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Forum calls on public to open hearts to foreigners

"I have to admit that I was a bit scared when I first visited these unfamiliar quarters of a familiar city -- largely because the mass media often portray Thai workers as horrible people."

Wen Chih-yi, film director

Foreigners "aren't different from us -- it's just that they speak different languages," Wen Chih-yi (溫知儀), a film director, told a forum in Taipei yesterday on foreign spouses and workers, while sharing her experiences of working with them.

Wen has directed a mini-drama,Nyong's Taste of Life (娘惹滋味), which tells the stories of three migrant workers in Taiwan. She was named this year's best mini-drama director at the Gold Bell Awards for the film.

Most of the actors in Wen's film were real migrant workers or foreign spouses and they made a strong impression on her, she said.

Wen traveled to industrial areas in Sinjhuang (新莊), Taipei County, which has a considerable Thai population, to find someone to play the role of a Thai worker.

"I have to admit that I was a bit scared when I first visited these unfamiliar quarters of a familiar city -- largely because the mass media often portray Thai workers as horrible people," Wen told the audience at the forum, hosted by the Cathay Charity Foundation and Public Television Service.

Wen said that as she spent more time with Thai workers, she realized she had been wrong to be nervous.

"They were really nice and friendly people," she said.

Wen eventually had to use a Taiwanese actor to play the role of the Thai laborer as strict immigration regulations prohibit migrant workers from taking up a job not specified on their visas.

Nevertheless, the people she met from Thailand were more than happy to help with her project, she said.

"After working to the point of exhaustion, they used their weekends and holidays to help the filmmaking team learn about Thai culture. They taught the actor to speak some Thai, showed us their daily lives and even let us film in their dorm rooms," she said.

"Foreign workers and spouses are as serious and diligent as most of us when it comes to work." she told the forum. "Why do we insist on looking down on them?"

Other speakers at the event echoed Wen's words, calling on Taiwanese to overcome xenophobia and respect all cultures -- foreign or local.

Wang Lih-rong (王麗容), a professor in social work at National Taiwan University, said changing attitudes among Taiwanese -- rather than changing foreign spouses and workers -- was the key to ending prejudice.

"We need to respect them. Not out of sympathy, but because it is their fundamental right as human beings to be respected," she said.
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