Don't dismiss fingerprint plan
The opposition to fingerprint plans on the grounds that such plans are an infringement of civil rights is misguided ("Government urged to scrap fingerprint plans," June 21, page 3). Since a national identity card is an integral part of national security policy, a trade-off between civil rights and the government's right to ensure the authenticity of such IDs by, for example, requiring citizens to submit their fingerprints, seems inevitable.
Without this kind of authentication measure it will only be possible to ascertain the validity of an ID card by establishing how it was obtained, which regrettably will encourage the falsification of ID cards for illicit purposes.
If there is no means of properly authenticating the present national ID card, then some plan to allow for such authentication must be put into place urgently, be it fingerprinting or DNA mapping, before the problem gets out of hand and threatens national security as a whole.
Ching H. Li
Jersey City, New Jersey
Pop culture too commercial
After a year in Taiwan, I have come to realize that wherever I go and whatever I do, I keep coming across pictures of the singer Sun Yanzi (
This young and moderately talented singer from Singapore is the face on each and every magazine about fashion, computers, cellphones and English-language education in Taiwan. She also does a lot of commercials for soft drinks and snack food on television and seems to be the embodiment of McDonald's in Taiwan.
It is obvious that Sun is popular here and in other parts of Asia. But it seems to me that her omnipresence reflects the poverty of Taiwanese pop music and the darker side of the entertainment business on the island. There is a clear shortage of musical talent in Taiwan and an array of pre-fabricated musical acts that flood the screens and the airwaves.
Rather than singers or musicians these people are first and foremost advertising machines. Their role is to sell. And it seems that there is always more they can sell. What does this say about the value of music as an art form -- be it pop music or any other musical genre -- and artistic integrity in Taiwan? Well, it seems that there is no such thing as artistic integrity here. What matters is selling a product, whether it is a soft drink, a hamburger, a magazine or a music CD.
Sun is in this regard a perfect ambassador. She is thin -- very thin -- and has a nice figure. This leads some to believe, naively, that consuming junk food, like sweets, soft drinks and hamburgers on a daily basis, will not harm their health or appearance. Sun must be pretty busy recording commercials and posing for magazine covers. Once in a while, she must also take some time to record some music. All this has a rather negative influence on Taiwanese youth as they are told to believe that everything is for sale, even talent and artistic integrity.
Pop culture in Taiwan is often fake, tacky and purely commercially driven. It is so pervasive that few people find it in themselves to reject it. Taiwanese pop music, just like fast food, is meant to be consumed fast and not to be enriching. This leaves Taiwanese youth with a clear inability to see beyond appearances. This creates shallow beings and leaves us waiting for Sun's next album: A compilation of her best tunes for commercials. What could be more artistically rewarding than recording the tune for the McDonald's ad? Could there be better ways of demonstrating talent?
Nicolas Baychelier
Chungli
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