"People in the government always think that holding feasts is a wasteful activity, and the newspapers often propagate this view, . . .but if the people of a rural township spend a few million dollars once a year, it cannot really be considered a waste. In Taipei, the thousands of restaurants have people 'feasting' in them 365 days a year. If they spend a million dollars in one evening on eating and drinking, why does nobody say city people are wasteful?"
This is what Professor Li Yih-yuan of the Academia Sinica said about the feelings of country people in an article he wrote in 1976. Sixteen years later, now that we can enjoy a more open society, everyone respects, encourages and even enthusiastically participates in folk culture, rather than just trying to measure its worth according to an "economic" or "scientific" yardstick.
Today's temple festivals, as well as holding feasts, burn ceremonial boats at millions of dollars a throw and spend billions on fireworks; as for the amount spent on evenings of entertainment in Taipei, is it just limited to "restaurants and cafes?" The old slogans of "frugal worship, working and saving for wealth" are no longer to be seen (Temple Fever p.75).
"I think that many of us studying East Asian industrialization know how Charlie Chaplin's comic figure felt when facing the industrial machinery in the film Modern Times," is how Ezra Vogel, professor of sociology at Harvard University, describes the strangeness felt by observers in the advanced countries of the West when looking at the economic strength of East Asia. Why did the four little dragons complete, in the short period of 40 years, the process of industrialization which took the West a century to achieve? (The Four Little Dragons p.110)
Vogel's research into the factors leading to the success of the four little dragons specially raises the importance of the entrance exam system. Passing examinations is even seen as the most important aim in the life of young people and their families. For Vogel, the examination system means that an attitude of obedience and hard study is inculcated in the process of growing up, raising people who are willing to work long hours and are accustomed to following rules.
Look at the 60-hour week worked by South Koreans at the peak of their economic growth, and Japan's 50-hour week; then think again about the 29-hour week of German workers, as well as their enjoyment of the longest holidays and highest wages in the world--and they still go on strike for a four percent pay rise.
Under the influence of what Western scholars call "Confucian culture," Asians are tirelessly thrifty and diligent, love to study, love to work, and thus create wealth. But what happens to those who are disappointed in the exams? How can they find a place in a society that sees failure as a sign of not having worked hard enough? (The Young and the Rested p.29)
Statistics show that among youths aged 15 to 24, there are 517,000 who have either dropped out of school or not found employment. When did these unproductive youths with so much time on their hands appear in this hard-working society? People who twenty years ago worked as they studied, or left school to help the family, ask why, with such "leisure youths" so common in today's society, we should need to import foreign labor? Where have all those young people gone who worked so hard to produce exports only ten years ago? Has our society produced a kind of work-phobia? Yet surely the problem is that the whole point of people working so hard to industrialize is to create a better future with more leisure time.
After affluence, when looking at the increasing extravagance of temple ceremonies, our topic should not perhaps be frugality or waste, but a return to discussing the basic difference between piety and blasphemy. Why do Chinese people use pure water and unadulterated meat as their most revered gifts to heaven? Is burning a million dollar boat, complete with a real refrigerator and television, really the way to plea se the gods? Are the "leisure youths" of today, dropping out of school and facing unemployment, really the fortunate generation of leisure? Or are they just using electronic games to run away from pressure? Can our society be tolerant enough to give them a place to rest from their studies? Can they be given an opportunity to make a new start? Only if this is so can we really say that we live in a wealthy society.
After the development of science and industry, people can build roads over mountains and bridge rivers. When they see a patch of land, they envision the profits to be made from a high-rise building. When they com e across some natural scenery, they build a theme park. Civilized people today are not like Chaplin in Modern Times, staggering along at the mercy of machines. People today work with computers and even in their leisure they do not forget electronic boxes and machines. Who can see the passing of the seasons or the vitality of nature when in the urban jungle, or establish our position in nature and history.
Following the completion of the South Link Railway, the round-island network now forms a complete circle. The symbols of industrialization, representing speed and efficiency, will bring us even more civilization and prosperity. At this point between old and new, take half a day off and journey up one of the branch lines (Ex-train-eous Excursions p.7). Take a look at the forests and the streams and perhaps we can also take a calm look at what the industrialization we have strived for so hard over the past 40 years has brought us. What has been the price? Among all the pros and cons, how are we to find peace of mind and body. How are we to build the future?
