The Chinese-language newspaper United Daily News (UDN) has recently been carrying a series of articles called “Future Project” (願景工程) focusing on the growing impact the increasing number of South Asian immigrants in Taiwan is having on the nation’s linguistic and cultural landscape, and how this is intimately related to the past development model of encouraging industrial relocation to south Asia.
Another UDN article, published on July 6, “Belated Justice” (遲來的正義), talks of how teaching Southeast Asian languages — the mother tongues of many non-Taiwanese spouses — and the desirability of encouraging bilingual households are being taken more seriously.
These articles have alerted the government and the wider society to the long-ignored issue of the increasingly multi-ethnic, multicultural nature of Taiwan today.
Taiwan is now home to large numbers of immigrants from Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, who naturally converse in their native languages. Given this new set of circumstances, a comprehensive language-teaching and education policy, informed by seeing the larger picture, is sure to bring additional rewards in many areas, from international trade and transnational production to education and foreign relations. The “Future Project” series, in particular, has been exploring how this may also give rise to wider acknowledgement of the contribution made by these new additions to society, and help promote more social fairness and justice, as well as inclusive empathy, in this country.
The “Future Project” has also highlighted how, in a society feeling the effects of a moribund birth rate, the education and development of second-generation immigrants — the children of the many couples with one non-Taiwanese spouse — have largely been ignored.
According to government statistics and another July 6 UDN article, “Second Generation Immigrants: Economic Pioneers for Expansion Into Southeast Asia” (新住民二代/拓展東南亞經貿尖兵), there were almost 210,000 second-generation Southeast Asian Taiwanese being taught in elementary and middle schools throughout Taiwan last year, and it is projected that, by the year 2030, 13 percent of under-25s throughout the country will be from households including a non-Taiwanese spouse. Second-generation immigrants, then, are set to become a significant minority in Taiwanese society. If we start planning for this now, providing practical supplementary education for second-generation Southeast Asian Taiwanese, with refresher courses offered along the lines of the community colleges, this will surely pay dividends. It will help immigrant spouses integrate into Taiwanese society and their children maintain their bilingual skills and retain their bicultural inheritance, which will give them a competitive advantage internationally.
Three years ago, when I was serving on the New Taipei City International Education and Immigrants’ Affairs Commission, I made the recommendation to New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) that the city government address the issue of education for second-generation Southeast Asian Taiwanese. The idea is to help them to maintain their bilingual, bicultural roots, and for the city to develop a comprehensive package promoting Southeast Asian languages, so that New Taipei City, indeed Taiwan, would be equipped to cultivate people with special international skills for the 21st century.
With globalization, a multicultural, multilingual society is a fundamental requirement for global distribution and international competitiveness. The basic strategy now being followed by Japan and South Korea in developing the Southeast Asian market and moving into the China market is the provision of intensive local language skills training. Taiwan is set to have a valuable resource in the linguistic and cultural skill set of the significant numbers of immigrants living here, and it should use the natural advantage in Southeast Asian languages that this brings. At the same time, the nation should extend its national foreign languages policy, promoting Southeast Asian languages as second or third foreign languages, so that it can cultivate the much-needed skills to move into the Southeast Asian market.
Cultivating the full set of foreign language skills will improve the quality of higher education in this country, promote international relations, global trade and cultural exchanges, and allow the nation to benefit from transnational scientific research, to develop the outstanding talent needed, and reinforce the foundations of the nation’s international competitiveness.
The US State Department’s renowned Foreign Service Institute provides courses in 70 languages, with intensive programs teaching employees stationed overseas listening, speaking, reading and writing skills and understanding of and familiarity with the local culture. Of the Asian languages taught, Southeast Asian languages like Vietnamese, Indonesian and Thai are second in importance only to Chinese.
Now that Southeast Asian economies are on the rise, it is more important than ever that Taiwan take advantage of the resources it has in the new wave of immigrants here, and cultivate people with the skills required for trade and foreign relations with Southeast Asia. Then, the nation will be better placed to face the prodigious challenges before it.
Li Chen-ching is a professor emeritus of the Department of English and former dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Shih Hsin University.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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