Op Ed

Barking Mad or Patriotically Taiwanese?

Eye On Taiwan
Op-Ed¹
Date: June 14, 2016
By: David Wang

Some Taiwanese will actually have outsiders believe that Formosa (the nation’s Spanish name) has plenty to offer, with the title “Isle of Treasure” also bestowed upon it to show their pride of place.

But one’s mind was not ringing with the Coca Cola theme “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony” nor “All we need is love” or any of the other memorable tunes to inspire advancement of peace and harmony in the world early on June 10, 2016 in Taipei.

One of the TV channels showed a video uploaded by someone in a park in Kaohsiung, the southern major city. A Taiwanese woman by the name of Hung, seemingly in her 50s, was yelping at a neatly-dressed, retired veteran using a walker easily 20 years her senior. She essentially scolded him to go “home,” that his peers have been in Taiwan for some 70 years leeching off the nation, and that the Taiwanese can no longer afford to support his kind, having also labeled him as a refugee.

She obviously discounts totally any contribution to Taiwan by the mainland Chinese GIs, who retreated to Taiwan around 1949 after being defeated by the Communists. These GIs actually helped to build, with back-breaking labor wielding pick axes, parts of the highway that snakes through the central alpine ridge in Taiwan.

This woman, later reported on TV to be a daughter of a mainland Chinese and Taiwanese mom, is technically of Cantonese descent. She would likely be against colonization, emigration, and any kind of interracial encounters.

She has also been exposed as a member of the Taiwan Civil Government group (http://www.civil-taiwan.org/mil-gov.htm) that has several offices across Taiwan. This group believes its proposed administration can resolve the standoff between China and Taiwan. But there are also people who believe in were wolfs, the Big Foot, Santa and earnest work plus a sound college education equal guaranteed entry to the C-suite with 7-figure paycheck. TV reports say the group is distancing itself from Hung in the wake of her outburst.

One can’t help to wonder if she is one of those who, like people employed by certain businesses that provide crowds on-demand, would be a paid pawn for any cause.

Hung also claims to be a reporter but is not affiliated with any news agency; while her phone number inexplicably is that of a travel agency. TV reports showed a staffer at the travel agency who complaint of receiving 1,000-plus calls from irate people who wanted to tell Hung where to go.

Another TV report showed Hung preaching her own political views at a school for pre-teens and has been fired as result.

Could it be that Hung is actually a Looney-Tune zealot playing with a short deck?

What a poster girl Hung would make for all the aborigines worldwide? After all the First Nation people across North America likely share her sentiment toward all the Caucasians who invaded and then colonized their newly adopted homeland. Ditto for the various aborigines in Taiwan who were on the island centuries if not millennia before any Taiwanese.

How do the Taiwanese aborigines genuinely feel about Hung, her compatriots and other later occupiers of the island? Does she care?

So far no aborigines in Taiwan have been reported in media to openly show animosity toward Taiwanese and other non-natives for taking their land.

So it’s settled. Taiwan does have it all, even ethno-racism or racism perpetrated against an ethnic group.

Isn’t it admirable? Taiwan in this respect is in the same league as other western, fully-developed nations as the USA, where racism against Afro-Americans, Latinos and other ethnic groups is taken for granted, albeit frowned upon by politically-correct citizens.

This woman presumptuously categorizes herself among the Taiwanese to be patrons of retired mainland Chinese soldiers. One assumes Hung’s bugbear being all those tax dollars paid by Taiwanese supporting such vets. But is she not wearing politically-motivated blinkers? So she would also self-delusionally believe her compatriots’ tax dollars do not support the long list of Taiwanese who exploit, abuse the national health insurance plan, bureaucrats who are on the gravy train. And if she were lucid, rational and want to be taken seriously, then Hung would also point her guns at the endlessly long list of crooks of all stripes and sizes in Taiwan who not only have burnt tax dollars directly or otherwise, but also wreaked havoc on the nation’s international reputation. Such criminals also raise cost of doing business in Taiwan to boot.

Arguably at the top of that list is former president Chen Shui-bian. Look up http://star.worldbank.org/corruption-cases/node/19577 among many other links that would have Hung do a double take.

Hung was also shown in a TV video asking pointedly a man if he speaks the Min-Nan dialect to show irrefutable proof of his being “real” Taiwanese.

Many Taiwanese speak the Min-Nan dialect or Fukienese as do the mainland Chinese in the Fukien province across the Strait.

Former president Chen, among his other highly-publicized exploits and achievements, speaks the Min-Nan dialect perfectly, Mandarin (the official language taught in Taiwan and spoken by most mainland Chinese albeit with occasional accent) with a ghastly Taiwanese accent, and no other foreign language. But he is not able to be as proudly Taiwanese being technically behind bars or on medical parole.

Incidentally one can safely bet that millions of tax-paying Hispanics or Latinos as well as other ethnic-minority immigrants in the USA, Canada and Australia can barely speak English but are card-carrying citizens of those nations.

But such observation and its socio-political-economic significance would be irrelevant and incomprehensible to Hung, whose global view only extends from her door to the park where she harassed, insulted the elderly vet.

Now one of Taiwan’s explicitly patriotic citizens has shown the world that the island is an equal to the USA, Canada, Australia, Germany among other fully-developed nations, at least in possessing ethno-racism.
Fortunately Taiwan is not a twin to the USA, to which the tiny island often but unjustifiably compares itself, in other respects. For the NRA is not a force to be reckoned with in Taiwan, which also does not share the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution to protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Or the likes of Hung could be silenced pronto by other zealots and crackpots with redneck tendencies. Untold numbers of people of all colors in the USA have been killed for publicizing politically-charged, biased, bigoted voices and opinions at far lower decibels than Hung.

¹ Eye On Taiwan provides news and opinion articles as a service to our readers. Often these articles come from sources outside of our organization. Where possible, the author and the source are documented within each article. Statements and opinions expressed in these articles are solely those of the author or authors and may or may not be shared by the staff and management of Eye On Taiwan.

Short Take on Taipei

One that fell through the gaping wealth gap

Eye On Taiwan
Op-Ed¹
Date: June 11, 2016
By: David Wang

While the clock counts down to the 4-day long weekend before the Dragon Boat Festival on the night of June 8, 2016, I happened upon the Taiwan Cement tower along section 2 of Zhong-Shan N. Rd. in oldTaipei. Lo and behold I spotted a Taiwanese trash picker easily 70 years old bent over a planter at one corner of the impressive office building.

But he clearly was not about to indulge his taste buds with an iconic leaf-wrapped zhong-ze. The traditional, pillow-shaped snack of sweet-rice filled with mushroom, egg yolk, dried shrimps, chestnut among others is being handmade en masse across Taiwan for the annual festival.

He wasn’t even about to, as many drifters in the city, scoff down plain rice and grungy vegetables. This man was, as I snapped the picture, emptying packets of spices into a paper bowl of instant noodles.

