A Mainland Chinese Student Overseas Reads Sinorama

Dear Editor:

Hello! Does it feel strange receiving a letter from an overseas student in Germany? I'm from Ningpo, China, and am presently in Hamburg, Germany studying telecommunications management. I ran across two issues of Sinorama in a nearby church last month, and was so pleased I almost went crazy. I brought the magazines back to my apartment, and then fought with some other classmates from the mainland to see who could read them first! You should know that being able to read such a high-quality, beautiful Chinese magazine like Sinorama abroad was quite a surprise, an extravagant pleasure. The reverberations it caused in me will not be soon forgotten.

We read the magazine over and over again, as if we were thirsty or starving for the impressive and charming articles. We read everything: each paragraph, each sentence, each character, even each punctuation mark. We pored over and enjoyed the real and inviting photographs, scrupulously examining them, afraid that we would leave out a minor detail, a faint smile.

Before, when we were in mainland China, we didn't have a lot of opportunities to find out much about Taiwan. We only knew that Taiwan's economy was taking off, that democracy was brewing in Taiwan, and after that there were only negative images: a lot of social problems, overcrowded conditions, a disorderly impression, legislators pounding on tables, swearing, etc. We didn't know about anything else. Taiwan seemed far away to us and mysterious (even though it was so close to our home on the map). I really had no concept of Taiwan. What was Taiwan like, exactly? What was really going on in Taiwan? Sinorama gave us the opportunity to get to know Taiwan a little better, to understand more of the normal moments in everyday life of people in Taiwan. We may not have been exposed to a lot of information about Taiwan, but raindrops pool together and eventually form into mighty rivers; a little eventually forms into a whole, showing us a real and believable Taiwan!

We're all children of the Yellow Emperor. Mainland China is also very concerned about the people, democracy, and development of people on the other side of the Taiwan straits. We hope there are no misunderstandings between us, no estrangement, and only mutual care and trust, so that we can work together for our joint development, to stand proudly in the ranks of the strong nations.

Tao Lei, Germany (tr. by Jonathan Lassen)

Learning about Taiwan's Education System

Dear Editor:

I think your article "Vanquishing the 'Big Monster'-How Can Taiwan Move Beyond the Joint Entrance Exam?" was a pretty good one. Your article gave me a lot more knowledge about Taiwan's educational system, which I was able to experience for a few months before moving to the States.

I have learned a lot of things from your wonderful magazine and I just want to say that Sinorama is the best bilingual magazine in the world! I have been a long-time subscriber and keep up the brilliant work.

Sincerely,

Correction: On page 17 of the December edition of Sinorama (the January overseas edition), in the English text of the article about the Ilan railroad, there was a passage that described "the stretch from Juifang to Santiaoling [as being] one of the most dangerous on the Ilan line." It should have read "from Juifang to Shuanghsi." In the following paragraph, Shuanghsi was then described as a "peaceful mountain village." That village was in fact Santiaoling. Further on, work was said to have begun on the Tsaoling tunnel in 1932, when it actually began in 1922. We regret these errors.