Time to change tactics
It’s great to see someone speaking the truth. David Camhi is right (“Taiwan lends helping hand to Chinese professional soccer’s French revolution,” Jan. 3, page 18). His comment on young players doing well and then going on to achieve nothing when they are older is, in my opinion, caused by coaches being poorly trained and only interested in their own achievements, not those of the team; and an ineffectual Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA).
To suggest that what Taiwan has to do is sack the current coaches and bring in new ones is okay as long as the new ones aren’t just copies of the old ones. Turning out coaches with the same mindset and attitudes as previous coaches will only maintain a cycle of failure.
Could the current coaches be retrained, could they continue with their education? What success has the CTFA had in the past 20 years? Has football/soccer gained in popularity? Have they developed a professional league?
Japan, China, South and North Korea have all made great strides in developing soccer over the past two decades. Where is Taiwan? The culture of sport in Taiwan takes a back seat to academics and until the government, CTFA and private sponsorship get involved it will continue to do so.
I recall both President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) jumped on the football bandwagon during World Cup tournaments, suggesting Taiwan send a select group of players overseas to learn the game. May I suggest bringing in overseas coaches and players to develop domestic football?
By coincidence, there was also an article on English villages in Huwei Township, Yunlin (“Township finds it takes a village to learn English,” Jan. 3, page 2). English has been taught in junior and senior high schools for at least the past two generations, yet it is seldom used. The General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) has an average first-time pass ratio of four in 10, 40 percent. Does this figure reflect the time, money and effort invested in learning English?
Again, the methods used by the government just don’t work and it’s time to face reality. Repeating the same mistakes over and over expecting a different result is insane. Look at China and South Korea. Both countries got on the English language train long after Taiwan but are now far ahead if latest international rankings are correct.
The current methods of teaching both football and English have failed to achieve any tangible results. How long can you keep making the same mistakes before you realize what you are doing is not working?
Nick Pond
Greater Kaohsiung
KMT lies beggar belief
First off thank you to Wei Bao-lo (Letters, Dec. 29, page 8). I wholeheartedly agree with what he says. And he only scratched the surface when it came to pointing out the inconsistencies and lies the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is spreading. It just defies belief and shows how profound and effective KMT brainwashing during its first 50-odd years in power was and still is, though they have a tightly controlled modern media in their pocket. People here seem to know the KMT is up to no good but they still keep voting for them.
Here in Kaohsiung President Ma’s campaign distributed flyers that showed how Ma and his administration have invested more than NT$30 billion (US$1 billion) in the past four years alone to improve Kaohsiung city and county (now Greater Kaohsiung), and its economy. On closer inspection, and from first-hand knowledge, these figures are mostly for projects proposed and started in the past 12 years by former mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), both of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). They had to battle the KMT-controlled legislature in Taipei just to get the money. Now Ma wants the glory.
When I went to the Ma-Wu campaign office in my street and pointed out the obvious lapses in judgement, some people there were not too impressed and told me that as a “foreigner” I had no clue what I was talking about. That in fact seems to be the standard reply I have gotten over the past 17 years whenever I talked to pan-blue supporters. You are an outsider. You do not understand. This is way beyond your comprehension.
One person started a shouting match when it was clear that I knew more than he wanted the other bystanders to hear.
Which brings me to your editorial about the way Slawomir Starok was treated (Editorial, Dec. 30, page 8). Like most, we do not approve of the way Starok was treated. Even if it was not his place to say anything the other party had no right to turn violent. That said, at our Christmas gathering, a bunch of “old Taiwan hands” all agreed with your assessment. He should have assessed the situation better.
Most of us would have been equally offended if someone did something similar to us. Yet we were in unison on this: Taiwan being as complex a society as it is, is a very, very safe place to live. We all have encountered similar situations during our stay here and still feel that what makes Taiwan special is its people. What keeps us here are the people. Taiwanese are extremely friendly and ready to help. Hey, in Taiwan even the gangsters are pretty nice if you get to know them; something that is not really that hard to do.
KMT Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) being one of the most reprehensible of all. They feel above the law because the have a giant party apparatus behind them that is, and let us not fool ourselves, hand-in-glove with the judiciary.
No wonder that Ma and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) make those obscene gestures on their campaign posters. Am I the only one noticing this? You know what I mean. Body slightly bent forward, arm bent while making a fist. It clearly shows what those two and the KMT think of the rest of us.
Geert Anthonis
Greater Kaohsiung
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