Op Ed

Democracy in Name Only?

Eye On Taiwan
Op Ed
Date: May 21, 2016
By: David Wang

Most outsiders have little choice but to know Taiwan as a “democracy,” one progressive enough to have its first female president that is a feat for any nation, but news in Taipei says that the outgoing president Mah Ying-jeo will be collecting some US$7,690 monthly for the next 8 years (totaling some US$738,460) after handing over his tenure on May 20, 2016.

TV news in Taipei has also reported that Mah has managed to save some US$17 million from his many years as a civil servant, a sum that would have even Barak Obama or any senior American government official rolling his or her eyes in envy.

Tsai Ing-wen, the incoming president and the theoretically perfect presidential candidate with degrees in economics from Cornell and the London School of Economics, was reportedly “unemployed” for some 4 years while collecting US$2,760 monthly in spending money from her family.

Incidentally plenty of college grads in Taiwan whose job descriptions and actual duties often result in hypertension, indigestion, insomnia and cancer, not to mention making Mah and Tsai awe-struck, are paid around US$750 monthly and whose paychecks will see the north side of US$1,500 only when Vladimir Putin quits his post to take up the job as poster boy for the Capitalist Sunbathers Club International.

Meanwhile Taiwanese youths are regularly seen at busy intersections in Taipei trying to collect donations for school children in remote communities who are too poor to afford nutritional lunches, but being mostly given cold shoulders by passersby.

And recent TV news in Taipei says that sending Taiwanese elementary school children to cram schools remains a trend as it has for decades, with the considerable outlay taking a sizable chunk out of budgets of working class families to enable their children to climb the ladder of success as easily as a cerebral palsy patient can win gold in Olympics springboard diving.

While Tsai has, as a seasoned politician is accustomed to, filled the pool of hypocrisy pre-election with her own variety of hyperboles, self-delusions and pie-in-the-sky promises, countless Taiwanese in their prime can only dream of homeownership in Taipei, where per-unit-area prices of new condos easily equal or exceed that in major western cities of Los Angeles, Seattle, Toronto, Houston, Paris, Brighton where wages are double or more of that in Taipei. Such phenomenon may explain the popularity of lottery tickets, underground betting and prevalent criminal behavior by perpetrators on both sides of the law in Taiwan for struggling as honest, ethical working stiff makes about as much practical sense as Kim Kardashian running for president of Pakistan.

Those who prefer to don rose-colored glasses only need to question the likes of the recently caught Taiwanese supplier who had been buying 11-year-old frozen seafood to resell to even 5-star hotels, as well as the endlessly long list of culprits who have resorted to unethical means (as using toxic industrial grade ingredients in food making) to make a fast buck. Morris Chang, CEO of TSMC, was actually audacious enough in recent memory to openly say on TV that there is too much influence-peddling in the Taiwanese financial sector, a practice that is typically associated with Banana Republics where a smug official who happens to fancy the goods that you are trying to legally ship into his or her nation can willfully impose “import duty” by transferring such merchandise into private possession. To the uninitiated, Chang was suggesting that certain well-connected Taiwanese, regardless of political or religious affiliation, can get away with waltzing into a bank and strolling out with millions in depositors’ money by merely flashing collateral that even subprime mortgage packagers or sellers would not touch with a barge pole.

But self-delusion may be a survival technique in the democracy of Taiwan. After all, who would willingly admit to be a citizen of a nation supposedly with a high proportion of college-grads but one that regularly (legally?) allows celebrities to endorse products of which they know nary about. Where such high-profile celebrities don’t likely even know the difference between organic chemistry and organic growth. And what a modern democracy. There are still TV channels in Taiwan that have “encyclopedic” hosts speaking mostly the Min-Nan dialect (Taiwanese) to man call-in lines to answer questions ranging from investment, education, medicine, fortune telling, when actually these snake-oil hustlers don’t know the difference between jet stream and jet-setter, nor Freon and fricassee. Undoubtedly Taiwan is a veritable “democracy” for there are actually callers who dial in to seek answers related to the said issues.

Calling Taiwan a “democracy” to suggest all the conventional positive implications attached is blinkered-vision at best.

Judge Again Confirms Criminal-friendliness in Taiwan

Eye On Taiwan
Op Ed
Date: May 19, 2016
By: David Wang

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Ho Buo-han , a Taiwanese ex-marine who choked to death a burglar.

Picture yourself as the judge in Rio de Janeiro, Katmandu, Manila, Addis Ababa, Casablanca, Penang, San Salvador, Hokkaido, or even the male-chauvinistic judiciary system of Bangladesh or Pakistan where judges have been known to release with barely a slap on the wrist culprits of honor killing and rapists. And the first case on the docket happens to be the trial of Ho Buo-han (as shown), a Taiwanese ex-marine who choked to death a burglar who was caught red handed one night as the defendant and then pregnant wife returned home.

Those of us with even puerile sense of discretion, indignation and ability to distinguish right from wrong would, as would the newly-elected Filipino president Duerte who has said on TV that he advocates reintroducing hanging and shoot-to-kill in handling criminals, throw the case on the pile marked “NOT GUILTY.” While those with true sense of creativity and sense of mission to improve Taiwanese society would even propose Ho to be presented with the highest civilian medal of honor for purging Taiwan of one more piece of reprobate. And those who watches reruns of Dirty Harry and Death Wish while salivating helplessly to also undergo pupil dilation and heart palpitations as Paul Kersey pumps slugs into the perps would petition the lawmakers in Taiwan to legislate the good ole bounty hunter system, in addition to offering cash rewards to police officers and civilians who stop criminals dead in their tracks to save Taiwan of unnecessary spending on the judiciary and correctional systems that obviously treat criminals better than most of the underprivileged and overseas contract workers in Taiwan.

