Too often these days, we go about our busy modern lives with our heads down. It’s almost as if we have forgotten how to slow down, lift our eyes, and observe the people and events all around us. It would go too far to say we are unfeeling, but we do seem to lack the motivation to “care.”
Individuals, families, communities and societies exist amid a web of relationships that no-one can truly separate themselves from. Their interconnectedness is on full display in the challenges Taiwan faces as it becomes an “aged society”—and is set to become a “super aged” one around 2025.
Fortunately, in every corner of Taiwan there are people working on behalf of the elderly. They draw vitality from various realms—medicine, architecture, social work, design, education—and their efforts are fostering community consensus and stimulating local economies.
The “Return Our Mother Tongue” march of December 1988 launched Hakka activism in Taiwan. Thanks to the efforts of many activists, the basic demands of the march have been realized in the three decades since. Scholars and Hakka elders join us in looking back at that movement, which played an important role in the emergence of Taiwan’s multiethnic democracy. We also examine the concerns of Hakkas today. In another conversation with the land, in this month’s “Around Taiwan” feature our reporters take readers on a nostalgic bicycle trip through Hualien, following in the tracks of the Japanese immigrants of an earlier era.
We also revisit the contributions of author and literary historian Yeh Shih-tao, whose career spanned the Japanese and postwar eras. Yeh often set his works in Tainan, describing its ordinary citizens’ lives—their food, their homes and their ways of thinking. An anthology of his short stories, Spring Dream at Gourd Alley, has just been published in Vietnamese translation with assistance from Tainan’s Cultural Affairs Bureau.
Taiwan’s industrial prowess continues to shine in the international arena. In green manufacturing, meteorology, and information technology, Taiwan remains at the front of the pack.
Yvonne Chiu, chairwoman of the World Information Technology and Services Alliance, helped Taiwan gain the right to host last year’s World Congress on Information Technology, which is seen as the “Olympics of high tech.” The event allowed Taiwan to showcase its soft power in systems integration, software and innovation. Chiu has also been a driving force behind the Personal Information Protection Act, and in advancing women’s opportunities for employment and study.
If this issue of Taiwan Panorama prompts greater understanding of human interactions in contemporary Taiwan, as well as pride in the people who have grown up here, nothing would please us more.
