Several Montreal-based Taiwanese recently launched a protest campaign against the Gazette, an English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Canada, for its publication of an article on Taiwan, which they said was biased.
The newspaper carried an article about Taiwan under the title “Teaching English: Cultural Shock” in its Feb. 26 publication, in which Lindsey Craig, a Canadian who said she used to teach English in Taiwan, described her seven-month stay in the country in 2005 as “the most difficult experience of my life.”
It angered many Taiwanese living in the city who thought the paper should not have used the three-page article to introduce Taiwan solely based on one person’s subjective view.
However, in the subtitle, the article said: “Like thousands of -Canadians every year, Lindsey Craig moved overseas to teach English in Taiwan — but she’s the one who got some hard life-lessons.”
In Taichung, where Craig said she lived, she said that she couldn’t identify anything during the first week because “the signs on the streets were all written in Chinese” and that navigating the streets was daunting because “some signs were written with letters from the English alphabet, but they were often spelled differently than they were spelled on a map.”
She said she found that “few people spoke English, and often when they could, they refused because they were too embarrassed to make a mistake and ‘lose face.’”
Craig said there were unsettling moments at work, citing the example of the parents of one of her students who thought that the best way to take care of their son’s disruptive behavior was to beat him.
In her article, Craig said that her days in Taiwan “were marked by frustration, shock and disbelief.”
Toward the end, she said that “I now know I was not ready for Taiwan. I did not research the culture adequately enough, and I should have gone only if I’d had a genuine interest in learning the language.”
Montreal-based Taiwanese created a group called “226 protest of media bias Gazette in Montreal” on Facebook, with Su Yu-chun (蘇玉純) calling on foreign nationals living in Taiwan teaching foreign languages to contact the group to lodge a protest against the newspaper.
David Tsao (曹耕臺) posted a letter addressed to the country’s representative to Canada, David Lee (李大維), on Facebook, urging Lee and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada to lodge a formal protest against the Gazette.
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck Chiayi County at 4:37pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 36.3km southeast of Chiayi County Hall at a depth of 10.4km, CWA data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Chiayi County, Tainan and Kaohsiung on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Pingtung, Taitung, Hualien, Changhua, Nantou and Penghu counties, the data
The Supreme Court today rejected an appeal filed by former Air Force officer Shih Chun-cheng (史濬程), convicted of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) espionage, finalizing his sentence at two years and two months for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法). His other ruling, a ten-month sentence for an additional contravention, was meanwhile overturned and sent to the Taichung branch of the High Court for retrial, the Supreme Court said today. Prosecutors have been notified as Shih is considered a flight risk. Shih was recruited by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence officials after his retirement in 2008 and appointed as a supervisor