A friend of mine told me that when he was a child, he once won first place in a speech contest. When he presented the award after returning home, his father threw it to the ground, shouting that it was useless.
All his father valued was top performance in exams — nothing else mattered.
This obsolete ideology, which prevails in many families in Taiwan, is arguably a legacy of the civil service examination system in imperial China.
At a recent cultural conference, film director Wang Hsiao-ti (王小棣) said: “When the Ministry of Culture reports during the Interministerial Meeting on Cultural Matters convened by the Executive Yuan, other ministries look at them with distain.”
Minister of Culture Lee Yung-te (李永得) reportedly said in response that “it is because the entire government has been focusing on economic and technological development as its core strategy for the past 50 years, and the Ministry of Culture is seen as a spender.”
However, the output value of South Korea’s cultural and creative industry in 2017 was equivalent to NT$3.3 trillion (US$110.8 billion at the current exchange rate), surpassing the NT$2.6 trillion of its highly polluting semiconductor industry.
The South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism would never be underestimated by the country’s other ministries.
Taiwan’s semiconductor output value is similar to South Korea’s, which has made the Ministry of Economic Affairs complacent, while its cultural and creative industry output value is only one-quarter of South Korea’s NT$800 billion. No wonder the Ministry of Culture is being looked down on, and no wonder there is a “South Korean wave,” but no “Taiwanese wave.”
Wang is the director of the animated feature Grandma and Her Ghosts (魔法阿媽). To finance the film, she mortgaged her property.
However, the film was eliminated from the 1998 Golden Horse Awards, as the judges said that it was “weird” and “promoting superstition,” and no prize was awarded in its category.
On the other hand, take a look at the themes at the National Cultural Congress’ forum this year — including “enhancing local cultural history” and “the application of Taiwanese cultural values” — would it not be easier to review culture from the perspective of “Taiwanese style”?
Obsolete ideas of this kind can also be seen in how another film was deprived of the opportunity to be released in Taiwan.
Created by Taiwanese anime artist Chen Uen (鄭問) and coproduced in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea in 1994, The Story of Confucius (孔子傳) said that Confucius (孔子) was an illegitimate child — which was unacceptable to some Confucius enthusiasts.
However, the Japanese producers cited a description in the Records of the Grand Historian (史記) as saying that “Confucius was born from a wild union,” to support the animation’s stance.
However, the movie was never released in Taiwan.
These events of more than 20 years ago might seem fleeting, but this is not the case.
The Golden Horse Awards judges’ discussions about Grandma and Her Ghosts were in 2016 published on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board system, prompting users to decry the unjust decision. The debate was so heated that even Wang was shaken.
In other countries, appeals can be made unless it is stated in advance that they would not be accepted.
In Taiwan, “procurement errors” made during government tenders must be corrected. The Ministry of Culture should apply a similar method and review its decisions to ensure that the cultural and creative industries will not be stifled.
Lu Ching-fu is a professor in Fu Jen Catholic University’s applied arts department.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
When US budget carrier Southwest Airlines last week announced a new partnership with China Airlines, Southwest’s social media were filled with comments from travelers excited by the new opportunity to visit China. Of course, China Airlines is not based in China, but in Taiwan, and the new partnership connects Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport with 30 cities across the US. At a time when China is increasing efforts on all fronts to falsely label Taiwan as “China” in all arenas, Taiwan does itself no favors by having its flagship carrier named China Airlines. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is eager to jump at
The muting of the line “I’m from Taiwan” (我台灣來欸), sung in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), during a performance at the closing ceremony of the World Masters Games in New Taipei City on May 31 has sparked a public outcry. The lyric from the well-known song All Eyes on Me (世界都看見) — originally written and performed by Taiwanese hip-hop group Nine One One (玖壹壹) — was muted twice, while the subtitles on the screen showed an alternate line, “we come here together” (阮作伙來欸), which was not sung. The song, performed at the ceremony by a cheerleading group, was the theme
Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised eyebrows recently when he declared the era of American unipolarity over. He described America’s unrivaled dominance of the international system as an anomaly that was created by the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. Now, he observed, the United States was returning to a more multipolar world where there are great powers in different parts of the planet. He pointed to China and Russia, as well as “rogue states like Iran and North Korea” as examples of countries the United States must contend with. This all begs the question:
Liberals have wasted no time in pointing to Karol Nawrocki’s lack of qualifications for his new job as president of Poland. He has never previously held political office. He won by the narrowest of margins, with 50.9 percent of the vote. However, Nawrocki possesses the one qualification that many national populists value above all other: a taste for physical strength laced with violence. Nawrocki is a former boxer who still likes to go a few rounds. He is also such an enthusiastic soccer supporter that he reportedly got the logos of his two favorite teams — Chelsea and Lechia Gdansk —
RSS