Emotional well-being, health
I have found that many news reports on Chinese students emphasize their aggressive attitudes toward being successful in their academic performances and future careers. Very often news reports of this kind end up worrying about the competitiveness of Taiwanese students. These reports further lament that Taiwanese students are easily contented with the small things they find in their daily lives (小確幸).
However, this line of thinking tends to ignore the high suicide rate in China due to the high pressure students are under. According to recent research conducted by Hong Kong University, the suicide rate in China accounts for a quarter of the world’s total. Suicide is the top cause of death for young people in China, which is believed to be related to high pressure over schoolwork. Apparently, what is lacking in the minds of students in China longing for success is the importance of maintaining emotional well-being.
Indeed, emotional well-being also accounts for competitiveness because it contributes to our ability to adapt to volatile environments. It helps us maintain stability when we face turbulence in our daily lives. After all, aiming for success is not the be-all and end-all for healthy people who want to stay competitive.
It is equally important for us to be able to feel peaceful, happy and to appreciate the lessons learned from the challenges we have encountered in our lives. In this regard, I am still optimistic about the competitiveness of Taiwanese students.
Wang Chingning
Pingtung City
Completely foreseeable
The loss-making boondoggle white-elephant project to build a non-commuter and completely optional transportation system to Maokong, a place where only intrepid hikers fear to tread, is now a fiscal disaster with losses every year.
Return on investment means, if you spend money to build something, you get that money back, with interest, as it becomes more popular. I am guessing that the railway in China to Tibet has not generated the returns that its investors were expecting.
That is cash down the drain.
Taiwan’s high-speed rail system (THSR) is a shining example of the over-optimism of investors along with mispricing on the service side. That the government might have to “take over” the operations of the THSR clearly demonstrates that this project was not thought through well enough from the very beginning.
The investors who put up the capital to finance the construction of the railway lines and tunnels, which are now sunk costs, should be adequately compensated because the THSR really is a wonder of the world.
However, the THSR has two choices: raise fares or cut services, including firing or lowering wages for workers and reducing the number of trains. The marginal utility of the THSR versus air travel or a five-hour train ride is incredible from the consumer’s point of view, so the ticket price should be raised to reflect the many options available through human action and free consumer choice.
Elsewhere, the bullshit “iTaiwan” aerotropolis project is another foreseeable financial disaster in the making. In a world of slowing growth, the end of cheap peak oil, pandemics, wars, etc, it is inconceivable that Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport will ever need a third runway.
Thousands of families, hundreds of small businesses, and huge tracts of productive farmland lie on the “margins” of this investment decision whether to expand the airport. I foresee that heavy-handed police forces will be used to enforce this bogus project, further disgracing this government and demonstrating how stupid their investment decisions can be.
All this, while driving people off of their homes and farmland, depriving them of their legitimate property rights and their “spiritual” right to be happy in the place of their ancestors.
The current government does not seem able to look on a timeframe much farther than its nose. I hope a true leader steps forward with a 10 or 15-year plan to rescue Taiwan from this fallow-land, energy import hell hole.
The Peak Prosperity Web site produced a new video, the latest in a long series of brilliant explanations, that focuses on the three “E’s” of global prosperity. Energy, economy and the environment.
They assert that these three things are connected. A long-term vision requires attention to all three. Their main theme is “the next 20 years are going to look nothing like the last 20 years.”
Applying this principle to Taiwan, we must start working harder to create a sustainable island economy where we can feed our own people and decarbonize from fossil fuels.
Leaders need to lead. Now is the time.
Torch Pratt
Yonghe, New Taipei City
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