools, and put an end to an era dominated by authoritarian leadership when the sole purpose of education was to “serve a specific ideology.”
However, their effort has been nullified by the ministry’s apparent attempt to allow a “dark political force” to influence the recent changes in the high-school history curriculum under the pretext of decolonization, the statement said.
“Its real agenda is to bring back an authoritarian teaching style ... and reinvigorate totalitarian thinking by distorting the minds of young Taiwanese through education,” it added.
The statement also questioned the Ministry of Culture’s controversial appointment of Weng Chih-tsung (翁誌聰), who used to be a specialist at the ministry’s Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development, on Jan. 17 as the new director of the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, the most significant organization responsible for research on Taiwanese literature.
“The appointment of Weng, who specializes almost exclusively in Chinese literature, clearly runs counter to the founding principle of the museum to facilitate the development of contemporary, classic and mother tongue literatures while safeguarding Taiwan’s diversified and multilingual culture,” the statement said.
Weng’s designation has once again placed the teaching of Taiwanese history and literature under the threat of an authoritarian party-state and China-centric mindset, it added.
Among other demands, the statement also called on the ministry to make public a complete list of the members of its curriculum adjustment task force and all documents concerning its meetings; to clearly explain the member selection mechanism for the task force and subject it to public scrutiny; and to appoint someone with more credibility and experience in the research, creation and development of Taiwanese literature to the museum.
Separately, a group of teachers of civics and society from various high schools said they plan to take a series of protest actions starting next week to demand that the ministry hold off on implementing the new curriculum.
Chou Wei-tung (周威同), a teacher of civics and society at National Taitung Girls’ Senior High School, told the Chinese-language Liberty Times, (the Taipei Times’ sister paper), that they are seeking to communicate with the ministry face to face.
The protests against the national education curriculum in Hong Kong last year was driven by students, and Taiwan is facing a similar situation, with the state attempting to monopolize education, Chou said.
He said the group has decided to take action to let the public’s voice be heard.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan