I am shortly heading back to Australia for a month. A few posts will still appear on this blog in my absence though.

It’s great to see such a variety of Taiwan blogs at the Taiwanderful blog directory. Check it out and add your Taiwan blog if you haven’t done so already.

Michael Turton has posted details of the book launch for Linda Arrigo and Lynn Miles new book A Borrowed Voice on Thursday 24 July. Bike Smiling has a special summer night time ride on this Friday 25 July. It starts at 7:00pm at the main gate of NTU in Taipei. Fancy Frontier 12 is on at the NTU Sports Centre on 26-27 July if you want to see some cosplay action. Check the events calendar at Taiwanderful for more upcoming events or add details of events there yourself.

Enjoy the summer!

• Hiking in Tucheng
• Little blue truck adventures
• Amazing Tainan
• Semester 2 at NCCU
• Starting classes at Shi-Da

Introducing a new Taipei Days character!

Not much is known about Sasquatch. As much as we know is that he is a hermit living up in the mountains of Taipei. We also know he is absolutely crazy and likes to go off topic a lot and confuse people. While he not scheduled to appear in beginning part of season 2, he will definitely be featured soon. Like most characters in the TD universe he is based off of an old friend of mine from the US. This friend even did some fan artwork for the show. If you haven’t seen the show yet, I suggest checking it out and leaving a comment. Taipeidays.com

ICRT reports:

The DPP has dismissed a comment by former Control Yuan president Wang
Zuo-rong saying that the trend is towards cross strait unification, calling it
nothing more than his own personal opinion.

DPP lawmaker Cai Huang-lang said the future of Taiwan must be decided by the
23 million people of Taiwan in a democratic way, a long-time stance of the now
opposition DPP. In a letter to a local newspaper, Wang called unification a
continuation of the three thousand year historical culture of the ethnically
Chinese people.

The letter said China has in the past been able to accept being ruled by
non-Chinese, but that the country being divided has not been acceptable, and not
lasted long. He concluded that unification would absolutely be beneficial for
Taiwan.

Another DPP lawmaker declined to comment on what Wang had written, but said
Taiwanese people are exceedingly clear on what's beneficial to them, with 70
percent in polls having previously said Taiwan should go its own way.

Thursday, Apr 13, 2006, Page 3
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wants to cut back on English and Taiwanese classes to add more Mandarin classes to the curriculum in Taipei elementary schools, according to local media reports.

According to local newspapers, Ma has requested that the Taipei City Department
of Education boost the number of weekly hours of elementary Mandarin to between
seven and eight. This will result in the scrapping of one English class per week
in Taipei's elementary schools. In response to Ma's request to also cut
Taiwanese classes to make room for additional Mandarin classes, Taipei City
Department of Education Commissioner Wu Ching-ji (吳清基) said that Taiwanese
classes have already been cut back to one per week, and could not be reduced
further, the China Times reported.

Ko Shu-ling reports, but we see nothing new here:

Taiwan has a great opportunity to improve cross-strait relations, and the opportunity will quickly pass if both sides do not take advantage of it, Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) said yesterday.

The government would like to see a win-win situation created on the economic front and sustainable peace across the Taiwan Strait, he said. To that end, a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement would prevent Taiwan from being marginalized economically, and the normalization of cross-strait trade would help create such a positive situation, he said.

In pursuing cross-strait peace, he said both sides must sign a peace agreement and establish a military mutual trust mechanism to establish a framework that can be developed upon.

Chiang made the remarks while addressing the Presidential Office’s monthly meeting for top government officials and civil servants.

Members of the Concentric Patriotism Association of the ROC outside Songshan Airport, 4 July 2008

At the recent activities for the Tibetan Freedom Torch in Taiwan I noted the presence of the Concentric Patriotism Association of the ROC (中華愛國同心會) outside the gates of the Songshan Airport. The police seemed to take great efforts to keep the Tibet supporters apart from them. At the time I was concerned that the police were being a little too harsh on the Tibet supporters. However, I later received an e-mail from Tim Maddog informing me that the Patriotism Association was dangerous and violent. Tim had previously seen them at Freedom Square (自由廣場) in Taipei with signs and imagery promoting violence against Chen Shui-bian who was at that time the president.