Few consumers today see such convenience-store bought fast food as “prolonged suicide” or “guaranteed ticket to the intestinal specialist” if eaten regularly.

One can be sure that this old Taiwanese is a faithful patron of the tobacco-smoking equivalent of cheap, do-it-yourself, instant meal-in-a-bowl.

One can also be certain that this unfortunate senior does not care one way or another of recent news reports that could change Taiwan. That the American delegates suggest Taiwan to raise its defense spending. Or that the newly-elected first female president of Taiwan has been proclaiming the need to inject younger blood in the system. And that mainland Chinese tourists to the island have dropped 15 percent in May.

But what happened to the timeless tradition of filial piety that is still honored and taught in Taiwan?

Where are his children if any? Why is he not helped by social services? And why is he not a recipient of the generous giving by the Taiwanese who reportedly led global donors in helping Japan in the wake of the March 2011 quake and tsunami?

Only literally across the intersection is one of the most established churches in Taipei that has recently spent a princely sum on sprucing up the building exterior. In addition to grey granite walls, the church now has an inset flat-screen monitor facing outward on the ground floor. A soft-spoken narrator spreads messages of goodwill often quoted from the Bible. But this old man probably can’t hear such inspirational words over the grumbling of his hungry stomach.

Rumors are that many of the patrons of this church are well-heeled property investors. Maybe some of them can actually afford the ritzy condos being put up at frantic pace in this neighborhood or already stand haughtily with uniformed doormen on guard. A square meter in some of the said condos go for about US$6,200 to exceed that in many western cities with hourly wages double or more than in Taipei.

While only a block away is arguably the first, oldest 5-star hotel in Taiwan, The Ambassador. Just about every other Friday night one can view outside the lobby gleaming Porsches, Ferraris, BMWs, Mercedes, Maseratis, Aston Martins, Audis and even the occasional Maybach.

This trash picker likely can’t even afford a set of lug nuts off an alloy wheel on any of the above mighty European cars.

While the Grand Canyon in the Yellow Stone National Park is undeniably breath-taking. But catching a view of an occasionally visible Taiwanese who can show visitors the invisible yet immensely-wide wealth gap in Taipei is truly memorable.

¹ Eye On Taiwan provides news and opinion articles as a service to our readers. Often these articles come from sources outside of our organization. Where possible, the author and the source are documented within each article. Statements and opinions expressed in these articles are solely those of the author or authors and may or may not be shared by the staff and management of Eye On Taiwan.

Short Take on Taiwan

Eye On Taiwan
Op-Ed¹
Date: June 6, 2016
By: David Wang

Would a graduate of Columbia, Stanford, Yale or Harvard invest in a street-vending business, not even as impressive nor nearly as large as a food truck in the USA, to sell the crispy-shelled pastry shaped like an inflated coin 6 centimeters in diameter filled with usually the options of red bean paste, turnip bits, creamy pudding about as innovative as peddling turquoise jewelry on American Indian reservations, albeit being a staple snack across Taiwan that would also quell hunger for anyone on a shoe-string budget?

One honorable graduate of the National Taiwan University, still said in the media and widely recognized in the country as the academic standard-bearer, has done just that, according to TV news aired June 5, 2016 in Taipei.

With Taiwanese media having consistently reported of stagnant wages over the last few years and university graduates on the island, except engineering graduates who are still paid half-decent wages, mainly fantasizing monthly starting pay exceeding US$1,500, and graduates with masters and PhDs mostly dreaming about paychecks nearing US$2,000 to awe-inspire even designers of Disneyland theme park rides, this NTU graduate apparently has more practical goals in mind than boldly joining a corporation to, for example, design an app to hail on-demand a harmonica-playing manicurist to make the world a better place.

Bills have to be paid on-time right?

Notwithstanding this graduate’s more prosaic concerns to stoop to engage in a pride-gnawing business typically reserved for Taiwanese without substantial job skills, college education or over-the-top marketing ideas to wow the likes of Dior, Tiffany and Louis Vuitton, he or she may have played hooky during the lectures on The Basics of Opportunity Cost.

For why would any Taiwanese youth who has managed to enter and graduate from the enviable NTU essentially forfeit the right to leverage the real value, not to mention its cachet, attached to the diploma after investing at least 4 years of one’s prime, as well as the tuition and any potential earnings forsaken as defined by Opportunity Cost?

Or maybe the holier-than-thou NTU isn’t such an admirable institute of higher learning as many Taiwanese would believe?

Just ask the likes of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Mark Zuckerberg, Ellen DeGeneres, who, among many other high-profile, world-changing figures who also saw the light before wasting more time and money in university, could have given this NTU graduate a few pointers.

Incidentally, the humble pastry-vending business will recoup for the NTU graduate any monetary investment in 2 years and generate monthly revenue easily 30 to 40 percent more than typical salaries paid his or her alums, without having to don stuffy, pretentious shirt-and-tie that also incurs extra cost.

¹ Eye On Taiwan provides news and opinion articles as a service to our readers. Often these articles come from sources outside of our organization. Where possible, the author and the source are documented within each article. Statements and opinions expressed in these articles are solely those of the author or authors and may or may not be shared by the staff and management of Eye On Taiwan.

Double Winner Without a Ticket

Eye On Taiwan
Op-Ed¹
Date: June 3, 2016
By: David Wang

While many extremely rich Taiwanese, including one old-moneyed scion of the financial sector in Taiwan likely rated as high net-worth individual with Lottoassets totaling 7-figure greenbacks, enslave and pay about US$550 monthly overseas contract workers to often work 16-plus hour days without quality sleep to show the obvious absence of correlation between generosity (as well as hospitality) and depth of pocket to irritate those working for the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and any other charity looking out for the underprivileged, at least one Taiwanese woman gave freely an hour of her time to talk about the modest enterprise (as shown) that generates a humble income to perhaps equal a basic wage for the ex-seamstress from southern Taiwan.

Such generosity seems unremarkable until the 50ish Ms. P, a polio victim who has been in a wheelchair for 5 years, tells me that she has managed to raise 2 daughters and works 12-hour days starting at 8 a.m. and that being stuck behind a counter is no picnic.

Many aborigines, low-income people, handicapped in Taiwan can enter a draw, showing demand-over-supply, to win license to be ticket vendors for the lottery run by the ChinaTrust Commercial Bank of Taiwan, being the government’s attempt to level the playing field as well as show its humanitarian side.

But no matter how well-intentioned a plan starts, a few selfish, greedy entrepreneurs always manage to ruin the party.

Most lottery ticket vendors across Taipei are manned by perfectly healthy Taiwanese, to which Ms. P attributes the existence of “consortia or well-financed parties” who rent from the licensees the right to run ticket retailers, a tactic that she blames for depriving other truly needy people of the opportunity to achieve financial independence. Winners of licenses can forfeit their right to enable less lucky applicants to take their places. Perhaps some of her handicapped peers simply don’t want to or lack the energy, motivation to work 12-hour days. But Ms. P says ChinaTrust explicitly prohibits the re-authorization of the licenses.

