About one in seven Taiwanese have been treated in an unfriendly manner due to their external appearance, a survey has found.
Since 2013, the Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation has been conducting the survey every three years to understand how the external appearance of Taiwanese affects how people treat them.
The latest survey, which was conducted in March, used a stratified proportional sampling of the nation’s cities and counties to collect the responses of 1,110 Taiwanese aged 20 or older, the foundation said.
Photo courtesy of Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation
The results showed that 14 percent of respondents had been made fun of due to their appearance, while 15.3 percent had unwanted nicknames based on their looks and 13 percent had been criticized for their looks.
People were most often given nicknames based on their looks in junior-high and high school, the foundation said.
People who are anxious about a physical feature or who show concern about some aspect of their looks are significantly more likely to be treated in an unfriendly manner than those who do not have such worries, it said.
Compared with the survey results from 10 year ago, the prevalence of people being made fun of, given nicknames or criticized because of their looks declined significantly, showing that Taiwanese are more aware of “face equality,” the foundation said.
However, compared with the 2019 survey, the number of people being made fun of or criticized because of their appearance rose 1 percent, while the number of people being treated badly due to their looks increased 0.5 percent.
The foundation designed an online questionnaire on face equality that collected people’s responses to people who had experienced facial damage.
The questionnaire found that people hold a more negative stereotype regarding people with facial damage, describing their features as “inferior,” “ugly,” “unsociable” and “morally degenerate.”
However, people perceived those without facial damage as more positive, associating them with descriptors such as “confident,” “attractive,” “sociable” and “successful,” the foundation said.
Differences in appearance might result in different life experiences, with people perceived to be “good looking” becoming more popular, and those with unusual appearances frequently being bullied or abused, it said.
“Everyone deserves to be treated fairly and kindly,” it said. “This can be achieved by respecting others and not judging a person based on their looks.”
In related news, the annual Taipei Freeway Marathon, the only marathon in Asia to entirely take place on freeways, was held yesterday morning with the theme “Face Equality.”
The northbound lanes on the elevated section of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway (Freeway No. 1) between New Taipei City’s Taishan (泰山) and Sijhih (汐止) districts were closed for the marathon.
Nearly 5,000 runners participated, including more than 100 “sunshine runners” — people with facial damage or burns — and their family members, who had been invited by the Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation.
Entertainer Selina Jen (任家萱), who sustained severe burns when an explosion scene went awry on the set of a TV series being shot in China in 2010, served as the event’s ambassador yesterday, firing the starting pistol for the 3km race.
Additional reporting by Liang Wei-ming
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS