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Johnny Neihu's Mailbag

Saturday, May 12, 2007, Page 8

Effigies and the afterlife

Dear Johnny,

I think you decry the Taiwanese treatment of care workers too much ("Wangker the DPP bigot flips out," April 28, page 8). Isn't it a fact that along with the paper money and the paper Benz, they are now burning effigies of Indonesians and Filipinas in ancestor-worship ceremonies?

What more could these devoted servants ask for than to spend eternity alongside their beloved employer?

Tony Goodwin

Banciao

Johnny replies: I could think of many things they could ask for in the afterlife, Tony, starting with a 40-hour week.

Aircon for missionaries

Dear Johnny,

Your article "Tips for vulnerable missionaries" (April 14, page 8) had me almost peeing my pants I was laughing so hard.

I am an American living in Taiwan with my Taiwanese wife and child. I met my wife in the US when she was attending college in Ohio for her master's degree, and I knew little about Taiwan except that China was always posturing and bullying it, and that a lot of things in the US had "Made in Taiwan" labels.

So I don't understand why anyone would come here with an agenda of converting people to a religion they think is proper for others, like the Mormons. When I see those American, Canadian or wherever-they-are-from idiots riding around in neckties on bikes, I feel a slight nausea that they think they are so right about religion and that Taiwan, or anywhere else that isn't Mormon, is wrong.

The history of missions is stained with the spreading of beliefs and the spilling of some blood along the way. In my humble opinion, I believe in "live and let live."

I have studied plenty of different religions in my life, and my conclusion is that any group of people that pushes its beliefs on you is simply wrong and elitist. They should be banned from Taiwan completely, and pushing religion in this matter is surely a safety hazard at the least. Nobody needs to be saved here. Saved from what?

Developed religions that are pushed on you like drugs? More like cults, in my mind. If these "Christian" families really want to save people, why not go to Afghanistan or Iraq? Surely those places need Mormons cruising around on bikes spreading the Word in the hot desert sun.

I tell you why they're not there. Because they would be dragged to the center of town, videotaped, stoned and beheaded. So Mormon and Christian families choose the "safe" countries like Taiwan to prey on people. Wow, that really is suffering for God.

I wonder if their Taipei apartments have air conditioning? Summer is coming.

Alonzo Lively

Taichung

Johnny replies: I'm surprised about the number of letters I received on the missionaries column. It's hardly a pressing issue for this country, yet it seems to rile people like very few other topics.

Missionaries are united by a feeling that people need to be improved. Some of them have good will and are respectful of local beliefs -- even if they one day hope to change them -- while others are presumptuous and do their churches no favors by selling their agenda in arrogant and patronizing ways.

But missionaries in Taiwan are a harmless anachronism. You should be grateful we don't get the ones that would go to Afghanistan or Iraq if they had to. Then people would actually have to think about their faith. Scary.
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