I have no idea what part of Taiwan Richard Zuercher (Letters, Dec. 24, page 8) lives in or has visited. Other than the fact that taxi drivers don't know the names of hotels in English, I didn't see one accurate statement in his letter.
English may be a global language, but in nations not colonized by Britain, English is not spoken by working-class people. It shouldn't be that difficult to get someone to write down the Chinese name of the hotel and show it to the taxi driver. All the taxi drivers read Chinese very well. Even in the US, along the Mexican border, while the taxi drivers do speak English, I'm sure they are more comfortable in Spanish. And if you go to Tijuana, as near to the US as it is, a taxi driver there probably won't speak English.
As to Taiwanese being a useless local dialect, I find it very colonial to call the different Chinese languages merely dialects. They sound nothing alike. So they use the same characters and ideographs. English, French, Spanish, German, Italian all use the same alphabet. Should we start referring to these languages as useless local dialects of Latin?
On a tangent, I saw some foreign spouses on a TV show recently. One spouse stated that he wouldn't teach English to anyone whose mother tongue was Taiwanese, as it was impossible. Whereas if Mandarin was the mother tongue, he thought he would be successful. Nonsense. I would choose a Taiwanese student any day over one with Mandarin as their mother tongue. Taiwanese has final consonant stops, and Mandarin doesn't. With practice, the pronunciation is much clearer.
Back from the detour. If Zuercher feels Taiwan is still provincial, he hasn't been here long enough to see the progress it has made. Ten years ago, very few people would speak English on the street. But now, often people at gas stations, supermarkets, restaurants and lunch-box stores try to speak to me in English. I usually understand them, too.
Next, what part of Taiwan does Zuercher live in?
My wife is Taiwanese, and she has never been ostracized because of me. In fact, people often ask her how a plain Jane like her could snag such a handsome foreigner for a husband. I would find any ostracism very un-Taiwanese. Any "ostracism" might actually be the natural shyness Taiwanese people exhibit when they aren't sure what to say if they think you don't speak Chinese.
The last point I will mention relates to Singapore's education system teaching "proper Chinese" (Mandarin) in school. I know for a fact that Taiwanese is one of the dominant dialects in Chinese communities around the world. It is one of several that exist in Singapore. Because Mandarin was chosen by Beijing as the official dialect, it is now taught as standard. But that doesn't make the other dialects less proper. Would he care to refer to English as improper Latin? Or improper old German?
I think either Zuercher hasn't been here in Taiwan very long, or he has gotten off to a bad start and hasn't seen enough of Taiwan to make a judgement. Whatever the case, he has it all wrong. Keep growing Taiwan. It's great to see the progress you are making.
Shervin Marsh
Luodong
It is difficult to imagine that Richard Zuercher, as a foreigner living in Taiwan, would criticize Taiwanese as "a useless, local dialect" and the promotion of the Taiwanese language as a "bizarre move." Having such an unfriendly attitude toward Taiwan, no wonder he finds it "virtually impossible to get a local wife or girlfriend."
Taiwanese is neither local nor a dialect, and its promotion is a noble move. The great majority of the people in Taiwan speak this language in their daily life. When the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was in power, schoolchildren were forbidden from speaking "the local dialect," so named as to brainwash kids into thinking that Taiwan was nothing but a locality of China. If they spoke even a single word of their mother tongue, they would be fined or penalized. The KMT also restricted Taiwanese TV programs and prohibited Taiwanese songs.
In spite of the KMT's decades-long de-Taiwanization program, Taiwanese remains the most popular language throughout the nation because it is beautiful in pronunciation, intonation and expression -- somewhat like French -- music and pictures combined.
If this language were to ever disappear, it would be a major cultural loss to mankind.
During the KMT era, school textbooks on history and geography were virtually all related to China. As a result, schoolchildren know little about Taiwan, their own homeland. Today, as adults, they often get confused about their nationality: Is it Taiwanese, Chinese or both? It is unfortunate that Taiwanese are divided into the pan-green and pan-blue groups. This is all because of their vague nationality.
Democracy with a vague nationality is like a person with a split personality. If Taiwan's democracy is to survive and prosper, a unique nationality is the key.
Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
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