The nation has entered a new phase in its development marked by immigration, National Immigration Agency (NIA) deputy director Steve Wu (
Wu made the comments at a press conference hosted by the Public Television Service to unveil a new television series, funded by the NIA, called The Vietnamese Brides of Taiwan.
The storyline traces the lives of four fictional Vietnamese women as they adjust to their lives in Taiwan after marrying local men.
"There was the economic miracle, the advent of convenience stores and cellphones, and now we have entered the age of becoming an immigrant nation," Wu told reporters. "We welcome immigrants into our families; their presence makes Taiwan a more diversified place."
The show premieres amid an immigration surge in recent years, especially by "immigrant spouses" from Southeast Asia and China who total, as of last month, nearly 400,000, Wu said.
Of that surge, women from Vietnam -- who Wu said "are said to be the prettiest women in Asia" -- account for the lion's share of immigrant spouses, making the TV series especially relevant.
There is perhaps no clearer sign that immigration by foreign spouses is changing the cultural fabric of the nation than the emergence of a major TV series devoted exclusively to the issue, the TV station's CEO Hu Yuan-hui (
"They are a huge segment of society," Hu said, referring to immigrant spouses. "If we can't understand and help them, we won't be able to grow into a more pluralistic nation."
The show, he said, would help the public to understand the challenges and experiences of immigrants as they integrate with local culture.
"It [the show] reflects the love in Taiwan [for immigrants]," he said at the press conference.
The Vietnamese Brides of Taiwan, whose Chinese title translates literally as "never call me a foreign bride," will air every Saturday starting at 8:30pm.
Reflecting on the show's title yesterday, Wu told the conference the politically correct term for spouses who immigrate as newly-weds is "immigrant spouses."
"Not foreign brides," he said.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read: