Taiwanese-language soap operas prove popular in Southeast Asia

Dear Editor:

I really enjoyed Taiwanese TV Gets Taiwanized, which was published in the February 2000 issue (Southeast Asia edition) of Sinorama. In recent years, all four of Taiwan's broadcast TV networks have shown many 8:00 p.m. prime-time drama series in which the characters have spoken principally in Taiwanese. The most successful of these programs have featured a realistic focus on life in modern-day Taiwan (including city life), and television stations have relied heavily on such programs to attract advertisers and win stronger ratings. You also mentioned that the Mandarin and Taiwanese-language prime time shows were not very appropriate for children as they featured too much violence. I agree very strongly with this viewpoint, but it is also true that it's very easy to get hooked on the prime time shows in Taiwanese. This shows that our mother tongue has once again gained a place of prominence in Taiwan.

Under the repressive "white terror" regime of the martial law years, the government used heavy-handed tactics to suppress Taiwanese and promote the use of Mandarin. Due to the government's interference, almost nobody attained a really good command of the Taiwanese that we used all the time in our daily lives. I hope that prime time Taiwanese-language programs will bring us back up to speed in our mother tongue and turn it into the artistic instrument it can be. This should be part of the mission of these programs. In addition, I don't think that there is any reason why programs with a strong Taiwanese focus shouldn't be successful overseas, especially here in Southeast Asia where so many overseas Chinese can speak Taiwanese. If Taiwan's television stations and print media will carry out a vigorous publicity campaign and report on Taiwanese-language television programming and the main stars, these latter are sure to be a big success here.

(tr. by David Mayer)

Presidential Posture Questioned

Dear Editor:

I am a loyal Sinorama subscriber, but I was extremely disturbed by the cover of your July issue, which showed the president giving a Hitler-style Nazi salute. Surely this must be an upsetting image for Jewish people?

The world is a small place today, and it is wrong to be insensitive to the feelings of people from other countries. The problem could have been avoided if the president had simply spread his fingers or bent his arm.

Lin Wen-tsung, US