From: joy@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Chien-Chung Chen)
Subject: Re: Those Typical Taiwanese
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 23:42:51 GMT

In article <C1A5oM.Dqp@ulowell.ulowell.edu> cshi@cs.ulowell.edu (Chunde Shi) writes:
>
>You can sense Taiwan/Taiwanese showing off wealth, not only among individuals,
>also institions, and even Taiwan government. I got this feeling from reading
>Taiwan's newspaper, listening to it's radio. Do you guys notice  a seris of 
>commercials on behalf of Taiwan on Time magazine? One commercial boasted 
>the Six Year Plan, in term of how much money Taiwan has. Those kind of 
>blantant, clumsy self-serving(I am not sure it serves good), not only about
>wealth, also about "Excellence Made In Taiwan".

Come on! What's wrong with having commercials? I don't believe you think
ROC spends money just for "self-serving". It's targeted for foreigners,
hoping they will have better impression on Taiwan's products, and then
buy more products made in Taiwan. Although personally I don't think these
commercials appealing to me, they hurt nobody's feeling and should not be
considered as showing off wealth.

As a Chinese, you should be happy with the economical improvement of Taiwan,
as I'm happy that China's economy has been growing ripidly. On the contrary,
you seem jealous of Taiwan's achievement.

>Some time it became so
>radiculous. Example: One ad says something like Taiwan has stepped into space
>age because Taiwan makes tennis racket with light, enduring material which is
>also used by U.S. spacecraft.

So? You don't buy the ads and blame Taiwan for "showing off wealth"?

>Another ad says Taiwan is the first to make PC
>with 32 bits words. Come on! To increase words from 16 bits to 32 bits in PC is
>a grad student's term project.

Huh? I think IBM should have hired at least one grad student earlier to take
this "first" title. :)  Well, it's not suitable for a geographic economy
major to flame people for PC stuff.

BTW, you should be happy that Taiwan can get this "first" title, instead of
showing the sour grape mentality.

>Taiwan is peculiar, unique on this. It might have some to do with KMT's defeat
>during Civil War. It is so urgent to them to feel recognized, valued. Adding
>to their image more than just losers during the War.

OK, OK. Taiwan's KMT was defeated in a war by China's CCP. And so?
Gee, don't you know the result of war may not be related to the right
or wrong. The loser of war does not necessarily have to be a loser in
economy or mortality. And what's wrong with wanting to be recognized
and valued? How come this positive attitude can become the target of
your flame ball?

>We often see this king of behavior among individuals when he/she has some
>defact in capacity or personality, they tend to emphsis some other apsects of
>their life in front of others. But for people with strong will, he/she may
>only work on it, not to show off his/her strentgh to remind everybody else his/
>her defect. 

What about Mainlanders' showing off PLA's military strength by simulating
China's military invasion to Taiwan on SCT? What about your showing off
China's #1 land fertility in the universe on SCT?

A funny thing is that on last night's International Channel, China's
ambassador to US (Zhu QiZen) "showed off" (by your definition) China's
economy fly.  Although I feel happy to hear that, I guess some Mainlanders
would be embarrassed with their ambassador's "show-off". You know, some
China's officials just learn nothing but bad from Taiwan.

>How can a group of people behave like that!

OK, OK. We Taiwanese are ridiculous and shallow. Then why is China
so eager to unify with us?

-- Chien-Chung Chen
Newsgroups: soc.culture.taiwan