Some people may consider the People's Republic of China or the Chinese Communist Government as China. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Since the Chinese Communist Party brought mainland China (except Taiwan) under its control in 1949, it has set up the PRC and claimed to represent China and the Chinese people. However, Chinese living overseas or people of Chinese descent overseas do not associate themselves with the PRC because of its repressive conduct toward its own people in China. Mao Zedong stated that his power came from the barrel of his gun. His regime was neither elected by the people nor did he have the mandate of the people. In 1950, he sent troops to North Korea to fight against the U.N. Subsequently, he launched political campaigns almost every year. The most notorious one was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76) which together with the earlier so-called socialist land reform, anti-bourgeois struggle and other crusades to purge dissent and "purify" ideological thought, took altogether at least 60 million of his own people.
Why not have sex education classes on TV?
tr. by David Mayer
Summer is here again, and I couldn't help thinking to myself, "Yes, and it means that another wave of abortions will be coming in September." They used to separate boys and girls in elementary, junior high, and high school classes, but that's not done now in today's increasingly open society. Young boys and girls have a lot more opportunity to come in contact, so sex education is naturally very important. You mentioned this trend in your article "Sex Education Comes to Taiwan," but the content of sex education is still very scanty; they just gloss quickly over the basics in an hour or two. Most students remain very unclear about what sex actually is, and there is no ongoing effort to provide them guidance in this area of their lives.
They should stop being so squeamish, and give students a clearer idea of what sex entails. They should treat sex as a positive, wholesome part of life. Television would be an excellent way of teaching about sex, for example, but programming having anything to do with sex is only shown late at night on encrypted adult-show broadcasts. People are afraid to let children see these shows. But why don't they produce wholesome and straightforward sex education programs that would be appropriate for children? They should show these shows during the daytime to help them develop a correct understanding of sex. I think that would be more effective than classroom lectures.
Chen Tsai-ching, Taipei