Few rules or laws in Taiwan are strictly adhered to being the rule of thumb. Once again proven so it seems.

In fact many ticket outlets, especially the ones spread across impressively large premises, are staffed by 20ish and 30ish, attractive Taiwanese women to show perhaps lack of other job opportunities, initiative to find more challenging work, lack of training and education to develop more promising career, plain laziness and complacency, or be relatives of those who rent licenses.

I received about US$144 in monthly handicapped allowance but it has been revoked due to my yearly income now exceeding US$15,380, which I have not challenged, says Ms. P, who pays US$1,076 monthly to rent the small room not much bigger than 2 queen-sized mattresses, which she laments being expensive but typical in central Taipei.

However she is glad that Taipei subsidized her US$3,076 for the US$6,153-plus spent on decorating the interior of retailer.

Despite being authorized to run the retailer for 10 years, Ms. P says her particular outlet is not a fecund cash cow as it is for some of the bigger rivals a few steps away, which she believes to be raking it in, as with another retailer run by a friend who has been miraculously lucky to have won a license in each of the last 3 draws, whose store is near Nan-Men Market (one selling traditional Chinese culinary staples as fermented sweet-rice congee) with ample well-heeled customers.

Able to take 8 percent profit from the tickets dispensed from a touch-screen-unit that can also scan for winners, Ms. P says that the scratch-and-win tickets yield 10 percent revenue but expire in 6 months, with the organizer notifying 3 months before such date to allow vendors to seek refund. Such policy is also a gamble for vendors have already paid for scratch-and-win tickets so must eyeball the market for robustness to avoid being stuck with unsold tickets to rack up a loss.

Some vendors actually buy over US$30,770 worth of scratch-and-win tickets, which would be a savvy bet in a buoyant market as 10 percent return would be enviable for many businesses today, including high-profile ones listed on the NY Stock Exchange.

Besides the illegal renting out of licenses, another form of lottery is peddled surreptitiously by some vendors. This underground lottery is offered with of course better odds and without the 20 percent tax imposed on the legal lottery in Taiwan, says Ms. P, who adds that a vendor nearby was busted for pitching the black market lottery and has had his license revoked.

Most customers here are working people who buy a few tickets but I have one regular customer who must have figured out a system, so he drops in daily to buy US$153 worth or about 50 tickets…I think he probably recoups his investment consistently…which is why he dares to buy so many tickets every day, says Ms. P.

Selling machine-dispensed tickets is less of a gamble for one only has to pre-agree the amount to be deposited with ChinaTrust before starting the business, so Ms. P, with US$1,538 in deposit, simply carries on daily as she takes in cash that enable replenishing the deposit as necessary, and the business tax is paid every 3 months to show extra diligence on the part of the authorities, she says.

Outwardly an ordinary handicapped woman in a wheelchair, Ms. P, who says ChinaTrust won’t allow photos to be taken inside a retailer and declined to be in a photo, has not only won the game of life by overcoming adversity to raise 2 children, but having won the second time to be lucky in the drawing of lottery-ticket vendor licenses.

¹ Eye On Taiwan provides news and opinion articles as a service to our readers. Often these articles come from sources outside of our organization. Where possible, the author and the source are documented within each article. Statements and opinions expressed in these articles are solely those of the author or authors and may or may not be shared by the staff and management of Eye On Taiwan.

If It Looks like Baked Beans, Then It Must Be

Eye On Taiwan
Op-Ed¹
Date: June 2, 2016
By: David Wang

Information overload is a phenomenon that has been talked about since the 1970s and a problem that obviously has only grown exponentially with the Internet, blogs, websites, smartphones, all of which are now also carriers of massive volumes of information. But some things never change and that is the quality of information, the kind that consumers, the public can count on as reliable, factual to make informed, optimal decisions to, hopefully, improve quality of life.

But at least one seasoned observer has commented online that the Internet, despite being a miraculous, modern invention to connect the world to enable sharing of information, is also a vast wasteland of questionable information (aka garbage), including news and advertising; while websites tend to be a convenient, deceptive tool to make many businesses seem bigger than life.

In short, the Internet may also be likened to, without offending the original creators of the concept and later parties who have tweaked the software and hardware to make it usable for millions worldwide, an galactically large public toilet down which the global population can flush just about anything.

But the news media in Taiwan, including the operators of cable TV channels, has irrefutably “profited” from the Internet, especially to enable them to cut cost by minimizing labor-intensive, costly investigative reporting, including personal interviewing and undercover work, to enlighten the public of truly influential, urgent news.

And it’s obvious to anyone regularly watching the cable news channels 50 through 56 in Taiwan that the operators’ motto is definitely not earnest, professional journalism, but a perfunctory, childish game of filling airtime while watching the clock.

Fresh news content of local events aired daily lasts maybe a few minutes, consisting of mostly video-caught traffic accidents, petty crimes as violent assaults, thefts, fires, while all the channels seem to agree to share content daily as the same news is circulated like a merry-go-round from one station to the next. The flooding of terminal 2 at the Taoyuan International Airport due to the downpour on June 2, 2016 was, for example, first aired on one channel and then spread like a bad flu to all the other cable stations, none of which bother to dispatch a reporter on-site to scope out more revealing details.

In fact Taiwanese TV news media, perhaps due to tight budget, rarely send any reporter to dig out locally interesting, informative content. For example, it would have been well within a dedicated, professional reporter’s range and milieu to have discovered something wayward in the structure of that condo tower before it collapsed due to the quake in southern Taiwan.

Instead there is clearly a streak of laziness, indifference among Taiwanese reporters to do the minimum. Which may be why there are so many on-site reports of small diners, cuisine for such coverage calls for juvenile level of technical expertise, which likely does not exist among Taiwanese reporters.

And the adoption of foreign correspondents and Taiwanese reporters based abroad to cover news on-site is even less frequent than the Black Friday sale stateside. Only one Taiwanese TV station seems to have a reporter based in Washington, DC who is occasionally seen to make a cameo appearance.

For example has a single Taiwanese TV station sent one of its own to cover the disastrous flooding in Texas, the massive forest fire in Fort McMurray, Alberta or the ongoing Syrian migrant crisis in Greece and Germany? Or has any Taiwanese media, as a professional outfit should, tried to post someone in SE Asia and China to investigate and break news related to the hundreds of Taiwanese scammers who have been busted in Malaysia, the Philippines and China?

Airing breaking news that has happened abroad by Taiwanese media seems exclusively someone else’s business. If scavenging news online from whatever sources available works, then why sweat it seems the mantra for Taiwanese news media. Verification of factual content is but a trivial detail that can be overlooked of course.

Or it could be due to lack of talent? As shown by the recently aired interview between a “seasoned” female Taiwanese reporter and the British entrepreneur Dyson that mostly exposed her incompetence in not only her English skill but her lack of preparation, when she even failed to understand the core breakthrough of Dyson’s vacuum cleaner.

