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Chinese spouse argues over fax charge

A Chinese woman who immigrated to Taiwan through marriage earlier this week got into a dispute with a clerk at a convenience store in Kaohsiung City after saying that Taiwan is part of China.

The two-hour dispute occurred after the woman faxed a document to Xiamen, Fujian Province, and insisted that because Taiwan is part of China, she was only willing to pay the “domestic rate” for the service.

The woman said that since primary school her teachers and textbooks had taught her that Taiwan is a province of China and did not know why the store owner, surnamed Yen (顏), would not “admit” that Taiwan is part of China.

Rather than paying NT$85 per page for international faxing, the woman said she would pay the store NT$20 for domestic faxing, which the store owner refused, saying that yielding to the woman’s demand would be an affront to the nation’s dignity.

Yen’s employees initially intended to brush off the incident as a financial loss, but the patriotic Yen insisted that Taiwan is a sovereign country and that the store should not let the woman off the hook.

Yen refused to accept the NT$20 from the woman, saying he would rather believe he was dealing with “an insane person” than have the sovereignty of Taiwan ridiculed.

He also called on the woman’s husband to “correct her thoughts.”

After the woman threw a fit in the store and later called the customer service hotline of the chain store, Yen was asked to explain the incident to his superiors. He said, however, that the woman had gone “overboard.”

Following the incident, the chain said it would consider labeling China, Hong Kong and Macau as “international destinations” on its fax machines to avoid future disputes.
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