Taiwanese scammers who have been caught overseas targeting mainland Chinese have recently been transported to China, despite Taiwanese protests with questionable justification or even rationale, for trial simply because of the ridiculously criminal-friendly judiciary on the island.

Undoubtedly a handful in Taiwan including the members on the conservative side of the tracks as anti-abortionists, Amnesty International, anti-euthanasia would cry foul of such notion for it being barbaric to reek of the Wild, Wild West.

That is until one reads the verdict handed down and publicized online in Taiwan. Ho, despite his instinctive and rightful action to protect his pregnant wife as he sensed imminent threat due to the break-in, has been given a 3-month suspended jail sentence that is commutable with a US$2,800 fine, while TV news says that the family of the burglar is seeking some US$312,000 in damages.

Meanwhile drug peddlers, addicts and all kinds of slimy, underhanded criminals as the merchant recently busted for buying 11-year-frozen seafood to resell to 5-star hotels wantonly break laws in Taiwan knowing the penalties are light and jail time spent is more comfy than life for the homeless in Taipei.

Brick-and-Mortar Dinosaur Spotted in Taipei

Eye On Taiwan
Op Ed
Date: May 18, 2016
By: David Wang

Few if any millennials as well as Taiwanese from the X and Y-generations would have an inkling of Enola Gay or that the wittily-named American B-29 bomber changed global history in August 1945 when it dropped Little Man and Fat Boy on Hiroshima 20160425_180534and Nagasaki to nuke Japan into surrender. Nor would many of such Taiwanese youths have opinions on how only 4 or 5 years later their homeland would see an intrusion of millions of mainland Chinese driven out from their homeland by the Communists to seek shelter in their backyards across Taiwan.

Circa 1950, without carbon dating or first-hand accounts from the owner, when Taiwan was in political upheaval due to the KMT government having just set up shop on the island, the brick house as shown probably was still literally wet-behind-the-ears and throughout the cement that had recently been tidied up with a wooden screed.

The neighborhood in Taipei around this throwback of a humble abode in 1950 would have been as unrecognizable (and as incomprehensible) to the owner of the brick house as the corner of Nanking and Zhongshan today, within a half-kilometer radius of which stand the 5-star properties as Taipei Regent, Hotel Royal, Okura Prestige.

In fact the owner, as he or she proudly supervised the last brick being laid, in 1950 or so probably was not sufficiently privileged to be educated under the Japanese colonial rulers to be able to read about the lead up to the nuking of Hiroshima, nor could he or she figure out what was going on in Taiwan amid the sudden influx of his “compatriots,” people who basically looked the same racially but enigmatically spoke in dialects as foreign as Greek, which certainly did little for gregarious mixing since he or she likely could only manage to communicate in the Min-Nan dialect (Taiwanese) perhaps peppered with Japanese.

Incidentally the owner of this brick house would have knitted his or her brows while the cement dried around 1950 had anyone mentioned the term “5-star hotel,” a concept that would have been as alien to him or her as talking wirelessly on iPhones then. The same owner would have also popped his or her eyes out at the Ambassador Hotel, arguably the first upscale hotel in Taiwan during the days when owning a set of golf clubs or a single-speed Raleigh was regarded as enviable as owning an M3 today, as it rose enviably in the 1960s to cause plenty of neck craning.

Tell the brick house owner around 1950 that only 30 years later the area in Hsinchu would be home to a tech park as well as semiconductor giants as TSMC and UMC to enable Taiwanese officials smugly brand the island as “Economic Miracle” and one would have either elicited phonebook-memorizing boredom or quizzical queries of lunacy.

“Semiconductor xi sha-mee wah-gow” would likely have been his or her response.

This same owner, if told to buy real estate in his neighborhood with the silver or gold pieces (or newly minted New Taiwan dollars) hidden under the mattress around 1950, would have sprouted an expression of bewilderment as many in Taiwan still lived under martial law without knowing if the Communists across the water would invade to retake the island that it considers as one of its provinces. In essence, Taiwan was an uncertain nation with a populace mostly too unsettled to appreciate the savvy, timeless value of the adage “buy land amid upheaval.”

“Li gone sha-mee?” (or perhaps the iconic Taiwanese epithet made up of either 3- or 5-characters to equal the English counterpart universally known as variations of the 4-letter word) would likely have been his her response as the home owner pondered the wisdom or insanity of such advice as he or she looked beyond the front yard (likely unobstructed around 1950) to see occasional street vendors peddling smuggled Marlboro and water buffalos plodding alongside pedicabs, the Uber taxis of pre-PC days in Taiwan.

Look who is kicking himself or herself in regret now?

Anyone who had the gall (and extra gold and silver pieces) to invest in land around this brick house in 1950, per-unit price of which would have been significantly less than that of a Louis Vuitton or Prada purse today, would be singing and laughing all the way to a bank in 2016, not to mention humbling even the likes of Warren Buffet who probably would not have had the foresight to advice as such.

The swanky Mitsukoshi department store in a 13-plus story high-rise by the way sits only about a 100 meter north of this brisk dinosaur in the Zhongshan district of Taipei, which is seeing frenetic pace of condo tower construction to rival major western cities.