I was shocked to read today that a member of this group had kicked former President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) as he entered the Taipei District Court yesterday. This was not the first time a member of this group had engaged in violence. In 2003 they attacked Chinese dissident Cao Chang-ching (曹長青) after he gave a speech in Taipei. The Taiwan News (see link below) notes this latest incident is the third time members of this group have assaulted DPP politicians.

The Patriotism Association of the ROC is obviously a lunatic fringe group that most KMT supporters would actively distance themselves from. While the KMT and pan-blue camp cannot be held directly responsible for their actions, they must acknowledge that their continual attempts to promote hatred of Chen Shui-bian while he was in office have had negative impacts on political life in Taiwan.

The Taiwan News has an editorial today titled Ma must condemn Pan-blue violence.

The root of these attacks lies both in the accumulated years of emotionally charged verbal attacks against the DPP politician by pan-KMT opponents, primarily because Chen’s electoral victories in March 2000 and March 2004 threatened and then realized the transfer of power from the KMT after nearly 55 years of authoritarian and one-party power.

In the wake of these victories, Chen has been incessantly criticized for countless “crimes and misdemeanors,” including unproven charges of corruption and, as in this case, “slander” for highlighting official malfeasance by formerly powerful KMT generals in the massive scandal over the massive Lafayette frigate procurement.

During the past few years, numerous pan-KMT politicians have threatened violence against Chen, even though threatening the life of the president verbally or in writing is patently illegal.

I sincerely hope that President Ma Ying-jeou makes a clear and unequivocal statement condemning these attacks and helps restore some dignity to the level of political discourse in Taiwan. I also hope the police use the full force of the law to prosecute the perpetrator of this attack and ensure that a similar incident doesn’t occur again.

• 316 DPP rally in Taipei
• Sign of the times
• Free Burma protest in Taipei
• Taiwan’s true Greens
• Learning to fly

The Congress Observation Foundation compiled its lists based primarily on lawmakers' "active participation rates" at legislative committee meetings between March 3 and June 24.

Among the 10 "best" were DPP Legislator Huang Sue-ying and KMT legislators Chiang Yi-hsiung, Lin Cheng-er, Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) and Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), with active participation rates ranging from 35.48 percent to 97.67 percent, according to COF Executive Director Yao Li-ming.

The 10 "worst" included singer-turned-legislator Yu Tian and Chai Trong-rong of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party as well as Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) and Lin Yi-shih (林益世) from the ruling Kuomintang.

They have had active participation rates ranging from zero to 20.93 percent.

The "active participation rate" used by the foundation is based on how often lawmakers both appeared and spoke in meetings held by their respective committees.

A lawmaker who attended every meeting but never voiced an opinion would still be scored a zero.

The foundation also used more general measures over legislators' performances in legislative committees and in their respective constituencies to gauge their effectiveness, Yao noted.

He insisted the criteria chosen by the foundation "can pass public scrutiny."

And this:

Plans To Take Chiang Kai Shek Off 10NT Coin

Those crazy Asians, or what I like to call them “Crasians”.

Japanese TV - Chasing Prank

They Just Want To Be Stars!

Tetris Game Show

Japanese TV - Ski Prank

Diplomats from the United States Embassy in Baghdad spoke to Maliki's advisers on Saturday, said an American official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss what he called diplomatic communications. After that, the government's spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, issued a statement casting doubt on the magazine's rendering of the interview.

The statement, which was distributed to media organizations by the American military early on Sunday, said Maliki's words had been "misunderstood and mistranslated," but it failed to cite specifics.