But could it be a matter of professional ethics or lack thereof? That Taiwanese news media is simply trying to survive on cruise control. Why bother investing in on-site reporting when so much news is available for free via the Internet?

Besides it’s so convenient to rerun dated news, as seen on the morning of June 2, 1016 when one of the cable TV channels in Taipei aired a video of a Chinese customer insulted at a donut shop in the USA that had been shown months ago. Short-lived memory among consumers of the Information Age works wonders for cunning news broadcasters in Taiwan indeed.

So it’s evident that airing news of original content related to Taiwan and abroad is a low priority for Taiwanese news media, who also don’t care about factual content since they are merely rebroadcasting whatever news content they can get their hands on (mostly scavenged online), without knowing, nor care to know, the factual quality of such source.

For example, an irresponsible, junior reporter from Tijuana, Mexico is lucky to be sent on a cushy gig (junket) to cover the Indy 500 and files a report saying “drivers ride on slicks or racing tires without tread during rain to go faster by hydroplaning,” which would be copied and aired perfunctorily as “news” by Taiwanese media, whose reporters most likely don’t know “drafting” on a racetrack from a mechanical “drafting” pencil.

In other words, if a news “source” is shoveling loads of baked beans onto the Internet that look like baked beans, then the stuff must be fully trustworthy as genuine, edible and nutritious, without having to smell and bearing the density of baked beans.

Without as much alimentary metaphor, Taiwanese news media seems complacent to “source” online and elsewhere both video and textual content without verification to mostly fill airtime and demand for information that looks like “news.” Supplying and broadcasting secondhand news, without even citing the source frequently, is obviously acceptable “professional standard” in Taiwan.

And such mode of reporting and journalism seems also “acceptable” for at least one Taiwan-based operator of a well-known, branded website of information tech news.

This firm has a want ad on one of the job sites in Taiwan looking for a fully-English-literate person to “source” news, presumably online, over an 8-hour afternoon shift to then publish on its own site, including graphics work as making up tables and proofing copies (aka polishing the English).

The want ad does not ask for any other qualifications as even a modicum of IT knowledge, so this candidate, like the above-mentioned hypothetical Mexican reporter still wet behind the ears, only has to cut and paste IT-related news sourced online as its own, without knowing if such content is factual.

What’s wrong with distributing baked beans online as long as it looks like the crud? And if it has passed the expiry date, so be it.

¹Eye On Taiwan provides news and opinion articles as a service to our readers. Often these articles come from sources outside of our organization. Where possible, the author and the source are documented within each article. Statements and opinions expressed in these articles are solely those of the author or authors and may or may not be shared by the staff and management of Eye On Taiwan.

Only Supermen and Superwomen Need Apply

Eye On Taiwan
Op-Ed¹
Date: June 1, 2016
By: David Wang

One can’t help be awestruck when browsing one of the job sites in Taiwan to experience Alice in Wonderland, simply because some of the want ads seem to be looking not for mere mortals but Superman to fill positions as “export merchandiser.”

Could the writers of the want ads be high on stimulants that are found along with busted dope peddlers that are exposed as virtually daily occurrence in Taiwan?

The following is but one such want ad (some of which translated from Chinese and proofed for sloppy mistakes) that could have job applicants reach for anti-hypertension medication, bifocals to do a double-take and seat belts to avoid falling off one’s chair from spasmodic shock as if having just witnessed the Egyptian sphinx rise and trundle away.

General duties:
1. Assist sales rep/manager to complete sales in all related area; including initial sales order entry, sales order confirmation, order follow-up, packing and shipping arrangement, and after-sales customer services etc.
2. Provide support and coordinate project teams, including preparation of project timeline, ongoing budget review and management of all projects through delivery on-schedule.
3. Assist with trade show and event planning, tracking budgets and expenses, and communicate with external service providers.
4. Prepare reports and perform special projects that may require researching, gathering, and organizing information from a variety of sources.
5. Be onsite and provide support at events and activities.
6. ERP and CRM related data base entry. ERP and CRM.
7. Perform related duties as required.

New product development duties:
1. Find suppliers, build cooperative relations accordingly to achieve yearly new product development goals.
2. Analyze rival products, collect data related to market and product trends.
3. Set out new product specs, do feasibility study, initiate process, control progress.
4. Timely adjust sales strategies according to changes in global markets to enhance own market share.
5. Define own products’ market positions, develop product marketing strategy and new product proposal.
6. Analyze sales and plans for building distribution channels to achieve sales targets.
7. Create training plans for new product development.

Qualifications:
1. Applicants must be 100% fluent in writing, listening, speaking and reading Chinese and English; detail-minded; possess communication skills; proactive; and preferably have bicycle industry related experience.

Duties & qualifications related to promoting new products:
1. Must have excellent English skills to communicate verbally and in writing with foreign buyers; total Taiwanese fluency; preferably with some fluency in a second foreign language as Japanese, German, French etc.
2. Must be able to build sales, retain accounts and help to source foreign suppliers and buyers.
3. Must be able to process orders, offer after-sales service and help with cross-departmental tasks.
4. Must be able to evaluate initially contracts between foreign-supplier and buyers, including terms, production process and specs, and request as necessary cross-departmental help to respond to buyer’s inquiry.
5. Must attend as instructed trade shows in Taiwan and abroad, planning projects, marketing activities, and be able to independently travel on business.

My personal experience in the job market in Taiwan, where the authorities would like the global community to believe the nation has an enviable college-graduation rate, tells me that this advertiser will find the candidate as described when the countries as Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Vatican embrace the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) set and hold a free-for-all bash to celebrate the coming out of all their senior ministers.

Only a couple of months ago I called one of the most established and high-profile department stores in Taipei to ask for in slowly enunciated English “gold-plated cufflinks” to see if they can handle a relatively mundane request in the lingua franca.

The first receptionist was totally perplexed to put me on hold, with another so-called “English-fluent customer service rep” put on the line to ask me to repeat at least twice the simple request, which then ended in bewilderment on my part to lead to nowhere.

The easily understood email in English that I sent regarding the above incident to the store received a reply in a combination of gibberish and perfunctory clichés that was unbecoming of a business carrying plenty of upscale merchandise.

Many years ago I tried the same experiment with the foreign affairs police in Taipei who are supposedly set up to help, at least in English, foreigners. The complaint regarding a scam was spoken slowly using the words as fraud that was completely over the head of the first officer who answered the call, as well as the second, with the third, younger officer barely able to understand me.

One can only speculate how the same test would go today. Don’t hold your breath is my advice.

Along the same vein, this female Taiwanese college grad hired as a copywriter-cum-translator with whom I worked with recently at an export promotional media was essentially incompetent, being unable to even handle a few phrases of relatively simple Chinese-to-English translations.

Total mastery of Mandarin, Taiwanese, English and some literacy in German, French or some other major European language?

