The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday demanded that the Ministry of Education remove former ministry secretary-general Chuang Kuo-jung (莊國榮) from his post as convener of a curriculum guidelines review committee, citing what the KMT called his past “vulgar remarks.”
At a news conference in Taipei yesterday morning, KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) said education is vital for younger generations and is supposed to transcend politics.
“However, Chuang is not only notorious for his often vulgar and preposterous rhetoric, but also for his apparent political affiliations,” Wang said.
Urging the ministry to immediately dismiss Chuang and remove him from the committee, Wang also called on parents to jointly oppose Chuang’s participation in the committee.
Wang said the public would not accept the decision by the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to appoint Chuang, who left the ministry years ago over inappropriate remarks, to serve such a significant post in the committee.
“Chuang is less deserving than elementary and junior-high school students of participating in the process of reviewing curriculum guidelines. Curricula could become unimaginably horrific if we let someone like him be a part of this endeavor or serve as the convener of the committee,” Wang said.
KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Hu Wen-chi (胡文琦) last month at a news conference also criticized the ministry’s designation of Chuang as the committee’s convener.
“A teacher is someone who conveys the truth, passes on knowledge and clarifies doubts. Chuang is unfit for the job in terms of both his words and actions,” Hu said.
Hu said Chuang’s past remarks have proven him to be a man guided by outdated stereotypes and ideologies, hatred and obscene ideas, citing as examples Chuang’s use of terms such as khai tsa boo (開查某), a Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) term meaning “visiting a prostitute,” and xiao naonao (小孬孬), Chinese for “being a pussy.”
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS