What use is investigation?
I found Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang’s (羅智強) statements about the missing documents that compelled 34 interested global citizens to issue a group statement calling the KMT’s handling of the case a “political ploy” quite interesting (“Official hits back at academics’ letter,” April 12, page 1).
According to the article Lo said that “they [the current government] were not aware of any missing documents” at the time of the handover from the administration of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to the incoming administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
So, if they were not aware at the time of the handover, doesn’t that possibly mean that the documents became “missing” after the handover, instead of before it? If the Ma administration was unaware at the time, as they seem to be pretty much all the time, then what can an investigation discover?
ERIC MOORE
Greater Kaohsiung
Taiwan needs to go green
One lesson we can learn from the recent disasters in Japan is that humans, no matter how sophisticated their civilization, still live at the mercy of nature.
The enormous force of earthquakes, tsunamis or nuclear power are simply too overwhelming for humans to rein in. What happened at Fukushima and Chernobyl are apocalyptic signs. They remind us that man cannot and should not play God and tinker with forces of that magnitude.
Unlike earthquakes and tsunamis, which unleash their power instantly and cause tremendous visible damage right away, the release of radiation is slow and invisible and could harm people for thousands of years to come.
Like Japan, Taiwan is situated on geological fault lines. Its nuclear reactors are considered to be some of the most dangerous in the world. A disaster on the scale of that at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant would cripple Taiwan, a price the 23 million people of Taiwan cannot afford.
Taiwan’s best bet is to decommission its nuclear plants and use alternative energy sources. Likewise, the proposed petrochemical plant in central Taiwan would only aggravate environmental deterioration, polluting air and water and, in the long run, increasing the toll on the nation’s health.
The choice for Taiwan is clear — a green island, sustainable for future generations.
YANG JI-CHARNG
Ohio
Appreciating Hoklo
The Taiwanese language (also known as Hoklo) has been used in Taiwan for hundreds of years. It has many unique and interesting features.
A syllable can be used without a vowel (ng, “yellow”). The letter “n” has two sounds, n and nn (tsin, “true” and tsinn, “money”). The tone for the word “mister” (siansinn) is changed when a surname is added. Taiwanese songs are composites of musical and linguistic tones.
Guan, lin and yin are the plural forms of gua (“I”), li (“you”) and yi (“he”), formed by adding “n.” In Taiwanese, “a” is used in front and/or at the end of a noun to represent “lovely” or “little” (Ama, “Grandma,” kaua, “little dog”). It might indicate contempt instead, depending on the context.
An adjective is emphasized by repeating itself (sng, “sour”; sngsng, “very sour”; sngsngsng, “extremely sour”) or by using a repeated adverb (sui tangtang, “very beautiful”; ling, kiki, “very cold”). “Not a half” is used to emphasize “none” (bo puann lang, “not a half person”). Eyes are counted in “lui” like flowers, indicating the beauty of eyes.
Taiwanese has local accents, such as northern and southern. In Yilan and Lotong, rice and egg are pronounced as puinn and nuinn instead of penn and nenn, respectively.
As in English, “have” (u) plus a past participle is used to express a present perfect tense (u lai, “have come”). Taiwanese living in the US often say no car is like no feet — “feet” is pronounced “car” in Taiwanese.
The English “here” means “there” (hia) in Taiwanese. Santa Claus greets people in Taiwanese “Ho, Ho, Ho!” (Good, Good, Good!), and his beard is extremely beardy (hohoho in Taiwanese).
CHARLES HONG
Columbus, Ohio
In the past month, two important developments are poised to equip Taiwan with expanded capabilities to play foreign policy offense in an age where Taiwan’s diplomatic space is seriously constricted by a hegemonic Beijing. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) led a delegation of Taiwan and US companies to the Philippines to promote trilateral economic cooperation between the three countries. Additionally, in the past two weeks, Taiwan has placed chip export controls on South Africa in an escalating standoff over the placing of its diplomatic mission in Pretoria, causing the South Africans to pause and ask for consultations to resolve
An altercation involving a 73-year-old woman and a younger person broke out on a Taipei MRT train last week, with videos of the incident going viral online, sparking wide discussions about the controversial priority seats and social norms. In the video, the elderly woman, surnamed Tseng (曾), approached a passenger in a priority seat and demanded that she get up, and after she refused, she swung her bag, hitting her on the knees and calves several times. In return, the commuter asked a nearby passenger to hold her bag, stood up and kicked Tseng, causing her to fall backward and
In December 1937, Japanese troops captured Nanjing and unleashed one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century. Over six weeks, hundreds of thousands were slaughtered and women were raped on a scale that still defies comprehension. Across Asia, the Japanese occupation left deep scars. Singapore, Malaya, the Philippines and much of China endured terror, forced labor and massacres. My own grandfather was tortured by the Japanese in Singapore. His wife, traumatized beyond recovery, lived the rest of her life in silence and breakdown. These stories are real, not abstract history. Here is the irony: Mao Zedong (毛澤東) himself once told visiting
When I reminded my 83-year-old mother on Wednesday that it was the 76th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, she replied: “Yes, it was the day when my family was broken.” That answer captures the paradox of modern China. To most Chinese in mainland China, Oct. 1 is a day of pride — a celebration of national strength, prosperity and global stature. However, on a deeper level, it is also a reminder to many of the families shattered, the freedoms extinguished and the lives sacrificed on the road here. Seventy-six years ago, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東)
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