Only when Shimano invents a brake set that senses deceleration to automatically via Bluetooth open the garage door to allow entry, turn on the lights, the shower, and the tap to the Fountain of High Hope.

While another 50-plus Taiwanese female with a masters from the USA with years of experience as a “reporter and editor” could not write English above the junior-high level nor intelligently comment on the merits of using hydraulic dampers on doors of furniture, nor compare the mechanical advantages between rattan and say oak to make furniture. Of course she also used the time-proven technique among Taiwanese of cut-and-paste to achieve miraculous efficiency and empress-without-clothes sense of professionalism.

While another 40ish male “reporter and editor,” coworker of the above party, took the cake by taping one day much of the interview of an European trade show attendee, to then quote verbatim in the report the man’s every word as if spoken by Moses, when actually the man from the EU could only speak English gibberish.

Could the said bicycle firm placing the want ad be looking for his caliber of staff?

And has anyone noticed that most of the junk pickers (trash recyclers) in Taipei seemingly have not discovered the fine art of crushing plastic bottles to minimize volume to enhance maximum loading efficiency before filling bags? These people are homo sapiens too and born with the same type of grey matter occupying the cranium of other Taiwanese who may apply for the job above-mentioned.

This bicycle business should perhaps locate that 50ish Caucasian hobo who was spotted recently outside a Subway near the Taipei Train Station for consultation. He is obviously cunning enough to have figured out how to play the immigration system to stay in Taiwan as a vagrant to freeload off tax dollars and Taiwanese hospitality.

One can’t help to wonder if any of the senior governmental officials in Taiwan, some of whom hold advanced degrees from the East and West, could cut the mustard on the said job.
Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Parlez-vous francais?

One’d think these fancy-suited bureaucrats with 6-figure paychecks would stumble over productive discussions with foreign buyers, most of whom are not on junkets when traveling on business, a concept that many senior civil servants may have to learn.

Of course there is that news video aired in Taipei many years ago of ex-president Mah viewing one of the testing firings of a missile that traced not the intended trajectory but one usually expected of a string of spaghetti thrown freely.

Could the designers of the said missile (presumably Taiwanese) be representative of the kind of laser-sharp-minded, proactive and detail-minded talent the bicycle firm seeks?

“Good luck” as the draft picker for the NBA would say to the 170cms. college senior with sights set on playing center.

¹The views and opinions expressed by Op-Ed authors are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Eye On Taiwan or it’s advertisers. Any content provided by our authors are of  their opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

Mass Suicide in Southern Taiwan Offers Sobering Thought

Eye On Taiwan
Op-Ed
Date: May 29, 2016
By: David Wang

News in Taiwan regularly cite the seemingly frightening statistic that the island’s birth rate being the lowest worldwide, to suggest that Taiwan faces the dilemma also besetting many nations elsewhere of declining birth rate compounded by graying society.

Such thorny issue that impacts Taiwan’s social welfare system including the national medical insurance plan, pensions of various kinds seems intractable to cast an ominous veil over the country. But the underlying assumption, especially embraced by human rights activists, the religious right, and those who can’t or refuse to remove their rose-colored glasses, is that all the newborns will grow up to be productive members of society without burdening the same, are wanted children under planned parenthood of responsible parents.

And those in isolated Ivory Towers, think tanks, government institutions insulated from the real world actually but enigmatically believe that Taiwanese schools are training just the right number of qualified people to supply the local job market. But news reports in Taiwan frequently disprove not only the assumed supply and demand balance in the job market, where factories in southern Taiwan sometimes dispatch managers to parade on streets with want-ad placards to fill positions that forever lie idle, but also anecdotal observations show that many 20-something Taiwanese are not being hired in careers with promising future. I’ve seen tiny breakfast diners in Taipei manned by at least 3 young men who seem to be drastically under-employed. While plenty of 20ish youths in Taipei set up, perhaps as second job, pop-up stands in a suitcase or street vending ops to peddle costume jewelry, knickknacks and fruits.

And there are frequent reports of buyer’s market for airline cabin attendant, post office, bank jobs, as well as various civil service jobs as street cleaners where thousands show up to scramble for a handful of openings.

Such scenario, coupled with daily news reports of all kinds of crimes major and minor in Taiwan as drug trafficking, patricides, matricides, scams obviously point to one aspect of the human condition that most optimists and politically-correct politicians simply would not address nor touch with a 10-foot pole.

So the assumption that as long as Taiwan, as is the case with other nations, achieves a so-called replacement birth rate, then all earthlings can expect to ride off into the sunset singing Oh What a Beautiful Morning!, is obviously out the window. Especially when a woman from a government agency in Taipei said recently that some 3 percent or 690,000 (based on a population of 23 million in Taiwan) Taiwanese have some kind of genetic and birth defects, many of whom are seriously retarded, born with Down Syndrome and cerebral palsy that have to be hand held throughout life by parents, caregivers and unwilling relatives.

And it’s widely taken for granted globally that about 40 percent of people are morons, with such proportion easily being similar in Taiwan, who simply can’t enhance productivity of any kind to saddle the earth, already reeling from overpopulation and resource depletion, by merely being consumers to emit greenhouse gases.

While plenty of news reports quote employers of all stripes who typically lament the difficulty of finding well-qualified staff and scratch their heads to cope with incompetent workers. Just watch episodes of Kitchen Nightmares for anecdotal proof. Also I’m sure all those who place want ads in Taiwan, some of which being urgent, can easily offer more argument against the self-delusional view adhered to by the likes of anti-abortionists and anti-euthanasia advocates.

While Greenpeace and other do-gooders simply focus on eco-issues and cleaning up refuse dumped by mankind, they, politically-correctly, neglect one of the most ruinous forms of wastes: human trash. The kind that homo sapiens instinctively believe must be produced, regardless of quality screening as most of us would demand in say a Honda CR-V or Ford F-10 pickup.

According to a report dated May 26, 2016 by a writer of NOWnews who referred to a relevant story in the Apple Daily, a 40-year-old Taiwanese man in Tainan of southern Taiwan on May 24th burnt charcoal to take himself, wife and 3 kids to the Better World, reportedly due to having run out of money for even utilities.

As traditionally in Taiwan the funeral operator accompanied by a “priest or shaman” (aka sometimes politically-incorrectly regarded as snake-oil hustlers), as would any highly-intelligent human as those running temples across Taiwan who burn carcinogenic incense as tradition would demand, tried without success to toss crescent wooden pieces to achieve the “divine combination” to somehow find the spirits of the deceased.

Maybe they would have had better luck to call the Ghostbusters.

Without any surviving relatives who would normally toss the wooden pieces to find the spirits, the ceremony took some 40 minutes to complete by the funeral operator.

The man, who obviously believed in the value of harikiri (the Japanese practice of terminating a loss decisively by suicide as a show of honor), was reportedly a philanderer and often harassed his parents for handouts. The funeral home has offered their services for free because the parents pleaded poverty.