On the other hand, the owner of this brick dwelling could be one of those urban legends in Taiwan, a landlord from the 1960s era sitting on prime real estate in Taipei that has been inherited. The only “Economic Miracle” he or she knows of is how multiples of property developers have over the years have approached with offers to demolish and build high-rises on one of the lots held in the family portfolio. In which case the cliché “pah-bian-jah-yun,” the Taiwanese expression often used by politicians and low-budget TV ads to loosely mean “hard work pays,” would not apply.

Still Sending Boys to do Men’s Work

Eye On Taiwan
Op Ed
Date: May 17, 2016
By: David Wang

Occasionally news topics in Taiwan still broach the stale issue of certain members of the local government, likely ones who still believe the Mandarin suit to be the coolest 20160515_201926outfit since the bell bottoms of the Swinging 60s, advocating to petition the UN to list Taiwan as a member, with such patriotic souls still embracing the title Republic of China as the exclusive representative of the only China, apparently neglecting, self-delusionally, the unfortunate finale around 1949 when the Communists in China drove out the KMT government, which has been the administrator mostly over the past few decades on the island.

Reams have been written to discuss the reasons why the KMT government lost its homeland to the Communists. But could it be that the nagging, underlying illness remains untreated till this day? That it’s still about sending boys to do men’s job? That it’s still taken for granted acceptable practice to keep a stiff upper lip while kowtowing the supposedly “seasoned pro” (aka the one who has somehow succeeded in playing the corporate upward-mobility game regardless of possession of genuine skills, street-smart, acumen etc.) as he or she is sent to the frontlines. As long as this “senior manager” with years of experience in chair-warming, brown-nosing, grand-standing, hypocrisy-spewing, palm-greasing is dressed in spiffy business attire, then all is well.

A couple of real-world examples in Taiwan come to mind.

The most recent was aired on TV in Taipei on May 15, 2016 (as shown), with a frequently seen TVBS news show hostess valiantly trying to stage an interview with the founder of the iconic Dyson line of vacuum cleaners and home appliances.

She, like a few of her peers in Taiwan, also hosts a program to feature so-called headline personalities as executives, entrepreneurs.

While this news veteran deserves a pat on the back for trying to work outside her comfort zone, to interview a British inventor in the Anglo-Saxon tongue that would stumble 99 percent of Taiwanese journalists, she flubbed miserably.

Not only could she not stay apace with Dyson as he talked at moderate speed and without overwhelming British accent, she failed to do enough homework to show a modicum of journalistic professionalism. When she presumptuously and erroneously complimented the interviewee on his ingenious invention of the vacuum cleaner without a dust bag, Dyson had to correct her to point out that the key feature of the vacuum being its ability not to lose suction strength over time, a weakness of typical counterparts, and that it was an incidental development to forgo the dust bag.

She also showed juvenile level of technical knowledge, again showing lack of preparation and depth of thought for an experienced journalist, to have only mentioned that Dyson vacuums being lightweight, a fact also obvious to 6-year-olds, without even asking the entrepreneur the extent to which the firm goes in using special materials, production technologies and mechanical design to achieve such featherweight.

In short and mostly hidden to casual viewers of the interview, she actually could not truly comprehend Dyson as he spoke English. She stuck to her prepared script and plowed ahead like a real trouper to finish the interview, without really engaging Dyson or being able to branch out on other related issues or just to talk off-the-cuff.

Dyson had to patronize and humor this Taiwanese journalist as she likely felt honored just to have been granted an interview with a high-profile British entrepreneur.

Another unforgettable example is the interview between Maggie Lake and Shih, CEO of ASUS (the Taiwanese maker of smartphones and notebooks), that was aired on CNN a few months ago.

Shih obviously and bravely memorized, as taught in the Taiwanese educational system, the script to promote the new smartphone model on CNN opposite Lake, who patiently listened and then asked Shih a simple question about his view towards the market, which only drew a quizzical knitting of his brows to end in awkward silence.

The CEO simply spouted a monologue in English on CNN to delude many of his Taiwanese peers into believing his English fluency. Fact is the Taiwanese CEO, as the Taiwanese news veteran above-mentioned, simply cannot engage in meaningful, adult-level English conversation.

But both the Taiwanese, besides proving again the disastrous outcome of sending boys to do men’s work, also showed the traditional corporate mantra in Taiwan remains steadfast: it’s all about show, not go.

Meanwhile dozens of English-as-second-language schools in Taiwan continue to dress up so-called teachers to delude unwitting parents and kids into believing a few hours of lessons weekly will enable dear Jimmy and Jane to one day talk with Dyson about the merits of applying carbon-integrated polycarbonate in home appliances and with Lake the potential fallout of Yellen’s signing off on more Fed rate hikes.

By the way it’s also highly debatable whether the dozens of Taiwanese CEOs, senior-ranking government officials with high-brow degrees from the West could have fared better than the said female journalist. One suspects that most, if approached with the job to interview Dyson on TV, would have to decline due to being too busy keeping their fancy wardrobes dry-cleaned and pressed.

Aussie Gem Amid Central Taipei

Eye On Taiwan
Op Ed
By: David Wang

Well-informed westerners say there are pockets of excellence in Asia, a rule of thumb that is generally true for many aspects of culture across the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, China as well as Taiwan.