"Unfortunately, Der Spiegel was not accurate," Dabbagh said Sunday by telephone. "I have the recording of the voice of Mr. Maliki. We even listened to the translation."

But the interpreter for the interview works for Maliki's office, not the magazine. And in an audio recording of Maliki's interview that Der Spiegel provided to The New York Times, Maliki seemed to state a clear affinity for Obama's position, bringing it up on his own in an answer to a general question on troop presence.

The following is a direct translation from the Arabic of Maliki's comments by The Times: "Obama's remarks that — if he takes office — in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq."

He continued: "Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq."

Maliki's top political adviser, Sadiq al-Rikabi, declined to comment on the remarks, but spoke in general about the Iraqi position on Sunday. Part of that position, he said, comes from domestic political pressure to withdraw.

A few months ago I participated in a study performed by first year undergraduates students in NCKU as part of a university program to encourage Taiwanese undergraduates to tackle English academic level research during their first year in the university. A worthy goal indeed.

This study was especially interesting for me since it was dealing with research issues I’m very interested in. The study was titled “The Obstacle of Foreign Students at NCKU” although I believe the title “International student in Taiwan and NCKU : Considerations, attitudes and impressions” might be a bit more fitting.

The sweet students have been kind to share their paper with me, and although the level of research and English isn’t there yet and needs some work there are some interesting statements in there that I would like to quote and share with you :

Impression to NCKU before coming

At this part, about 52.63% of the students have not heard of NCKU before they enter the university. Among the rest, 51.85% of the students knew that NCKU is famous for some aspects, 33.33% of the students only knew the name of this university, and 14.81% knew the other information about NCKU (Chart 1.2). Besides, most of the students who have heard about NCKU before their coming got the information from NCKU website (40.00%). The second high is from their acquaintances (25.00%), professors’ recommendation is the next (11.25%). The rest 27.5% learned from the brochure of NCKU (5.00%), Taipei Representative Office (5.00%), from magazine (3.75%), international seminar (2.50%), International exhibition of universities (1.25%), and 10.00% the others.(Chart 1.2)

Read this carefully. 40% got the info about the university from the official webpage and 27.5% got their information from brochures. This comes as a surprise because the English websites and brochures for Taiwanese universities, especially NCKU’s, have huge problems when it comes to information and self-promotion. Imagine what the impact would be if the universities would actually invest in a decent university portal.

Why did the international students at NCKU choose NCKU?

Reason for choosing NCKU

This question is also divided into four parts, Environment, Education, Living, and Internationalization. As the same process of the question above,we ask them about the priority, choose education as most attractive reason stand for 65.38%, second high is environment, and both the living and internationalization parts stand for 9.62%.

Environment

In environment part, cultural heritage is so enchanting that the factor has something to do with the foreign students’ decision. Cultural heritage in Tainan is a unique feature from other areas in Taiwan. Maybe it is one of the thinking that foreign students have at heart.

Education

Education is the most important element for alluring foreign student. In education part, the ranking of NCKU in the world, the sufficient academic resources and NCKU facilities are the overemphasized part that are always taken into consideration by foreign students. Thus, from the result we can unearth that promoting the ranking of NCKU in the world and add the related facilities is a better way to commercialize NCKU.

Living

The inexpensive cost in daily life is a main character for foreign students to come to Tainan. According to the result of our survey, the statistic show that the factor of the inexpensive cost accounts for 50 percent. Therefore, the low price in Tainan also is a distinctive feature from other zones in Taiwan that may attract the attentions of foreign students.

Internationalization

In internationalization field, there are about 36 percent of foreign students assume that NCKU is still have rooms for improvement. Second, about 24 percent of the students have acquaintances, who study in NCKU. Therefore, those students can access more information in NCKU and have a profound understanding in NCKU. Above are mainly the two reasons for foreign students to think about.

This is an important point. People choose NCKU for its educational standards. World rankings and academic reputation in Taiwan is the number one factor for why people choose NCKU. I wonder – is it before or after the decision to study in Taiwan that they consider NCKU’s education rankings?