One can bet one’s bottom dollar that those parents have never even heard of the concept of “human trash,” screening and disposal of that they and plenty of forward-thinking, altruistic Taiwanese would rethink about amid the countless socio-economic issues exacerbated by the mostly uncontrolled production of such “human debris” that undermines life quality on the island.

Honeyed Words with Practical Purpose

Eye On Taiwan
Op-Ed
Date: May 29, 2016
By: Jeff Lang

Most ordinary folks may never understand why some well-heeled high-fliers would fork out millions for oil paintings that sometime look like bird cage liners. And why would the super-rich pay princely sums for gems (aka intricately cut and polished rocks mounted on bprecious metallic lattices) that sit inside vaults 99 percent of the time? Why would some spend untold hours and dollars to assemble massive train sets to mimic the real thing traveling in their basements? Why would the mega-rich buy a condo in a high-rise with a special elevator to ferry their Ferrari to be parked in full view of their living rooms? Why do scientists continue to squander resources to look for ways to set up colonies on a planet in the next galaxy when they know it’s essentially mission impossible? And why do men (most likely) splurge enough dollars to equal a Filipina overseas contract worker’s monthly pay in Taipei for few hours in one of the many lounges or nightclubs with presumptuously tacky names as Bulgari, Cartier, Tiffany in the seedier parts of Taipei to be entertained by hostesses or bargirls?

It’s the latter question that begs one to delve into the mindscape of such patrons, not by carefully arranged, peer-reviewed, double-blind scientific experiment but anecdotal observation of one Taiwanese bargirl’s monologue, who apparently trolls dating sites perhaps out of boredom or maybe with ulterior motive.

This Taiwanese lounge hostess (as shown and likely of Eurasian ancestry with possibly breast-enhancement surgery) seems in her early 20s and confessed with a scripted, tear-jerking outpouring as original as microwaving TV dinner to quell hunger, that she is from impoverished background and hence has to work in the skin trade to make ends meet, without trading her shapely body for money of course to elevate herself above mere prostitutes.

Her time-honored profession has been reported in Taiwanese media more than once, with one report that focused on the racket in central Taiwan that had a stable of dozens of gorgeous women who were organized and lived like troops. The skin trade in Taiwan is often seen in the public eye (and often proven) to be linked to gangsters who are in cahoots with the law (of course never openly documented or published in media), with some forms of the trade allowed to thrive with the permission of the government, which categorizes such enterprise under the moniker “Special Business.”

There also has been reports on Taiwanese TV exposing scams using callers in boiler rooms in China conspiring with lounge operators in Taiwan to snare gullible hearts of men, who are egged on to visit bars where hostesses slowly befriend them to gain their trust and then ask for money to bail them out of various problems, as relatives in need of medical treatment or debts due to poor investment. These unwitting knights with chivalrous tendency sometimes end up being fleeced of their golden armor as well as life savings.

Amusingly when the law actually clamps down on the skin trade in Taipei, where hookers are regular patrons of taxis, hair salons and dry cleaners, a whole segment along the food chain feels the pinch.

The following is the translation from Chinese this bargirl’s one-sided conversation over a couple days on one of the chat apps. She casually gives out her ID to anyone willing to take the bait on a dating site so as to begin a monologue that likely duplicates the following. This self-professed unfortunate soul deserves certain admiration for being patient enough to key in Chinese characters dripping with syrupy and insipid content.

But is she as innocent, naïve as she portrays herself in the monologue? The answer lies in the italicized, bold line near the bottom.

It’s safe to assume that patrons as the one who probably drooled upon seeing the bargirl’s provocative stunt using her décolletage are not looking for intellectual stimulating distraction that would inspire one to apply to a world-renowned PhD program to devise means to eradicate global poverty. And could the noggins of said patrons be actually as vapid as the monologue and this bargirl? After all, birds of a feather stick together.

I’m all dressed up.

OK. I’m off to work…muah…

If you don’t send me a thumbs-up sticker, then you don’t miss me.

Hey there. I just arrived at the company.

I tell you…my mobile phone has a “read masking” software that hides that I’ve read a message, which works unless I turn it off…so I’m sometimes blamed by people of being impolite because they think I’ve not read their messages.

I’m going for supper.

Actually you’ve not really looked at my pictures closely.

You’ve not said that my room looks creepy when it looks that way.

I’m going outside for a while now.

Just now I had customers next to me so I could not use my mobile phone.

I’ll talk to you later ok?

Oh…sorry…sorry.

Got up too late today…that’s why I am just texting you now.

Work gets busier Friday so you behave yourself.

I’ll send you some hot pictures later.

Chu…chu…(a seemingly Taiwanese expression of endearment)

It’s thundering out…scary…

I must get on with work…think of me.

Chu…chu…

I’m finally getting a breather now.

Hey…I was really proud of myself just now…I had to bring something into the booth but could not hold it with my small hand.

So I simply squeezed the champagne glass in my cleavage instead.

You should have seen the customer pick up his jaw off the floor.

Wait…got to get back to the booth…that customer is probably still straightening his slack jaw.

You have to think of me…I’ll miss you.

Let me set my phone down or I’ll get reprimanded again.

Do you also talk to other girls like you do me?

I think I drank too much today.

I just woke up today…

Gosh it’s boiling hot today.

I am dying for a Popsicle.

My air conditioner is down so I slept over at a coworker’s place. Where did you sleep?

Hey. Listen. I am the jealous type…so you’re dead if I catch you in bed with someone.

Time to make up.

You’ve not said you miss me…you’re on my mind.

You’re the first one that I text as soon as I wake up.

I’ve already put on my makeup.

It’s Saturday so I’m going to have to work like a dog.

Actually it’s that that I don’t chat with you from my heart…but this is my life…for you to be a bit more understanding would make me think you’re so considerate.

You must behave today and miss me…muah.

Time to go to work.

Arrived at the office…so hot.

My friends say darkening the brows with makeup helps to keep off the sun…so you know I hate to tan.

You’re allowed to visit me at work today…free Popsicles!

OK…got to get busy now.

Don’t forget to have supper…I’ve got to go to work now.

Labor Code Infraction Report Misses the Big Picture

Eye On Taiwan
Op-Ed
Date: May 28, 2016
By: David Wang

According to an online report by Lin Li-yu for www.bcc.com.tw of Taiwan dated May 26, 2016, the Taipei City Labor Bureau publicized the latest blacklist naming 252 businesses that contravene the labor codes, with the bureau commenting such number to be quite high, and that Hwa-deh Securities tops the list of the most serious offenders with 6 infractions.

The most common offense is, as expected, not paying overtime. Another being not keeping time records, in other words employees do not clock in or out to make tracking work hours and paying wages accordingly impossible. While the third infraction involves not allowing one day-off every 7 work day.

While workers in Taipei from humble backgrounds and saddled with supporting family as is expected traditionally may find such contraventions unacceptable to also bite into one’s pocketbook to make living in Taipei, where per-unit-area price of property in some areas equal or exceed those in western cities with double or higher hourly wages, ever more tiring and challenging, those who look at the Big Picture in Taiwan can’t help to wrinkle one’s brows to question the basics most rational, well-educated people (excluding many Taiwanese regardless of educational credentials, physical age and even professional track-record who try to pretend as such by donning fancy suit and tie, memorizing and reciting as necessary lofty hypocrisies, platitudes and clichés) taken for granted “needed” to set up one’s own business.

In more explicit terms, the said reasonable individuals would assume that SME (small and medium sized enterprise) owners in Taiwan are fully experienced, qualified, far-sighted, well-rounded and balanced, ethical people with mindset fully geared for the 21st century and motivated to create jobs, make the world a better place and even set enviable examples for the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Those who believe such to be true for 90 percent of Taiwanese SME operators likely also believe in Santa, while the ones who believe it true for 5 percent of the same deserve a pat on the back for being realistic.

Before delving into a few first-hand experiences to substantiate my case, one should rewind the TV news video showing the female Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker with the non-descript degree from the West hailing from Pingtung, southern Taiwan who infamously showed the Taiwanese public the fine art of the frontal kick that would even humble the Karate Kid (or even Bruce Lee?) as she tried to bust open a door to likely a rival’s office.

Or perhaps show the news video of a recently (unsurprisingly gleeful) appointed Taiwanese official who had the decency and candor to yelp that he has no prior, related experience to his new post.

It’d be interesting and eye-opening actually to collect the stats on the percentage of high-ranking public officials in Taiwan with directly related, proven experience to their new appointments.

But such endeavor would not be kosher in Taiwan where saving face and being politically-correct is as vital to burning carcinogenic incense (as reported on TV in Taipei) in temples of worship where deities supposedly enhance well-being of patrons.

And being “qualified” for any task in Taiwan is but another nominal and perfunctory hurdle to clear.

Could this be the reason that the ground-level light-duty MRT in Taichung, central Taiwan has gone bankrupt within a year of start-up?

Or the Taipei Dome that is supposed to bestow upon the city a world-class baseball stadium currently not scoring a near homerun but virtually a strike out, with both teams having long walked off the field.

But surely SME operators in Taiwan are “fully-qualified” to show staffers the ropes right?

Not this Taiwanese couple in their late 30s who ran a small exporter in Taipei decades ago. They offered me a post to explore the emerging snowboard market stateside. The man was the quintessential example of someone who married for convenience (aka sperm donor for hire) to a wealthy Taiwanese woman also the financier of the business. I could not see the marks left by the tight collar attached to the short leash around his neck during the interview, but did not hesitate to ask why he would not take on the task himself as would often be done in the sector. Inexplicably they confessed to being card-carrying Americans who could not (or would not) speak English so needed someone for the job. That was only part of the rationale, for he then revealed his bigotry in not being able to stand the sight of long-haired youths who would be potential clients in the snowboard business, people with whom ho he’d have to associate and, heaven forbid, and even socialize.

What would the likes of Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg make of this Taiwanese “entrepreneur” who took himself so seriously in his fancy suit?

One can’t help to wonder if this man’s lack of English qualification creeps into his other areas of “expertise?”

Or maybe his bigotry and presumptuous status also prevented him from studying subjects as material science (very useful to anyone aiming to play a part in the snowboard business) or analysis of advanced polymers in a polytech as such school simply does not impart the high-brow cachet of “university,” not to mention he’d have to dirty his manicured fingers occasionally in lab work. Such trivial concerns aside, he’d actually have to learn English, the language of many textbooks on advanced sciences.

Could a bigoted Taiwanese entrepreneur whose only “qualification” to be in his shoes being lucky to marry a golden meal ticket be counted on to abide by generally accepted global corporate practices let alone Taiwanese labor codes?

Another rarely admitted truism in the Taiwanese SME sector is that many small-time business proprietors are simply unemployable, without significant job skills nor sufficient intelligence to be forced to set up shop.

Could such entrepreneurs be relied upon to adhere to labor codes when they likely can barely comprehend most laws?

Another Taiwanese entrepreneur in his late 30s set up a tiny pet-grooming accessories business years ago to fit the stereotype of egoistic bosses. Unlike a savvy businessman who would be frugal, he drove a 3-series BMW to show off his fledgling enterprise that was about as solid as a butterfly in a stiff breeze. His bookkeeper-cum-right-hand was also his girlfriend, a mere employee until one office party that gave him the pathetic opportunity to over-imbibe and bed her. Just what every winning entrepreneur would do to promote a female staffer to girlfriend. He gives new meaning to “taking care” of one’s employees.

Would this type of Taiwanese boss even look at labor codes?

Fitting in perfectly the antiquated business model in Taiwanese SMEs that are often family-run (aka patriarchal), this 40-plus Taiwanese man sat at the lap of his aging father as an obedient golden retriever, working for decades without formal title nor compensation agreement (aka he worked for basic wages without a dime in profit-sharing despite doing all the work to be forever enslaved without prospect for independence) in a small exporter of skateboards during the heyday of the sector. Both the father and son were English illiterate and about as business savvy as Nokia who believed they’d dominate the mobile phone sector forever.

The patriarch lived in the 18th century and the son, living up to the sheepish model so revered and approved in Taiwanese society, was deprived of choice to ever strike out on his own or even hold his head up as a supposedly fully-grown man.

Labor codes? The only business and labor law the father understands is “Not only shall my son work for me unconditionally, but what’s mine is forever mine and so is his.”

Intriguingly Lin’s report does not delve into other labor laws that are less abused in Taiwan. Could it be that there is a warm-and-fuzzy side to labor laws on the island? One that actually allows employers to condone flagrant infractions.

For example a so-called seasoned Taiwanese “reporter” incredibly confessed on a TV talk show that he was mostly fabricating “news” as he went, with up to some 80 percent of what he said being based on hearsay, urban legends and speculation. One wonders if there is a labor code covering such practice, one that says “Taiwanese TV channels shall be allowed to turn a blind eye to broadcasting soapy content as “news” by paying self-professed reporters to commit dereliction of duty.”

And many English “news” reports published in Taiwan show bylines when actually they’ve been translated from a Chinese report that has often been rewritten from another Chinese source. According to at least two Financial Times columnists, such practice is plain plagiarism.

How shall the labor code read?

“News media in Taiwan shall allow, without legal liability nor ethical consequences, writers to presumptuously use bylines to stroke their own egos as they pretend to be reporters to translate news of questionable currency, factual content to be published as reliable news.”

And what about a code to regulate unethical behavior among employees?

The Labor Bureau of Taipei as well as the legislature has their work cut out. But they need to first find a certain MD in a major hospital in Taipei for consultation before drafting the codes, for this “highly-educated, supposedly mature” man who has taken the Hippocratic Oath can shed light on deterrent measures, but that’s if he can spare a precious moment while he scopes out another nurse for his toy, after driving one to quit to avoid harassment after rebuffing his proposal to be his mistress.