Recently Taipei mayor Ko commented, with respect to the demolition of the Zhonxiao viaduct near the Taipei Train Station, that urban aesthetics in the city nears eye-sore level, partly due to haphazard signage that results in visual chaos.

Such sentiment unfortunately also applies to over half (euphemistic estimate) the structures as condo and office towers in Taipei, which isn’t surprising considering that the 10-story Victory Mansion, torn down years ago, near the SOGO boutique mall on Dun-Hwa S. Rd. and the iconic Fu-Shing Elementary/Junior High School next door, was the tallest apartment in the city in around 1967 to have been an enviable landmark for its day.

Taipei also can’t be blamed for being a latecomer to the global pageant as a city of world-class high-rises, upscale condo towers, given the nation was only given a start to rebuild as a modern state around 1949, when its administrators was driven from China by the communists.

Also the uneven economic development between Taipei and the southern cities has skewed population growths, to have fueled migration towards the northern capital over the years to result in extraordinarily high population densities across Taipei, where most permanent and migratory residents generally care only about eking out a living. While gentrification is not really a sizable phenomenon in Taipei, with many pre-1960 low-rises being in disrepair to undermine overall urban beauty.

The sad fact is that, save trekking out to suburban Taipei to be among the sylvan outdoor, city residents typically are stuck in a concrete jungle with scant visual relief in terms of historical, architectural creations by inspiring designers as would be available in many major cities as Sydney, Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, London, Paris, Madrid, Milan.

So there has always been a café culture in Taipei where residents, rattled by the hectic pace of life, seek sanctuary in one of the many coffee shops to meet friends, chill out and find visual comfort among artistic décor, sample ethnic cuisine and gourmet coffees.

And as many other activities and encounters in life, one has to be plain lucky to

The Aussie Café only a few steps northeast of the high-profile Taiwan Cement Tower on Zhong-Shan N. Rd.

The Aussie Café only a few steps northeast of the high-profile Taiwan Cement Tower on Zhong-Shan N. Rd.

come across such cafés, one that has been fortunate to be inspired by a caring proprietor.

Luck was with me the other day as I happened by the Aussie Café, sitting incongruously but confidently holding its own design-wise on a non-descript corner hidden as a rare find in central Taipei, only a few steps northeast of the high-profile Taiwan Cement Tower on Zhong-Shan N. Rd.

The operator likely has an agreement with the Australian tourism authorities to promote travel Down Under as a sign states offering related tourism information.

The rather outdoorsy feel of the ground-level façade, unfortunately out of place against a typically-unsightly residential low-rise, leads into a cleanly laid-out interior of elongated proportion, complete with some cozy, soft-backed seating, and large windows along the entire length that enhances airiness.

It is a very serene, civilized locale for a coffee, mostly above US$4, and Net surfing as seems popular with many patrons.

The young man who courteously welcomes guests at the coffee bar didn’t show a hint of Aussie accent as he spoke Mandarin, a flaw that would actually add to the amusement of the Aussie-theme.

The café was still closed at around 10:30 a.m. on a Thursday, so one can safely assume the management does not target office staff on their way to work.

A real gem of a place to bask in Aussie ambiance while sipping coffee away from traffic along the major thoroughfare a stone’s throw away.

Interracial Encounters Not All Blissful

Eye On Taiwan
Op Ed
Date: May 10, 2016
By: David Wang

While a Taiwanese TV station, likely due to lack of originality more than other reason, has aired more than once innocuous, lighthearted episodes featuring foreign brides, who are lined up like high school students wearing name tags and flags of their homeland to chat about the melding of cultures and their acclimatization in Taiwanese customs, where the wives are typically from mostly developed nations in the West as the UK, USA, but also Eastern Europe, many of whom actually speak Mandarin fairly well to spark the entertainment factor. However one can be sure that these wives have volunteered to appear due to the seemingly joyful circumstances and outcome of their unions.

But the TV producer, obviously trying to amuse audiences superficially, has not been audacious enough to duplicate the same program with foreign wives who would refuse to appear on air to broach a more politically sensitive side of interracial marriage or the mail-order-bride syndrome, one that also exposes certain peculiarities of the mating game in Taiwan, as well as the marriages that have hit the rocks.

What of the Taiwanese bachelors who marry Asian women from China, the Philippines, Vietnam? Why go to the hassle when plenty of very attractive local women are available? How come the TV show never invites these brides from Asia to talk about their blissful marriages?

What about a TV show to allow Caucasian men to show off their stories surrounding their romantic encounters with their Taiwanese wives?

But such programs would call for ample scripting and direction if the producer aims to air a fairy-princess tale of two individuals from foreign lands meeting, dating and then walking down the aisle to merge two wonderfully distinct cultures. This type of program would also demand Oscar performances and spewing hypocrisies by the parties involved, simply because the truth is often far from Bollywood ideal.

After all how many Caucasian husbands in Taiwan would openly admit that the core reason they ended up on the island is due to being economic refugees, socially-undesirable back home to be arguably desperate, mostly unemployable, without substantial skills or ambition (with most able to use only English effectively), in the years post-1970s, and married local wives for no reason except to secure permanent residency?

A TV program with these men and women as guests would not qualify as entertainment but certainly would ruffle a few feathers especially among the politically-correct crowd.

And how many, for example, Filipinas would give up their time to be on a TV program to enlighten local audiences of the harsh story behind their marriages to Taiwanese men?

