O brothers, where art thou?
The nation is in the middle of a full-blown crisis of manhood. To paraphrase Lord Kitchener and Condoleezza Rice: "Your democratic entity needs you."
I'm not referring to the prospect of a metrosexual who's softer than the Andrex puppy winning the keys to the Presidential Office. No, this catastrophe is altogether much more serious. Because, in case you weren't aware, a society that seems eternally obsessed with rankings and how it stands up to the rest of the world (look at Taipei 101 for an example) has just been ranked practically rock-bottom when it comes to getting it up.
Yes, in news that should make every red-blooded male and fertile female of this land feel ashamed, the government recently released figures that showed Taiwan's fertility rate (the number of pregnancies per year per 1,000 women of childbearing age) for last year fell to a pitiable 1.12.
That puts us in 163rd place in the world, leaving us just above the sex-starved residents of Singapore (1.06), Macau (1.02) and Hong Kong (0.95). (Is it me, or can anyone else see a geographical and cultural pattern?) Hong Kong's original average was 4.35 but then they decided to omit Edison Chen (
But it wasn't always like this in Taiwan, readers; there was a time when we Taiwanese accumulated offspring faster than Angelina Jolie visiting a refugee camp. In the 1960s and 1970s the nation's ladies were popping out babies faster than they could assemble cheap plastic toys.
So what are the reasons behind this plummet in procreation, I hear you ask?
The government seems to think it is purely a financial issue and has issued a White Paper containing 125 measures aimed at boosting nocturnal bedroom activity and offering education subsidies for families.
Personally, I think you'd be better off giving discounts on sexy lingerie or cheap gym memberships for pudgy husbands.
But my friends tend to agree with the authorities, with one of the most common reasons I hear for the great Formosan fornication famine being: "It's just too expensive to raise kids." Which, when you take into account the skyrocketing prices of daily necessities these days (betel nut is approaching NT$100 per bag), is quite possible.
The cost of bushibans -- which many professional parents use as a form of affordable childcare -- is also near the top of the worry list.
However, I believe all of this comes down to a combination of issues that lie at the root of our inability to impregnate, and some of them are easily solved.
First on the list is education. There should be less of it. A controversial point of view, you may think, but here's my rationale.
I'm not suggesting we scrap education altogether; it's just that too many years of schooling can have bad results when it comes to making babies. Educated ladies don't marry betel nut-chewing, Whisby-supping country boys.
Hence the disproportionately high number of 30-something virgins roaming the streets of our towns and cities. This also forces men to patronize rent-a-wife foreign bride agencies, which is a pity given that there are plenty of attractive local women going spare (I hope Cathy doesn't read this or she'll have me neutered instead of Punkspleen).
Also, too many of our teenagers are spending their formative years asleep at cram school desks when they could be learning really important life skills fumbling with one another on a motorscooter somewhere up on Yangmingshan (
This is how it was done in my day (well, we were on bicycles back then) -- and we went on to produce the economic miracle. Extra-curricular nookie would also solve the problem of costly bushibans.
I know I'm showing my age here, but another scourge of the modern world is the computer. Social skills, along with the art of chatting up the opposite sex, have regressed by the equivalent of about 5,000 years since the inception of video games and text messaging.
All I can do these days is get a monotone grunt out of young Johnny Neihu VI these days as he frantically taps away on his Nintendo PS360 thingy. No wonder he can't get a girlfriend. If I were any more sprightly I'd kick his ass.
Microsoft head honcho Bill Gates has a lot to answer for, because he's responsible for the creation of zhainan (
I experienced this for myself last week when I popped into an Internet cafe in central Taiwan. Outside it was a glorious spring day, just right for frolicking in the nearest cornfield with your childhood sweetheart (as Cathy and I used to do). Instead, the whole teenage population of this township was secreted away inside this smoky, dusty shithole, too wrapped up in their virtual world to notice the attractive, mini-skirt clad females that strutted past the window from time to time (I certainly noticed them).
Another problem is that an increasing number of my compatriots are shooting blanks. A March 3 CNA story revealed that more than 25 percent of men in Taipei who were tested in a recent study by the city health department had problems involving insufficient or inactive sperm. Doctors attributed the problem to stress, environmental pollution and toxic food.
So, no more imported Chinese dumplings, folks, it's time to bring out the water buffalo and go back to working the land in the battle for organic food and healthy jizz. Close down polluting factories and reduce the working week to about 20 hours (which, I understand, is one hour more than the average French worker manages) to cut back on stress.
And there you have it: a few Neihu-style solutions that will soon have us literally shooting up the rankings in the global "brat race." It's time to stop going to school, take a break from work, go back to nature and, as Austin Powers would say, "start shaggin' baby."
My ideas may not be good for the economy -- the hot-button issue of the day -- and they will more or less mean a return to the Stone Age in pedagogical terms, but look on the bright side. Soon there'll be more babies crawling around here than a Gaza Strip orphanage.
And that'll come in handy, because now that the Suhua Freeway has all but been given the green light, we're going to need a few more million souls to populate the east coast.
That is, if we are to "develop" it the same way as the rest of Taiwan.
Heard or read something particularly objectionable about Taiwan? Johnny wants to know: dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com is the place to reach me, with "Dear Johnny" in the subject line.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS