In 2004, upon hearing about my summer plans in Taiwan, a classmate responded with, “Oh great! I have always wanted to visit a developing country.” How is Taiwan, the land of soy milk and honey, a developing country?
The ideas that “my race is the default, your looks are exotic,” and “I will not learn your language, you should understand mine,” are outdated. Demographic changes have been taking place rapidly…
However, I am a petty individual with a mind that is only big enough to serve myself. The society, as a whole, should be better than myself. The society needs to preoccupy itself with bigger issues such as the practicality of its policy…
The grand promise of building a mega-tourism empire actually attracts multinational tourist corporations which hire locals only for low-skilled positions, reaping the benefits from consumerism at the social and environmental expense of the host country…
Language is the umbilical cord that ties our inner workings to our identity, and serves as our antenna to the external world. In a history all too similar to the people of Catalonia, the people of Taiwan lived through linguistic oppression under their colonizers…