Such an episode would be, if allowed to be aired as reality TV, extremely short as the only reason for a Filipina to marry a Taiwanese is to escape penury back home, in exchange frequently to be a multi-role slave as a career in Taiwan as a wife, a homemaker, mom, a small-business helper, caregiver of in-laws.

A few anecdotal but real-world examples should shed light on a few interracial marriages and close encounters that have not ended in beaming couples riding off into the sunset.

One very attractive Filipina, with a Chinese father, met a Taiwanese man studying medicine in the Philippines that led to marriage in Taiwan. Higher pay in central Taiwan motivated the man to leave their Taipei home to work afar that also forced her to commute for occasional visits. After giving him a son and daughter, she unfortunately met the frequent fate of an unfaithful husband. Eventually he, driven by the reality of his job, coerced her with physical assault into signing an unconditional divorce agreement. He one night handed her an airline ticket and told her to go home.

Another Filipina, one with typical looks of overseas contract workers in Taiwan that can only attract blue-collar Taiwanese, with a Taiwanese husband is forced into setting up a miniscule part-time business in an area catering to her compatriots on weekends, only because her man would not even give her a dime, despite after her having given him a daughter. She said the social services office in Taipei advised her to divorce him as the only option.

Another Filipina claims to be “happy” in her marriage to a Taiwanese but for some reason, keeps a full-time job as a chambermaid in a hotel in addition to her duties as mom, homemaker, wife, and caregiver to her in-laws, but could barely keep from nodding off during a chat due to chronic fatigue.

Her Filipina friend, also married to a Taiwanese, on the contrary confessed to wanting a divorce due to incompatibility with the in-laws.

A 60-plus Canadian Caucasian came to Taipei years ago misled by a want ad in a local paper that sought ESL teachers and promised substantial wages. After finding out about the reality of the racket in Taipei, he, despite being married back home, became involved with a female Taiwanese juice vendor he had met on a street. But one night a misunderstanding of unjustified jealousy led to her tossing him out the door in the wee hours. This bizarre relationship even led to his divorcing his Canadian wife. He later came across a mainland Chinese woman working in a low-end teahouse in Taipei, whom he inexplicably found attractive and later married.

A 20ish Englishman tall enough to be an NBA player, an English-major and ESL teacher has not had as much luck finding a wife in Taipei, despite confessing earlier of his earnest wish to marry. This Taiwanese girl whom he dated briefly seemed the right partner. He, after buying a Tiffany diamond ring, even sent out wedding invitations to mom and relatives in the UK, but woke up one day to the reality of Taiwanese culture, the crass, practical aspects of which are often hidden from outsiders.

She at the 11th hour changed her mind to have left him dumbfounded and mom heartbroken.

I’m sure to this day he can’t figure out why, but any seasoned and perhaps cynical resident of Taipei could tell him the clichéd but mostly truth, that he’d have easily tied the knot by offering as a wedding gift a US$1.5 million condo in a tower along any of the upscale streets. And that being an ESL teacher in Taipei scores few points with prospective in-laws and desirable, single Taiwanese females.

Four Princes of the Sea

Eye On Taiwan
Op Ed
By: David Wang

Never judge a book by its cover remains a truism in life as it does when viewing slickly choreographed military parades on special occasions in Taiwan, where GIs hold their heads up high to put on a show worthy of Hollywood envy. With the key word being “show.”

According to the chinatimes.com article posted on Yahoo Taiwan by Lu Chao-long dated May 9, 2016, there is more to the superficial shimmer than meets the eye.

Word is that the Taiwanese Navy is also home to the “Four Princes of the Sea,” or the sons of retired, high-ranking officers. Readers who by now sniff favoritism (aka corruption and influence peddling) may pat themselves on the back for knowing the game of Battleship is played on a tilted board by top-brass insiders.

Incidentally the 1991 scandal involving the purchase by Taiwan of Lafayette class frigates that exposed kickbacks resulted in the death of a Taiwanese navy captain as well as a few others that were assassinated to silence more whistleblowing and blowback.

The Four Princes are all related to ex vice admiral, general and so on. Befitting royalty, these Princes of course are assigned plum duties and don’t have to, as lesser officers, look for medical excuses to evade harsh tours, without sacrificing a dime in pension after an “illustrious” career not on the high seas but high-brow lifestyle.

One Prince in particular, with father a retired vice admiral, was sent to Taiwan’s Chung-Chen Military Academy, then the navy officers’ academy. Unsurprisingly he was, after the freshman year, guaranteed entry to the Virginia Military Institute in the USA, after which its 4-year training he returned to Taiwan to be an officer. His relation to a retired senior officer meant that, after only 2 years in the service, he was eligible to go stateside to “acquire” a 2-year master’s degree. Upon returning to Taiwan, he was averse (taken for granted for Princes) to the rigors of duty at sea, so he, of course, qualified for a state-funded PhD program abroad. But that’s when his ship grounded. Only a year into the doctorate program, he was ejected from the school due to “unethical or dishonorable” behavior and scampered back to Taiwan.

However a seasoned navy man can always survive even the roughest going as he incredibly landed a post abroad as commander. After a brief 3-year tour, he returned to Taiwan and applied for retirement last September due to “vocational disinterest,” which was approved by the authorities as he met all the criteria.

Another blip was spotted on the radar of this Prince of the high seas however. While posted as consultant for the navy intelligence unit, he worked less than 3 months that should have resulted in a below-par evaluation, but yet, with influence-peddling by father, was given a top grade that spared him from a compromising future evaluation and promotional possibility post-PhD.