From what I’ve seen, qualitative research approach if you like, this would be a positive point for foreign students from 3rd world or developing countries (South America, South-East Asia, Africa) while would be a negative point for foreign students from developed well-to-do countries (Europe, North America). The universities in Taiwan would need to decide whether they internationalize in order to serve as an education lighthouse for students looking to gain better education or in order to promote the university’s global academic standard by attracting high-level scholars and students. It is my impression that you can’t achieve both, as the two groups find it difficult to co-exist in the same educational environment.

Moving on, to obstacles :

Obstacles when applying for NCKU

We divided the obstacles into three aspects: Financial, Education, and Others. In financial part, 45% of the students think that the tuition fees are too expensive, and 55% think that the living costs are too high. In the part about education , 51.22% think that information of NCKU is insufficient, 19.51% think that the basic Chinese proficiency requirement is the problem, 17.07% think that the application procedure is too complex, and 12.20% think that the entry requirements is too high. In the other part, those who felt difficulties getting Visas accounts for 83.33%, and 16.67% have other problems.

Obstacles during the studies at NCKU

There are four parts of the question, Languages, Daily life, Culture and religion, and Education. We let them to number the priority, choose education as most influential is the most (76.36%), languages problem the next, and then the daily life. The percentage of Culture and religion is none.

This are findings I don’t understand and I think they reflect the research sample. I personally think living costs in Tainan are unbelievably low for countries with the same educational and economical standard. When it comes to tuition, there is no doubt that the Taiwanese tuition is one of the lowest in the world. I agree information about universities is insufficient  and wonder how could 49% think differently. I personally believe entry requirements are embarrassingly low when it comes to international students.

More?

The impression of NCKU:

Compared these two kinds of students, we discover that overseas Chinese students who know NCKU better than foreign students. Therefore, we think our school should try their best to promote our school in the western countries such as America or England. It is because that when we interview foreigners, many of them never hear NCKU before attending to study in NCKU.

The obstacle they met:

[…]  insufficient information is the biggest problem. Compared with us students who live in Taiwan, it is not so convenient for these students to know the information about NCKU. Therefore, the most convenient way for them is to surf the Internet. However, the web site of NCKU often fails to give them the information they need. According the response of the questionnaires, we concluded that it is caused, for we do not update the English version of NCKU website everyday and it is not so user-friendly to for non-local students. […]

The reason why they choose NCKU

[…] For the part of internationalization degree, there are about 36 percent of foreign students assume that NCKU is an internationalized university. However, the other 64% has opposite opinion. Second, about 24 percent of the foreign students have acquaintances, who study in NCKU. For overseas Chinese students, 38.05 percent of them writing this questionnaire have their acquainted friends studying in NCKU, and then its high internationalized level is the second factor to choose NCKU, holding 25.66 percent. […]

Since I’m already discussing this, I’ll quote a paper I’m not sure was made to be online, but since it is I feel more comfortable about bringing it up here - “Responding  to the suggestions / comment / opinion about ISAD and IMBA”  :

Positive :

• Professors are kind and open to students
• Classes are well organized/good teaching method
• Appreciate the education the variety of students
• Good at getting resources
• Sincere about wanting to help and solving problems
• Culturally respectful
• Open to feedback
• Make use of our education
• Give us more change to promote NCKU when we return to our countries
• Fantastic activities and trips
• Diverse program

Room for improvement (Fili - summarized):

• ISAD – More help, timely response…
• Chinese courses too expensive.
• IMBA general - Too many students, too few professors. Organization, standards.
• IMBA communication – Communication and collaboration with students, information sharing.
• IMBA courses – Academic standards, setting expectations, giving feedback, number and quality of courses, English support for NCKU websites.

You can read the official IMBA and OIA reply in the document.

Some interesting challenges for the Taiwanese universities. Should they be interested, I know myself and a few other eager international students would be more than happy to help.

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