Is justice blind?
You cannot put two foreigners together in Taiwan for more than five minutes without one bringing up the traffic.
I always end up returning to the same thought: If bad behavior goes unpunished, it is tantamount to encouraging it. That is why I maintain the key problem is one of enforcement. That is why I was furious last weekend.
I was sitting on the back of a friend’s scooter about to make our two-stage left turn at an intersection. I pointed out a police officer standing on the side of the road we were about to turn onto, but, to my amazement, when the left-turn arrow turned green, a number of scooters turned left, ignoring the two-stage turn, which, I was led to believe, is illegal. Yet the officer did nothing as the offending drivers zoomed past. I thought to myself: He must be on a more important mission. To my disappointment, I was wrong. He was on what I consider to be a much less important mission.
As the light changed, an elderly scooter-rider made an illegal right turn into the arms of the awaiting officer. He had passed up the opportunity to stop the left-turning drivers and instead caught the old woman making a right. I told my friend what was happening and he said it happens all the time and that the officer has his particular duty and would not be concerned with other infractions.
I cannot be sure if this is the case, but it certainly appeared to be. Coming from a jurisdiction where a right-turn is legal at a red light after the vehicle has made a complete stop, I feel that the police officer had missed the more serious transgressors.
Why is it that Taiwanese generally have such a serious and committed work ethic and yet the attitude of the police seems so uninterested in law enforcement and public safety? My friend enlightened me saying that the cops at home (for him in England, but also for myself in the US) generally work near their homes. They have a “beat” that they feel attached to and they do not want anyone to break the law in their part of the city. Their attitude amounts to: “Don’t even think about speeding near MY school zones.”
Do police here not feel the same attachment? Are they moved to different districts? If anyone knows, please share.
Aaron Andrews
Taichung
Showing your love
I would like to express my opinion on a recent report (“One couple divorces every 10 minutes in Taiwan,” April 23, page 14): “It is easier said than done.” A common response when people learn, for example, the actual rate of divorce. In fact, the rate of divorce in Taiwan has registered a major increase, according to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, with 50,700 divorces last year.
For me, a 20-year-old woman, I am curious. What is wrong between two grown-ups? Do they fail to express themselves? Or do they not know how to communicate with others, even when they are facing the person they love?
I think the problem can be addressed by people not talking about their feelings or shouting too much and then divorcing too easily.
Learning how to talk with each other is useful because it shows people how to get along and it is good for teaching kids.
My mother is a tender, rational and wise woman. She listens carefully to others with different opinions and she then talks with them in a soft voice. After that, any problems they may have had are solved and people are not only grateful to her, but also like her a lot. So do I.
I think it is important to respect others’ ideas and cordially listen to people’s explanations of things — this is the true value of communication.
If you really love someone, then you will care about them more than yourself and you would learn the true value of sharing.
Jadon Yi-Jhen Li
Kaohsiung
The image was oddly quiet. No speeches, no flags, no dramatic announcements — just a Chinese cargo ship cutting through arctic ice and arriving in Britain in October. The Istanbul Bridge completed a journey that once existed only in theory, shaving weeks off traditional shipping routes. On paper, it was a story about efficiency. In strategic terms, it was about timing. Much like politics, arriving early matters. Especially when the route, the rules and the traffic are still undefined. For years, global politics has trained us to watch the loud moments: warships in the Taiwan Strait, sanctions announced at news conferences, leaders trading
Eighty-seven percent of Taiwan’s energy supply this year came from burning fossil fuels, with more than 47 percent of that from gas-fired power generation. The figures attracted international attention since they were in October published in a Reuters report, which highlighted the fragility and structural challenges of Taiwan’s energy sector, accumulated through long-standing policy choices. The nation’s overreliance on natural gas is proving unstable and inadequate. The rising use of natural gas does not project an image of a Taiwan committed to a green energy transition; rather, it seems that Taiwan is attempting to patch up structural gaps in lieu of
The saga of Sarah Dzafce, the disgraced former Miss Finland, is far more significant than a mere beauty pageant controversy. It serves as a potent and painful contemporary lesson in global cultural ethics and the absolute necessity of racial respect. Her public career was instantly pulverized not by a lapse in judgement, but by a deliberate act of racial hostility, the flames of which swiftly encircled the globe. The offensive action was simple, yet profoundly provocative: a 15-second video in which Dzafce performed the infamous “slanted eyes” gesture — a crude, historically loaded caricature of East Asian features used in Western
The Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office on Monday announced that they would not countersign or promulgate the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) passed by the Legislative Yuan — a first in the nation’s history and the ultimate measure the central government could take to counter what it called an unconstitutional legislation. Since taking office last year, the legislature — dominated by the opposition alliance of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party — has passed or proposed a slew of legislation that has stirred controversy and debate, such as extending
RSS