A military insider said that someone who refuses duty at sea and is ejected from a PhD program after only a year is normally punished. But this Prince, due to humanitarian (aka cronyism, nepotism, influence-peddling and old boys’ club) reasons, was even posted overseas on a 3-year stint (aka sans immediate supervision and hence a sinecure beyond the reach of mere mortals) without reprimand, also allowed to retire with full pension shortly after such service.

Dollar-for-Diploma

Eye On Taiwan Op Ed
Date: May 8, 2016
By: David Wang

Only via associating with filipina overseas contract workers (aka the so-called underclass) in Taiwan can one be allowed a peek at the true colors of some of the well-to-do in Taiwan, whose genuine inclination and habits are typically hidden from prying eyes when they’re behind the wheel of their haughty German cars with darkly tinted windows that prevent commoners (aka folks born without silver spoons and hired nannies) from intruding on their privacy.

Incidentally many western universities also pamper and pander to these so-called “elites” of Taiwan; after all admitting Taiwanese students is akin to injecting nitrous oxide in an engine, whose power is boosted manifolds with just a miniscule addition. It’s an open secret that international students pay double or triple the tuition of local counterparts to have the chief financial officer of any university laugh all the way to a bank. Especially when 99.9 percent of these Taiwanese students are not taken seriously or treated as equals as the locals, while they also help to create jobs for tutors and ghost writers on campuses, without whom these Taiwanese students would be lost.

It’s the time-proven moneymaker for many western universities crushed under mountainous debts: the “Dollar-for-Diploma” program that is a win-win, creating an endless stream of income for universities who hand out perfunctory sheepskins to mostly endow Taiwanese students with bragging rights and that air of “je ne sais quoi,” which in many cases may be just a emperor-without-clothes syndrome.

Of course there are a few Taiwanese who have garnered doctorates of various stripes overseas to return to their homeland to ingeniously work on brilliantly byzantine gizmos at preeminent institutions to make this world a better place, or even attempt to eradicate global poverty and synthesize vaccines to battle rare diseases as African trypanosomiasis for a dime a dose.

But what of all the rest who have plowed tens of thousands of greenbacks doled out by mom and dad to acquire western post-grad degrees without having even gotten a return call from head hunters after submitting resumes that would even out-dazzle Ben Campbell’s in the movie 21?

Such sizable investment in children’s post-secondary education would make sense if the outlay actually turns quartz into diamond. But apparently not in at least one case.

This 30ish Taiwanese couple, whose hometown being in southern Taiwan befitting all the negative stereotypes of a one-horse town, both have master’s from Holier-than-Thou University (name changed to protect the innocent) in the U.K., for which their spoon-feeding parents paid tuition that can easily build a few new homes in the Philippines or any other developing nation in SE Asia.

The wife (Mrs. A) speaks not quite Queen’s English but pidgin peppered with faulty grammar that would even wrinkle the brows of a 6-year-old in the West, and is about as industrious as The Empress Dowager on Sleep-Aide, relying on two filipina maids to babysit her precious son and newborn daughter.

The hubby (Mr. A) has a master’s in architecture and speaks English with a quasi-British accent, presumptuously believing he has full command of the Anglo-Saxon tongue and even the science of architecture.

 
So why are the two Taiwanese with British master degrees living off parents in Taipei and running a small-time jade retailing business? Could it be that Mr. A has never earned a dime independently and wouldn’t know where to start if left to his own device? Or could it be that jade is a precious mineral to the Chinese without globally-standardized market value, hence enabling opportunists to hype products with half-truths to defraud gullible buyers?

Mr. A never reads anything of redeeming value except maybe user instructions to the latest smartphone, for which his folks gladly pay because their son seems averse to more intellectually-challenging stimulation. He stays up late regularly to play video games, his only pastime besides occasional basketball with friends, to keep his British-trained brain cells activated.

He also has an expensive racing bicycle as a status symbol and a BMW roadster (courtesy of dear folks of course), both of which do not reflect his motto in life, the core of which shows in his snacking regimen of chips, donuts, pizza and Coca-Cola.

Mrs. A lives up to her Beverly Hillbilly Princess stereotype regardless of a high-brow British master’s degree. Either extremely frugal, lazy or die-hard believer in the merit of sweat as a skincare ingredient, she only bathes once or twice weekly even in searing Taipei summer where temps regularly exceed 30C, while she sometimes won’t flush toilet after defecation and tosses used sanitary napkins casually on the floor.    


One can’t help to wonder if her years in Britain, including those in the master’s program, have rubbed off on her positively, except to have lightened her parents’ wallet? She, also never seen reading anything worthwhile, however has learnt to offset her shortcomings by regularly shopping for designer clothes by dropping wads of US$600 on a blouse as if she owns a mint.

 
Unfortunately their parents have not been able to, despite paying an arm and a leg for western degrees, to magically turn a ugly duckling into a beauty queen, nor Stephen Hawking into a Usain Bolt.

Certainly Mr. A’s parents can never hold their heads high among friends to brag how their son with a master’s from the U.K. is being sought by leading architectural firms, as can only happen in their most self-delusional dreams.

“Dollar-for-Diploma” may be an unfamiliar term to many westerners but is a taken-for-granted racket in Asia, including Taiwan, where many enterprises traditionally hold college graduates in higher regard to perpetuate the livelihoods of educational consultants who hold dear Ted and Jane by the hand through the rigorous process of applying for post-grad studies in the West.

