New era, new attitudes?
It’s not surprising to learn that many Taiwanese women are postponing marriage. Similar trends in the US have led women’s earnings in many large metropolitan areas to significantly outpace those of men.
While women in Taiwan and throughout the world certainly continue to value the dream of a happy, fulfilling marriage and the joy of parenting, greater freedoms and opportunities may leave them increasingly selective when it comes to choosing a lifelong mate.
In the US, more and more men are embracing the opportunity to attend marriage classes where they learn to be loving spouses by improving skills in interpersonal communication, understanding emotions in themselves and others and negotiating typical relationship differences with empathy and goodwill. Much research over the past 25 years has shown that intimacy is a skill that can be learned.
As Taiwanese men embrace a society in which women have greater freedoms and choices, it’s likely they’ll also realize the importance of learning to be husbands and fathers in ways that may be quite different than the examples they saw from their own families.
Seth Eisenberg
Weston, Florida
Disillusioned youth
I would like to respond to the letter that equated stability with prosperity (Letters, Sept. 15, page 8).
For a number of years, my wife and I have traveled to Taiwan for extended periods. The political climate in the country does nothing but deteriorate. We have all seen the political prosecutions and deep-seated political enmity that pervades all levels of government. Taiwan is a country of so much physical beauty and promise that it is just sad to see how divisive and hurtful this has all become. Every summer, we host a number of Taiwanese university students who come to Minnesota to live and work. They are such a great bunch of kids.
And yet, they are so disheartened by the political climate of the country they call “home.” Most want nothing to do with politics, let alone discuss it. They look to leaders to find role models and see only pettiness and greed and old-timers who think “returning to the motherland” is the only way. The vast majority of students we speak with want some very tangible things. They want to see their political leaders acting as leaders and not manipulating thugs. They want a free and independent Taiwan that can achieve and maintain its rightful place among the mainstream of world economic leaders. And they want a Taiwan where they can find work and be able to support a family. This is your future talking, Taiwan.
The wrongs of the past must be forgiven. To forget those wrongs and misdeeds would mean repeating them. Taiwan’s politics must become all-inclusive and work toward that future.
Tom Kuleck
Jordan, Minnesota
Who demonizes whom?
If there is fascism in China, the rambling, incoherent drivel of Nathan Novak and Michael Fagan (“Who won China’s war on fascism?” Sept. 8; Letters, Sept. 11 and Sept. 13, page 8) has not identified it.
Former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman Mao Zedong (毛澤東) was capable of plenty of treachery, but the real-life fascists of pre-1949 China were the Blue Shirts of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). More recently, what Novak describes as China’s growing “assertiveness” on the international stage is clear and has been well documented, but “assertiveness” doth not a fascist state make.
It has been lost on both Fagan and Novak that: One, the PRC had from the outset (inevitably, as a communist state) a state-controlled economy; two, in the last 30 years (perhaps Fagan and Novak were living on Mars), state control of that economy has been radically loosened (as a result of what Novak describes in disgracefully cavalier and intellectually dishonest terms as “China’s turn to the political right during the late 1970s,”) with well-documented, dramatic and widely welcomed results; three, nationalism has always been a cornerstone of CCP ideology; four, China is an ancient civilization with a vast and rich culture. Its people naturally take great pride in being Chinese; and, five, one feature of fascism is that it looks for people to demonize.
Whether Novak and Fagan prefer the moderation, pragmatism and relative openness of the last 30 years to the left-wing radicalism, idealism and non-openness of the Mao era is far from clear.
Mark Rawson
Taipei
Faulty Voguing claims
I would expect something of this nature from some ethno-centric country, but not from a newspaper in Taiwan. In Sunday’s paper (“Get up on the dance floor,” Sept. 12, page 2), the caption under the picture of Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) states that she invented the dance move called Voguing. Though popularized by international superstar Madonna during the early 1990s in her song Vogue (there is even an iconic and eponymous music video to go with the song) from her album, I’m Breathless, voguing was invented in the gay discos of New York City and, more specifically, finds it roots in the Harlem ballroom dance scene. I love Jolin as much as the next guy, but give credit where credit is due.
Iain Palmer
Taichung
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