A big ‘thank you’
I want to send a big thank you to the Kaohsiung Post Office’s International Mail Section, Dan Bloom and the Taipei Times.
I belong to an association called TEJA, which is comprised of journalists writing in Esperanto (a constructed international language).
A while ago, the association sent me my membership card from their offices in Lithuania.
On Saturday, I received a telephone call from my friend Ingrid, a Taiwanese Esperanto teacher living in Pingtung like me.
She told me that I had to contact the postal service in Kaohsiung because they had mail for me from Lithuania, but could not find my house.
First, I was puzzled. Who do I know in Lithuania? Why did they call my friend? This was extremely strange. So, I dialed the number she gave me and then everything became clear. One word was missing in the street name, so the address written on the envelope was a place that does not exist. As the address was in English, my Chinese name did not appear anywhere.
It was almost impossible to deliver the letter. Almost!
People working at the postal service found me.
They looked up my name and the word “Esperanto” on the Internet and found the article by Dan Bloom published in the Taipei Times about the Esperanto festival we have every year in December (“Esperantists talk the talk in Pingtung,” Dec. 13, page 12). As I was the person who organized the festival, my name appeared in the article many times.
So did the name and phone number of the school were the festival took place. When they called the school, the school gave them my friend’s number. And today, the letter was delivered to me.
So, I want to thank Dan Bloom and the Taipei Times for the article, Kaohsiung Post Office’s international mail section in particular and Taiwan postal services in general, as we take for granted that our mail will be at our door, but seldom wonder how hard people have to work for it to happen.
As we say in Esperanto, dankon!
Cyril Vergnaud
Pingtung City
Bilateral change damaging
US officials like to make the statement that the US is opposed to any unilateral change in Taiwan-China relations. This sounds good, but there is a hidden risk.
The statement implies that the US is not opposed to any bilateral change as long as both Taiwan and China agree to it. This is risky and damaging to Taiwanese if the government is pro-China. A good example is the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Last year, the Ma administration tried to pass a black-box service trade pact with China through the legislature in just 30 seconds. This led to the student-led Sunflower movement in which people occupied the Legislative Yuan’s main chamber and the Executive Yuan, to which police responded brutally. This led to the major defeat of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the nine-in-one elections in November last year.
Ma has tried every means to please Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to set up a Ma-Xi meeting.
This year, behind closed doors, the Ma administration changed the high-school curriculum guidelines from the historical viewpoint of Taiwan to that of China. This led to long, massive protests by high-school students and the death of a student protest leader. The curriculum changes were requested by China and implemented by the Ma administration.
Taiwanese worry about what the Ma administration might do to please China and create problems for Taiwan after the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 16 next year, and before Ma steps down four months later, on May 20. Any changes, unilateral or bilateral, political or not, in the cross-strait relationship will likely be damaging.
KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) is interested in the policy of “one China, same interpretation” and the “nonexistence of the Republic of China (ROC).” People First Party candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜) wants to find only non-political avenues for the ROC.
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) has pledged to Xi that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China.” The Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) pledges to maintain the “status quo” across the Taiwan Strait. The US has to modify its old statement to include the bilateral change.
Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
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