Several Montreal-based Taiwanese recently launched a protest campaign against the Gazette, an English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Canada, for its publication of an article on Taiwan, which they said was biased.
The newspaper carried an article about Taiwan under the title “Teaching English: Cultural Shock” in its Feb. 26 publication, in which Lindsey Craig, a Canadian who said she used to teach English in Taiwan, described her seven-month stay in the country in 2005 as “the most difficult experience of my life.”
It angered many Taiwanese living in the city who thought the paper should not have used the three-page article to introduce Taiwan solely based on one person’s subjective view.
However, in the subtitle, the article said: “Like thousands of -Canadians every year, Lindsey Craig moved overseas to teach English in Taiwan — but she’s the one who got some hard life-lessons.”
In Taichung, where Craig said she lived, she said that she couldn’t identify anything during the first week because “the signs on the streets were all written in Chinese” and that navigating the streets was daunting because “some signs were written with letters from the English alphabet, but they were often spelled differently than they were spelled on a map.”
She said she found that “few people spoke English, and often when they could, they refused because they were too embarrassed to make a mistake and ‘lose face.’”
Craig said there were unsettling moments at work, citing the example of the parents of one of her students who thought that the best way to take care of their son’s disruptive behavior was to beat him.
In her article, Craig said that her days in Taiwan “were marked by frustration, shock and disbelief.”
Toward the end, she said that “I now know I was not ready for Taiwan. I did not research the culture adequately enough, and I should have gone only if I’d had a genuine interest in learning the language.”
Montreal-based Taiwanese created a group called “226 protest of media bias Gazette in Montreal” on Facebook, with Su Yu-chun (蘇玉純) calling on foreign nationals living in Taiwan teaching foreign languages to contact the group to lodge a protest against the newspaper.
David Tsao (曹耕臺) posted a letter addressed to the country’s representative to Canada, David Lee (李大維), on Facebook, urging Lee and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada to lodge a formal protest against the Gazette.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
PROXIMITY: Prague is closer to Dresden than Berlin is, so Taiwanese firms are expected to take advantage of the Czech capital’s location, the Executive Yuan official said Taiwan plans to boost cooperation with the Czech Republic in semiconductor development due to Prague’s pivotal role in the European IC industry, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said. With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) building a wafer fab in the German city of Dresden, a Germany-Czech Republic-Poland “silicon triangle” is forming, Kung said in a media interview on the weekend after returning from a visit to Prague. “Prague is closer to Dresden than Berlin is, so Taiwanese firms are expected to take advantage of the Czech capital’s location,” he said. “Taiwan and Prague have already launched direct flights and it is
RSS