There is a severe phenomenon going on in Taiwan

[ps2huang]

I will illustrate it in a description, to let you guys get a sense of what is going on--which is bad--in Taiwan.

Taiwan is a little island besides East coast of China. The citizens of Taiwan are getting more informations (relative to entertainment the most) from Western world. Although Mandarin and Taiwanese dialogue are two main spoken languages in Taiwan, people are thriving to study English. Now, there are some cultural discriminations going on in Taiwan: some folks who are obsessed in Western culture kind of despise native people of Taiwan that don't seem to have good or fashion state of beings on their faces. Because those native Taiwanese usually dress vulgar their appearance with their strong accent of Taiwanese speaking, some people--most are Western-Wannabes--strongly hate them without any proper reason. This is happening in Taiwan for a few years, and still not resolved. This also led to a conception that many people of Taiwan think only those oversea students are higher-class than their native ones. They love those students who come back from US to Taiwan for some vacations or whatever reasons, and they call them "ABC." They misunderstood the concept of ABC and potential meaning of ABC. ABC, as we all know, means American Born Chinese. If you are born in Taiwan and just study aboard in US, you shouldn't be considered an ABC despite you are legally an US citizen. Sadly, people of Taiwan never realize this strong word and keep low-judging their own people. I feel bad because they keep offending their own culture, which is evolved by a group of Taiwanese--Min Nan people. There is also a term specifically offending those MinNan people: Taiker. Just ask any of your Taiwanese friends, they might realize those words if they have a history of living in Taiwan. Why they feel native Taiwanese Min Nan people are lousy, because there are so many multicultural contradictions ocurring in Taiwan. So many outer cultures conveyed to Taiwan: Japan, Korea, US and some of Europe. Now people of Taiwan tend to reject their people but some people who have dispositions of foreign countries or those US studying students.

 

Being an MinNan person living in US, I feel ashamed to see this. So what if being a Taiker? So what if being a oversea student? We are all still human. I think some people who are affordable to travel to Asia in US should go to Taiwan, and pass down to them that he/she loves to dress Taiwanese-style clothes, and speak Taiwanese native language.

[Pangloss]

Fascinating.

 

It's always interesting to see how different cultures apply the normal flaws of human nature in their own particular sociological idiom. If nothing else, at least I don't feel so bad about my own culture's flaws.

[ps2huang]

Good, so where you from?

[Guest demoore]

People are rushing to learn mandarin in a lot of country now...

[blue_cristal]

Perhaps some people think that powerful, rich and technologically advanced countries have a superior culture ( which, they think, includes language ) so they try to copy everything ( even the bad things ) from foreign culture and reject entirely their native one.

The hurried rejection of their entire native culture is unwise because all cultures have something valuable and important to offer.

 

Other people, mainly religious one, react differently. Their complex of inferiority turns into anger and then they blame the foreigners for their situation. So they try to use their illusory religious beliefs as compensation for their complex of inferiority and then claim that their religion makes them “superior” to the “corrupt” foreigners. An obvious example is the people of some muslim countries.

 

Obviously there are more factors influencing people's behaviour. This is just an extreme simplification.

[someguy]

Personally i hate that. before western poisoning i find that the asian, though still flawed in some areas like foot binding and stuff, was far superior to western culture. I hate europeen culture for what they did to them, all because of their greed. but I don't think all asian countries prefer western and idolize it though i would say that they are more divided to western accepting and western non-accepting. If i had things my way we would revert to a system of government resembling that of china in the qing dynasty before cixi screwed it up. but still making minor changes one of which is to prevent women like cixi from doing what she did. the western world is poisoning their minds and i hate that. and now we are figuring out the western way is ruining the planet... nice.

 

but ya i think wealth and technology is a big influence people are easily tricked into finding it prestigious, it is human nature to love toys and trinkets. older china did a better job of emphasizing the importance of better things, namely knowledge and education. being a teacher was one of the most prestigious positions apart from high government officials and for example in korea the word for "sir" prestigious title, polite title to give to a stranger is teacher. here if you have alot of stuff you're admired. and now the world has too much stuff.

 

we are corrupt foreigners.

[blue_cristal]

we are corrupt foreigners.

 

Don't generalize.

 

All cultures have good and bad aspects.

 

Let me list some good aspects of “western” culture.

 

They produced most of the greatest philosophers, scientists and inventors. They perfected agriculture to a such level that most of developed countries eliminated famine. They developed medicine to a such extent that people’s average lifespan is above 80 years.

 

Some bad aspects: recently, most cultural trends are dictated by semi-ignorant masses. In UK and USA, for instance, a lot or perhaps most people use to exceed in the consume of alcoholic beverages and food. They occupy their time on shallow things like watching dumb soap-operas, mediocre pop music, mediocre movies, sports and playing electronic games. There is only a small elite who read important philosophical and scientific books. The majority read very little and when they read something it is shallow fiction books, tabloids gossip and cheap novels.

 

They are over-concerned with social status and appearance so they obsessively buy brand clothes and jewellery and worship frivolous celebrities.