People urged to respect foreign workers, spouses
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- People in Taiwan should respect and embrace foreign workers and spouses, urged an editorial of the China Times yesterday.
A Taiwanese employer made international headlines for forcing Muslim workers from Indonesia to eat pork. The news, which drew Jakarta's condemnation, has really tarnished Taiwan's image.Clarification, there are two issues that the author thinks are not good for Taiwan face. This is the first issue.
Meanwhile Education Minister Wu Ching-ji told the Legislative Yuan that Chinese students who are allowed to study in Taiwan will be “repatriated” if they marry local citizens because it would not comply with their purpose for visiting Taiwan. This is issue 2. Restated, if a Chinese person comes to University in Taiwan and gets married to a Taiwanese they should be sent back to China because their reason to be here is study not marriage. He tried later to soften his stance, but he had already unwittingly damaged the country's image by referring to “repatriation,” which has negative connotations, said the editorial.Yes, that's right. The only problem with what he said is repatriation. It has nothing to do with the fact people from other countries can do the same thing without a problem.
The employer who forced her Moslem -Ooops we mis-spelled it. I'm not perfect either. But if i had an editor and a proofreader, I hope I would do better. workers to eat pork has been indicted by prosecutors, which is the remedy and protection provided by the law. The employer was also reprimanded in the court of public opinion, which saw a majority of people disapprove of her behavior. Lets clarify, the person who forced Muslims to eat pork against their will by threat of their job was told... don't do that.
The two incidents should not be considered isolated cases. Rather, they betray a mind-set common to many locals. This is very true. The government's policy of allowing Chinese students to study here was stonewalled in the legislature because of concerns that they could compete with local people for social resources and jobs, and are therefore a threat. But we forgot to mention that Taiwan does not allow Chinese to live and work in Taiwan unless they marry for any reason. So the only way these people could take away resources and jobs is if the Chinese did a better job by taking that knowledge back home with them.
In order to win over the skeptics' support, the government imposed many restrictions on the policy, which has caused anxiety among the presidents of many leading universities.
“We wonder whether the country will still be worthy of the name of democracy if it goes as far as banning marriages between Chinese students and local people,” said the editorial.Well, if the people all voted for that and/or it appropriately reflected public sentiment and went through due process how is this de-valuing democracy? These are really the opinions of the professors? Maybe you shouldn't fear the Chinese learning too much from Taiwan.
Many local activists have spoken of abuse or bad treatment of foreign workers in Taiwan and encouraged public discussion of the issue by recording the stories in various books. A bestseller in Thailand is a novel based on a Thai worker's sufferings in Taiwan.Wow imagine that... People were abused in Taiwan and after having made it out of here alive and unmarried they wrote about their experiences.
Taiwanese readers would feel uneasy to find that their country is portrayed in the novel as a hell for many foreign workers. It is one kind of hell for white collar workers and another kind of imprisoned hell for blue collar workers. Most people consider being forced to work for undefined amounts of money to no money against their will as slavery.
The increasing volume of scholarly studies, books and discussions relating to foreign workers and foreign spouses demonstrate that they are part of our society and cannot be ignored. As a country made up of immigrants, Taiwan should open its arms and minds to foreigners and make them part of “us.” Hang on... somehow I missed how the ostracism, slavery, forced sex trade, intentional sensitization of children to people who are different, prejudices and generally bad attitude can be interpreted as ignoring the issues.
Well, this had a direct bearing on some other recent posts. Next time I will try to post a really inflammatory issue from China Post.
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