Da Ai TV has canceled its new soap opera Jiachang’s Heart (智子之心), reportedly due to criticism from Chinese officials two days after the show’s pilot aired, sparking concerns about the reach of Chinese censorship.
The TV channel, which airs in Taiwan and China, is owned by the Tzu Chi Culture and Communication Foundation, a subsidiary of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, which is known for charitable work and private hospitals.
The show was inspired by the story of Tzu Chi volunteer Lin Chih-hui (林智惠), now 91, who was born in the Japanese colonial era and served as a Japanese military nurse in China during World War II.
Photo courtesy of Da Ai Television
The show’s trailer was panned by Chinese media, and local media reported that China’s Taiwan Affairs Office sent officials to the foundation’s office in Taiwan to investigate the show soon after the pilot aired on Thursday last week.
“It is clear from the 15-minute trailer that the first half of the series is kissing up to Japan,” local online media outlet ET Today cited China’s Global Times newspaper as saying in an opinion piece by a Chinese official.
Although Da Ai had denied receiving any complaints from Beijing, the channel on Saturday last week pulled the show off the air after broadcasting just two of 35 planned episodes.
China played no role in the show’s cancelation, Da Ai media development manager Ou Hung-yu (歐宏瑜) said on Monday.
The channel decided that the show’s depiction of war is contrary to its guideline of “purifying human hearts and encouraging social harmony,” Ou said, citing as an example a line of dialogue: “Let us go to the battlefield together.”
The show might retraumatize certain viewers, he added.
Asked to explain why Da Ai, which has a reputation for careful management of graphic content, approved the show, Ou said that the channel wishes to “avoid controversy.”
No viewers made any complaints about the show, he added.
The channel’s decision to shelve the show made little sense, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ding-yu (王定宇) said.
“There was no way to produce Schindler’s List without depicting Nazis, or make an American Civil War drama without mentioning slavery,” Wang said. “A nation cannot escape history, no matter how strong it is.”
Beijing’s ill treatment of an organization that has for many years conducted disaster relief and educational programs in China betrays a lack of gratitude, he said.
“The Taiwan Affairs Office now wants to come to Hualien to investigate the show. I say our government should deny visas to these officials,” Wang said.
It is a historical fact that Taiwan was under Japanese rule during that time and it is inappropriate for China to interfere in the workings of a religious organization, DPP Legislator Chang Hung-lu (張宏陸) said.
“I hope Tzu Chi will not back down from attempts by political forces to meddle in its affairs,” Chang said.
China has been suppressing the democratic freedoms and human rights of other nations by expanding its censorship of speech across borders, National Tsing Hua University professor of sociology Chen Ming-chi (陳明祺) said.
As a member of Taiwanese society, Tzu Chi has an obligation to stand with the freedom of speech, rather than allowing itself to be censored, he said.
“Without democracy, there will be no freedom of religion and no freedom for it to do good,” Chen said.
The Mainland Affairs Council issued a statement calling on Beijing to adopt a “more rational and peaceful mindset” toward Taiwanese cultural and artistic productions.
The freedom of speech is a universal right that should be respected and protected, it said.
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