Your-Savings-to-Staffer’s-Pocket Taiwanese Style

Eye On Taiwan
Op-Ed
Date: May 26, 2016
By: David Wang

The island nation of Taiwan is amazing in more ways than one. Its miniscule size, being barely visible on a global map, must not be equated to its capacity for deception or as Tonto (as well as many American natives) would say “Taiwanese speak with forked tongue” at many levels of the private and public sectors, which is actually not an excessive exaggeration.

Of course the above does not apply to the newly-elected Tsai Ing-wen, the first female Taiwanese president, with holier-than-thou London School of Economics and Cornell degrees, on record who was unemployed (or possibly unemployable?) for some 4 years but living large on a comfy handout from family, who dutifully and politically-correctly read each and every word from the prepared inauguration speech recently, having shown only a tad awkwardness as she had to refocus occasionally. One wonders what Tsai would have written for the speech had she penned it herself? But that would be demanding too much from her highness as she could have come down with a migraine from having to leaf repeatedly into The Dictionary of Hypocrisy, Platitudes, PC Phrases for Political Speeches.

Before the scandal surrounding the hacking theft via the SWIFT money wiring system has even sunk in the public consciousness, Taiwan’s own banking sector shows it too has capacity for wayward behavior, albeit without as much information tech but involving mostly old-school charm and charisma.

TV news in Taipei aired a brief expose on May 26, 2016 to show again the incredible degree of hospitality in Taiwan even in the banking sector, one that borders on personal attention and service to humble the likes of the PR managers at Hilton Worldwide and Carnival Cruise Line, not to mention inspiring them to stand up to take notice, as well as notes.

A bank staff at the Jih-Sun Bank, a relative latecomer to the sector in Taiwan, reportedly went to superhuman lengths to implement CRM or customer relations management. She spared no effort to offer to pick up children of her clients, a service that would have Jamie Dimon (CEO of JP Morgan) calling the Wharton School of Business to check if such attentive offering makes a difference to the topline or bottom-line.

But this bank staffer actually had ulterior motive, unsurprisingly, for even Mother Teresa would not go so far as to personally help those needy children and the impoverished balance their books.

Over a period of time and having gained the clients’ trust, she was able to even keep their passbooks and name chops (all that are needed in Taiwan to withdraw money from a third party’s account believe it or not), with which she then committed the most egregious cardinal sin in banking: to treat depositor’s funds as one’s own.

This bank staffer not only withdrew depositors’ money totaling a reported US$3.77 million but also stole their interest returns, terminated term deposit contracts, and made investments willfully.

A male victim seemingly in his 60s with a mask to hide identity said on TV that Jih-Sun Bank could be a “total scam,” which may actually not be far the truth for how can a highly-visible bank allow one of its own to run amuck with a depositor’s money. A bank without internal audit and controls can be loosely termed a “scam.”

Another brief report on TV said that Jih-Sun Bank is not profitable, or euphemism for it’s in the red.

Along the same vein of deceptive practices (another name for fraud?) in the banking sector in Taiwan, a neatly-dressed female banking staffer in her late 30s given the job title of investment consultant/PR officer said that her line of work in Taiwan is still more polish than substance, suggesting that her employer would have potential clients believe in the expertise and experience implied by the uniform. Another female staffer tasked with advising clients in financial products openly confessed to having little significant experience in the job save for a few years working for another local bank that had no interest in anything but life insurance, suggesting its antiquated mindset and lack of expertise in all-round financial investment.

Any client ready to invest in financial products in Taiwan based on the advice of so-called investment consultants in impressive uniform may as well call a shaman from the jungles of the Philippines or watch cable channels 91 through 93 (where greasy-haired “advisors” spew hot air faster than the Soputan volcano in Indonesia), or chuck darts at a dartboard, preferably after a 6-pack of Bud or several shots of 80-proof Jinmen fire water.

But what of the public sector? Surely the Taiwanese government, besides its staunchly Taiwanese Democratic Progressive Party members that seem to be obsessed with upholding the name of Taiwan as if it being the elixir to mend all its ills (including taking care of the family of 5 that could not pay even utilities to have committed mass suicide by burning charcoal as reported on TV recently), is on the ball to take the nation to achieve its next Economic Miracle.

And what better way to do that than rely on the time-proven technique of fibbing or as used-car hustlers worldwide call pulling the wool over the sucker’s eyes.

Mr. Gene B., a 64-year-old American the perfect negative stereotype with paunch and energy and intellectual prowess to challenge T-Rex, would never admit to having come to Taiwan due to inability to attract a female surprisingly came clean recently about his “stint” (aka combination of charity, corruption and charade) at TAITRA, the export promoter typically referred as semi-official in media for being partly funded by tax dollars. While not allowed to show up for work at TAITRA in Hawaiian shirt, Bahama shorts, he might as well have for he could have brought along a lounger and a picnic basket filled with ingredients to make Singapore Sling due to not having any work 99 percent of the time. Once in a blue moon he would be asked to “write” a blurb to promote tourism in Taiwan, a task about as taxing and original as taking siesta in Porta Vallarta. Think cut-and-paste.

Though he would not openly talk about why he was even hired for a superfluous job, Gene recently said that he and Mr. Curtis S., a Canadian and long-time TAITRA staffer not known for playing with a full deck, were told sometimes to pose as buyers to one of the many TAITRA trade shows. Mr. Curtis S. by the way can’t understand relatively common terms as “structural or load-bearing member” without Mary Poppins holding his hand to open the Glossary of Civil Engineering Terminology.

Gene, the enviable doyen of English grammatical rules, actually received a gold watch but not an Oscar when he was let go, which he said was due to influence-peddling and cronyism, unsurprisingly, so as to vacate his seat for one of the children of a government official. This “unemployed or unemployable” prince or princess (number of whom would likely be too high for the Taiwanese government to publish to save face) later had to be replaced in the age-old game of musical chairs. (or is that revolving doors?)

Mr. Curtis S. incidentally is the venerable master of turning Chinglish into “readable” text (aka lines of English that can be read without tripping over grammatical errors but not necessarily making sense, logic or related to the real world), in other words churning out reams of words promoting trade shows without verification of factual content, or being fabricator of hype, hyperboles, clichés and platitudes. In short, he is a bit player in a charade that is tax-dollar-driven to essentially deceive buyers and suppliers.

Some time ago, a major Taiwanese newspaper published a report that said throngs of grannies showed up in a trade show in China promoted by TAITRA that was supposed to draw hundreds of genuine buyers.

Such business model is unilaterally beneficial actually as TAITRA pockets rentals from various suppliers who pay for booths to dance all the way to its official backer and coffer.

Unfortunately the same can’t be said about the paying suppliers who swallow hook, line and sinker the hype and half-truths generated by the likes of Mr. Curtis S.

The content of this Op Ed is not the opinion of the owner, editor or staff of Eye On Taiwan.