It’s totally irrelevant that Ted and Jane possess elementary school level verbal English and junior high written English as they apply to enter MBA and EMBA programs in New York City, London, Sydney, Los Angeles and Toronto. After all these western schools welcome with open arms and a red carpet such well-heeled Taiwanese students. Money talks as the saying goes.

And much of the Taiwanese corporate culture remains dusty as the Model T found in an abandoned barn. It’s still all about having a sheepskin from a top school, preferably Ivy League, to add glitz to one’s resume than having the creativity, tech expertise, foresight, tenacity and gumption to drop out of college as Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Michael Dell and Mark Zuckerberg to develop hardware and software to change the world.

During 2007-2008, I translated dozens of study plans, sugary recommendations for Taiwanese college students from Chinese to English while moonlighting for one of the many overseas educational consultants in Taipei. Obviously these students could not or didn’t care to write their own English study plans, with many applying for admission to MBA programs stateside. I also taught these applicants a few hours weekly ostensibly to upgrade their verbal English, which again helped to validate the existence of the “Dollar-for-Diploma” racket. None of the students in that class showed adult-level or even high-school verbal English competency.


Calling the business of promoting under-grad and post-grad programs, attracting and admitting Taiwanese college students by American, British and Australian colleges a racket may seem derogatory and scathing but truth often stings. Some Taiwanese will actually admit to certain shady, unethical practices in these colleges, which may herd mostly English-incompetent Taiwanese students into marginalized, mostly useless programs, hype the professional practicality of programs, turn a blind eye to irregular attendance and completion of work by hired help, and guarantee graduation regardless of performance and attendance.

Over a decade ago a Californian university set up, as was trendy then, an EMBA program in Taipei. I taught one of the female Taiwanese students enrolled in the program, in her 30s who spoke rudimentary English but could only write gibberish. She actually asked me to complete one of her class assignments that received a commendable grade, also having revealed that some of her classmates, typically working people, had never attended class but were routinely given diplomas.

Tiny Isle Brimming of Questionable Ethics

Eye On Taiwan
Date: May 7,2016
By: David Wang

News reports in Taiwan have occasionally cited facts as the island boasting the world’s highest density of motor scooters as well as convenience stores as 7-Eleven, which, unfortunately, can’t be said of ethical behavior.

Observers of news in Taiwan, a speck of an isle barely noticeable on a global map, must admit that the list of corrupt behavior exposed in Taiwan since my arrival in 1984 is longer than the distance between the earth and moon, and even exceeding that to Pluto if including all the shady incidents swept under a rug or never reported.

A seemingly minor and likely common occurrence in the 1980s in Taipei saw examiners or adjudicators at motor vehicle branches openly asking for a bribe to pass drivers who minimally fail the simulated road course, one with little resemblance to the real world; while the high-profile, multi-million-greenback Hong Yuan Ponzi scheme was allowed to run for some 7 years at the corner of Dunhwa and Nanking, a major intersection in eastern Taipei, before the scam started to unravel. Of course one has to be deaf and blind to have missed the recent spate of headline news involving Taiwanese scam rings setting up boiler rooms across the world in wire frauds to target mainland Chinese.

Here is one more relatively innocuous, ethically-starved incident that never saw the light of day till now.

Michael, Taiwan-born with a master’s from California seemed in his 30s, was right in 1984 when he smugly said while seated like a haughty CEO in his throne, with wife standing subserviently behind, that nobody would believe you even if you expose it.

It was a freelance job that was off-the-record at Michael’s junior-high teaching-English-to-speakers-of-other-languages (TESOL) textbook publishing firm, where they also set up TESOL classes for me to teach at companies. The stint proved to be a crash course in Taiwanese culture for someone who had left Taiwan at 12.

Michael and wife (daughter of a principal of an established private university not known for academic standards in Taipei) are both American citizens from California, who had on staff a greasy-haired, chain-smoking, slightly-built legislator appearing more like an opium-addict than a government official. As I gradually caught on to the way of Taiwanese corporate culture, I learnt that Michael was willing to pay him as a “consultant” (aka someone without formal duties but with clout and able to shield a firm from legal liabilities) for justifiable reason.       

The office was on the fourth floor of an office tower on a busy section of Zhongxiao E. Rd. with large windows offering an expansive view of the thoroughfare, which turned out to be the window to my first course on Taiwanese culture. One afternoon a few coworkers gathered at the window, gazed downward and I followed suit. It seemed a typical traffic accident until I focused on the woman splayed on the ground in front of a tour coach, which somehow had rammed the motor scooter rider. Without attracting much attention except curious eyes, she laid facedown and bled a stream of blood from her skull, which likely cracked like an egg upon impact. Incredibly about 40 minutes had passed without seeing even an ambulance. Then an unmarked van showed up, two men stepped out, opened the rear hatch, picked up the corpse and tossed her inside like a bag of trash.

One day Michael, out-of-the-blue, asked me to go to his office for a meeting. I did so as instructed and he asked me to close the door. Small talk followed.

