As the nation reels from the news that student activist Dai Lin (林冠華) has taken his own life, an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) showed the pressure he was under due to his participation in protests against the government’s planned changes to high-school student curriculum guidelines.
Lin was one of 33 people arrested on Thursday night last week for entering the Ministry of Education building and was facing possible prosecution along with 23 other activists.
During a telephone interview on Sunday — two days after his release on bail — Lin said that the principal of New Taipei City’s Juang Jing Vocational High School had visited him hours earlier to discuss his involvement in the demonstration.
Facebook screen grab
“The principal started off by asking me what I really wanted and if there were any messages I needed him to help me convey,” said Lin, who had applied for leave from the school to devote more time to the protests.
The 20-year-old said the principal asked him a lot of questions such as: “Did I know what I was doing? Had I thought this through? Had I fulfilled my duty [as a student]? Had I thought about my future and whether I would still be able to find a job after the arrest.”
Lin said he told the principal he had taken all those things into consideration before joining the protest against the opaque changes to the curriculum and that what had saddened the students the most was seeing their own teachers and principals dismissing their efforts out of hand.
“I think the principal achieved what he intended. After our talk, he went to speak to my mother downstairs for about 10 minutes. All of a sudden, my parents, who had never spoken against my participation said: ‘Who are you to fight this cause? Don’t be too full of yourself,’” Lin said.
“Their words made me disappointed in myself,” he added.
Asked if other student protesters had also been talked to by their schools’ authorities, Lin said the movement would not take any action if his was an isolated case, but that protesters would make their objections known if they ever discovered the Ministry of Education was behind a campaign of intimidation.
Lin said student movements were not frivolous activities because participants often had to undergo questioning from authorities and their characters can be attacked.
“I sincerely hope that parents and school authorities take the time to understand why students are fighting for this cause despite all the pressure we are under. Do not just tell us that the curriculum will no longer be our problem after we graduate and go to college,” he said.
Lin said that many authority figures show no understanding or empathy with the movement’s efforts.
“Maybe the schools are under pressure [from the ministry] or our movement has caused them too much inconvenience. Either way, they should not have questioned or dismissed our motives,” he said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
RSS