Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/11/04
By: Jackson Chang and Frances Huang

Taipei, Nov. 4 (CNA) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC,台積電), the

world’s largest contract chipmaker, said Saturday it will distribute about NT$456 million (US$15.09 million) in bonuses to its employees by the end of November.

At the company’s annual sports day in Hsinchu, where TSMC is headquartered, Chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) announced that the company’s 38,000 employees who were formally employed by the company by May 31 will each receive a NT$12,000 bonus.

TSMC traditionally has announced a cash gift to employees on its annual sports day to supplement year-end and quarterly bonuses and show gratitude to its employees for their contributions.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: November 4, 2017
By: Yu Hsiao-han and Frances Huang

TAIPEI (CNA) — More than 30 percent of new high school and college graduates,

irrespective of whether they have landed a job or are still looking, expressed anxiety over their careers, according to a survey released by the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) under the Ministry of Labor (MOL) on Friday.

The WDA cited the survey as saying 32.63 percent of respondents polled are anxious about their future, while 18.61 percent have no worries about their careers and the remaining 48.76 percent expressed no opinion.

Among those who expressed anxiety about their careers, 56.78 percent said they have no idea what kind of jobs they are best suited to do, 50.28 percent said they are worried they might not meet the job requirements and 23.73 percent are concerned their employers will be unhappy with their performance, the poll showed.

About 23.73 percent of those who expressed anxiety said they are concerned they will underperform their colleagues, the poll indicated.    [FULL  STORY]

The passage of the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals is a missed opportunity to resolve problems involving unpaid foreign artists coming to Taiwan as part of cultural exchanges. If the government is serious about galvanizing Taiwan’s cultural economy, a focused discussion that addresses problems with the country’s tax system is required, writes Julia Chien.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/11/03
By: Julia Chien

Taiwan’s white-collar foreign community may be dancing in the streets over

the passage of the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法) through the Legislative Yuan on Oct. 31, but Taiwan’s artistic community remains underwhelmed.

The bone of contention is that the Act fails to address a longstanding legal gray area involving the difference between foreign artistic labor and unpaid cultural and artistic exchanges.

The issue has come under the spotlight this year, with Taiwanese artists hit with hefty fines for failing to obtain permits, and their foreign counterparts summarily deported. Moreover, a lack of interest in the issue from government speaks to a reluctance to engage over how to galvanize Taiwan’s cultural economy.    [FULL  STORY]

Expats in China mourn the sudden demise of the Shanghaiist blog site 

Taiwan News 
Date 2017/11/03
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Reporter

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Expats in China are mourning demise of Shanghaiist, a

popular blog site which often thumbed its nose at official Chinese state-run media news, after it’s owner announced it would be shut down yesterday (Nov. 2).

After a 12-year run, the relatively new owner of Shanghaiist, Joe Ricketts, called it quits a week after writers of it’s affiliated DNAinfo and Gothamist sites announced they would unionize with the Writers Guild of America, East. In shutting down DNAinfo and all eight Gothamist sites around the world, including the Shanghaiist, Ricketts cited the business environment as being the primary factor.

The Shanghaiist is well known among the expat community in China because it was one of the last major foreign blog sites that was able to avoid being blocked by the Great Firewall of China, despite frequently posting articles that were not exactly in lock step with the mouthpieces of the Communist Party of China. The Shanghaiist was also known for its stories about eccentric, old ball occurrences in China, and the caustic comments by some of it’s regular followers such as Fred Fong.      [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/11/03
By: Christie Chen

Taipei, Nov. 3 (CNA) A Ph.D. student from the United States on Friday won the top prize

in a Mandarin speech contest in Taipei that saw foreigners use Mandarin to describe their experiences in Taiwan or tell other personal stories.

Samuel Galler, one of the 77 contestants and a Ph.D. student at Oxford University, grabbed the first prize with a fluent speech about his fanciful interaction with his plants — which he bought at the Jianguo Flower Market in Taipei — and what he learned from that experience.

Choosing “The Revelation of Nature” as the theme of his speech, Galler cited lines from Chinese poetry and even sang the classic Chinese song “Green Island Serenade” in his presentation.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-11-02

Yunlin County is aiming to take advantage of the government’s New Southbound policy

and export its products to Southeast Asian countries. That’s the word from the county’s magistrate, Lee Chin-yung.

The New Southbound policy is the government’s strategy to build stronger economic and cultural ties with countries in South and Southeast Asia, as well as New Zealand and Australia.

Talking to RTI on Wednesday, Lee said Yunlin County has been promoting its agricultural produce to Malaysia. He said the county plans to advertise its produce in other export markets
Lee said Yunlin will also work hard to promote its advanced agricultural technologies.

“[The countries in Southeast Asia] are also looking to import our agricultural technologies. They have shown a lot of interest in our livestock husbandry, such as our goose and snapper farms. We also encourage our young farmers, whether they specialize in cultivation or livestock, to seek new opportunities in Southeast Asian countries,” said Lee.    [FULL  STORY]

1,000 politically sensitive articles about Taiwan, Tibet and the Cultural Revolution to be taken down in Springer Nature’s Chinese website

Taiwan News 
Date: 2017/11/02
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Another big publisher bows to China’s censors within three

months and blocks access to articles of topics related to Taiwan, Tibet and the Cultural Revolution. The move has been widely covered by Taiwanese media and discussed with disappointment.

In August, Britain’s Cambridge University Press (CUP) announced that it had taken politically sensitive articles down from its website in China. About 300 papers and book reviews published in the China Quarterly journal had been affected after a request from Beijing, while the 483-years-old publisher made a U-turn on China censorship after a furious backlash from academics and activists.

On Wednesday, Germany-based Springer Nature joined the move and said in a statement that less than one percent of its content has been limited in China, meaning that more than 1,000 articles would not be found on its Chinese website. It stated that the action “is deeply regrettable,” but “has been taken to prevent a much greater impact on our customers and authors.”    [FULL  STORY]