I was about 29 and had just returned to Taiwan from Canada, after having spent my formative years there. I looked youthful enough to be a high school senior or a college student in 1984, which obviously inspired Michael’s machination. “You speak English flawlessly. There are plenty of young people in Taiwan who covet to master the language. So we’ll give you a crew cut, dress you up in a school uniform, forge a local high school diploma, and parade you in front of the junior and senior high schoolers in Small Town, southern Taiwan. Tell them you perfected English by using our textbooks. Southern Taiwanese in rural areas are ignorant, gullible hicks. Voila. We’ll rake it in. Of course the bumpkins may later wake up to the truth; but all they usually do to vent anger is kick you around, a worthy price for all the money to be made. Besides, that’s how business is done in this country. People rip each other off.”

Clearly there seems no correlation between one’s educational level and ethical standard. Michael also came across as a tad holier-than-thou for his post-grad degree, but he was overly presumptuous, in that he naively believed people with lesser formal educational credentials also have less street-smart and can be used as a pawn to pimp his basest instincts for a fast buck.  

I listened intently but could not help being awe-struck, a response rightly from any truly enlightening education.

In many ways Taipei today has come a long way from the 1980s, when residents had to do without mobile phones, Toyota Wish and Camry as taxis but instead dinky Civics and Datsun B210s, the convenience of the MRT and bullet train. But has the capital city or Taiwan truly changed in ways to improve life for residents to make a difference in one’s wallet? News reports generally state wage stagnation or even regression since those days.

In the 1980s, under a pro-business mayor, Taipei had a skin trade that enabled many well-connected operators (possibly in cahoots with government officials and cops) to hit pay dirt. College grads in Taipei in the 1980s who were desk jocks were typically paid US$560 monthly; while perfunctorily-, lowly-educated Taiwanese females willing to turn tricks could make as much from upscale johns in as little as 6 dates. One Taiwanese female bookkeeper, a graduate of a typical polytech, worked for a massive massage parlor in Taipei in the 1980s, conspired with a co-worker to skim US$60 each nightly to double their monthly wage. Some café operators in the 1980s in Taipei sold iced coffees as well as prostitutes whose photos were neatly presented in albums, delivered with a patron’s drinks.

Meanwhile some TESOL teachers in Taiwan today who are locally-educated without significant overseas experience, if any at all, pass themselves off as card-carrying Americans to teach English to elementary and junior high schoolers in Taipei.

Go Forth and Multiply?

Eye On Taiwan
Date: May 5, 2016
By: David Wang

to peek inside the minds of idiosyncratic Taiwanese, whose off-the-wall behaviors can leave casual observers slack-jawed. Kate on Oct. 17, 2008 felt sufficiently at ease to open ajar her closet to reveal a shuddering tale. And it’s often the highly-educated, sedate ones who shock bystanders by flipping presumptions on end.

Kate, with a master’s from Sydney to look as tame, well-behaved as any mid-30s woman from Taiwan, reinforces the negative stereotype that her native land, known for its mature ITC sector, unfortunately produces plenty of physically mature adults with juvenile mindset and behavior. However, one can argue till the cows come home whether Kate is just the tip of the iceberg in Taiwan, or are there multitudes of similar women wearing diapers (fastened excessively tight in Kate’s case to have cut off essential oxygen supply) beneath their designer dresses all over.

Perhaps the setting in which one grows up can tip the balance of mental adjustment. Kate is from a town outside of Kaohsiung (the largest southern city in Taiwan mostly known for heavy industries, third-world-quality drinking water, frequently reported crimes, with one female resident having confessed that all her friends have had their purses snatched), where locals are not known for tuning in to media to stay updated with global affairs, to glean the finer points of the SS16 creations shown at Paris Fashion Week, to read about the latest trend in integrating greenery on exteriors of condo towers, and where the folks actually believe Sex-and-the-City lifestyle is the norm in the West.

Some 5 years ago Kate stayed in a hotel in Taipei where a British man also happened to be a guest. They passed by each other a few times in the lobby, but being strangers Kate always avoided his line of sight, belying the inclination of her alter ego.

One night while the Englishman sat in the lobby, Kate walked by and inexplicably sat next to him. What happened next may be an intriguing seminar topic for the Global Psychiatric Association’s annual convention. But Kate incredulously laid her hand on his manhood, which, instead of triggering shock, dismay and bewilderment as would with most men, bizarrely forced tears from his eyes.

Those tears should have sounded an alarm to most liberal-minded women but Kate, with her own self-protective mechanism apparently short-circuited, was too overcome with wanton-indulgence to see straight.

An affair followed that saw Kate become pregnant.

They tried living together for a while, which truly revealed to Kate what she’d dragged in from the urban jungle. The man, according to Kate, is delusional and pathologically-insecure: he sometimes forced her against a wall by barring against her neck with chopsticks one minute and then begging for forgiveness on his knees the next; compelled her not to give out their phone number to friends, take her eyes off him while phoning her friends; insisted on having his hand held while walking together in public or he’d rant like a baby while sitting on the sidewalk; made sure their shoes were not placed too far apart at home; and never allowed her parents to call after 8 p.m.

After two weeks together with the Englishman in their funny farm, Kate ditched him to shoulder alone single-motherhood. In retrospect, she still could not fathom why she did not find the reason to abort. The explanation is simple for a fully mature, well-adjusted and educated, responsible woman would not have allowed herself to wade into uncharted water as if headed for summer break.

Incidentally, certain segments of the Taiwanese demographic, especially those raised in Small Town with blinkered vision, actually believe a correlation exists between Caucasian and genetic superiority (about as sensible as believing all Scandinavian women are attractive as Candice Bergen). At the risk of rubbing salt in an old wound, Kate should pray that her child has not inherited the basket–case genes from the British dad.