Article about Doris Brougham in Taipei Times

Profile of the English teacher/missionary who has been in Taiwan for over half a century

Michael Turton's review of recent Brookings conference on cross-strait relations...

... confirms to me that my earlier pessimism about the incoming US administration's position on Taiwan isn't too far off.

Michael has a good review of a presentation by Richard Bush, former head of the US's de facto embassy in Taiwan and currently director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies. Bush, Michael says, "will no doubt oversee Taiwan policy for the Obama Administration". In his talk, Bush stressed the importance of the "process" in Taiwan-China relations and the importance of "pragmatism". Michael has some choice words for what "process" might actually mean to those emphasizing it:

The emphasis on process resulted, inevitably, in questions from the audience asking what the outcomes would be, or what the benefits of continuing the process might be. Bush dodged these and refused to specify what outcome would be desired or likely. The process was put forth as the goal, suggesting that (1) the Establishment wants to deliver Taiwan to China with a big bow-tie on it since we all know where the KMT is heading; (2) the Establishment thinks that the Taiwan-China diplomatic process is going to be like the Middle East peace process: interminable, and providing plenty of employment for diplomats, hence outcomes are irrelevant; (3) the Establishment thinks the US has little power to influence outcomes; or (4) the Establishment knows that as long as they emphasize process and appear to do China's bidding, China will be happy, while the independence movement in Taiwan will never permit the actual annexation of Taiwan to China. Hence, stalemate, no real loss. The reader may choose; I cannot.

Michael also analyzes what the dual emphasis on "process" and "pragmatism" actually means for the so-called status quo between Taiwan and China:

Many people, including many in the DPP, have expressed fear at the likely negative impact of Obama's China policy on Taiwan. I have to say that I saw nothing to reassure me on that score. Whatever the actual reasons for the Establishment's position, the emphasis on a process that can only result in Taiwan's annexation to China in some form, legitimated by an emphasis on a pragmatism that for practical purposes is ostensibly value-free, cannot be good for Taiwan. Another bit of interesting fall-out is the "ratchet effect" on the status quo -- as the process becomes the status quo, by default, moves away from it and in defense of Taiwan's sovereignty and democracy will be termed status quo violations, while moves toward China, though violations of any rational definition of the status quo, will be applauded.

All in all, rather depressing prospects. I doubt I would have voted for McCain if I were only thinking about Taiwan, but I'm sad at the prospect that the incoming Democrat administration might care as little about Taiwan as the previous administrations have.

CFP: Conference on Human Rights, International Law & Collective Violence

Very timely...

*International and Interdisciplinary Conference*

Dates: April 17-18 2009

Topic: Human Rights, International Law & Collective Violence

Sponsored by the Center for Spirituality, Ethics and Global Awareness and International Program,

Davis and Elkins College, WV

*Call for Papers
*Deadline for Abstract: *February 20th, 2009*

*Suggested Subtopics:*

Psychology of Violent Group Behavior; Genocide, Rebellion, Cults; Mass Murder; Intentional Criminality and Criminal Violence; Workplace Violence; Collective Violence and Social Pluralism; Collective Violence in Groups and Social Pluralism; Groups and Governments; Violence and Collective Responsibility; Violence and Politics; Bio-Terrorism and Counter Measures; Gender Violence; Collective Identity and Escalation of Ethnic Conflict; Collective Violence and Individual Punishment; Criminality of Mass Atrocity; Computer Ethics and Collective Violence; Violence in Prison; Globalization and International Law; International Environmental Law and Policy; International Human Rights; Terrorism, Pacifism and the Culture of War; Gandhi and the Philosophy of Non-Cooperation; Television, Terrorism and War/Peace Discourse(s); Muslim-Christian Relations in an Age of Terror; Origins of Terrorism (past and present); Arts, War and Peace; Strategies for Peace in a Time of Terror; Peace Narratives in Contemporary Film and Literature; Terror, Politics & Economics; The Internationalization of Terrorism; Violence and Religion Post 9/11; Gandhi and MLK, Jr.: Theories of Resistance and Nonviolence; The Paradox of Violence; Film, War and a Discourse of Dissent; Contemporary Anti-War Poetry; Terrorism: What is it?; Terrorism and the Role of Radical Religions; Suicide Terrorism; The Objectives of Terrorism; Tactics of Terrorism; Terrorism, Targeting, Ethnicity and Race; Homeland Security (Anti-terror Policy); Fundamentalisms, Pluralism and the Conditions for War and Peace; Terrorism & Nationalism; Europe & Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism

- *Selected papers from Conference will be subjected to editorial review*
- There is a small travel fund available for early submissions**

*Contact:*
Chandana Chakrabarti,Ph.D.

Dean of International Program
Director of the Center for Spirituality, Ethics and Global Awareness
Phone: 304-637-1293

E-mail: Chakrabartic@DavisAndElkins.edu
Chandanachak@gmail.com

Tell the new US administration you want support for Taiwanese self-determination

Via Tom Benson's blog, I found out about the incoming US administration's website, Change.gov. They've got forms for people to submit their hopes and vision for the new administration. The cynic in me suggests that this attempt at "open" government isn't really going to go anywhere, but the idealist in me wrote something to them, anyway. I expressed my hope that the US would be more supportive of the rights of the Taiwanese people for self-determination regarding their future. (This assumes that Taiwan remains a democracy...)

Add your stories and visions! (I don't want to be the only fool doing it... ;) )

Mixed feelings

I don't know how to feel today. On the one hand, I'm happy about the results of the election in the US. On the other, I can't avoid getting the feeling that we're slowly sinking back into martial law here.

I'm going to copy a statement by international scholars and writers that Michael Turton posted since I'm pretty sure that the two or three people in the States who read my blog aren't the same as the (many more) people who read his. Hope the word can get out.

November 4, 2008

JOINT STATEMENT

US, European and Australian scholars and writers express concern about prosecutions in Taiwan

The undersigned, scholars and writers from the US, Europe and Australia wish to express their deep concern about the recent series of detentions in Taiwan of present and former DPP government officials. To date there have been at least seven such cases (See list below).

以下聯署的國際學者對於近日台灣政府一連串拘留卸任與現任民進黨政府官員的行動，深表憂慮。直至今日，據我們瞭解共有七件類似案件。

It is obvious that there have been cases of corruption in Taiwan, but these have occurred in both political camps. The political neutrality of the judicial system is an essential element in a democracy. It is also essential that any accused are considered innocent until proven guilty in the court of law.

很明顯的，貪污這個問題在台灣依然存在，但是這樣的案例在兩大政黨裡均曾發生。司法系統維持政治中立是民主的基本要素。堅持任何被指控者在裁定有罪前均是無罪的法律理念也是必要的。

We also believe that the procedures followed by the prosecutor's offices are severely flawed: while one or two of the accused have been formally charged, the majority is being held incommunicado without being charged. This is a severe contravention of the writ of habeas corpus and a basic violation of due process, justice and the rule of law.

我們認為檢察官所採取的法律程序有著嚴重的缺失：雖然當一、兩位被指控者已被正式起訴時，大多數被指控者卻在未被正式起訴情況之下就遭到收押禁見。這嚴重違反了人身保護令以及正當法律程序、公義與法治。

In the meantime, the prosecutor's offices evidently leak detrimental information to the press. This kind of "trial by press" is a violation of the basic standards of judicial procedures. It also gives the distinct impression that the Kuomintang authorities are using the judicial system to get even with members of the former DPP government. In addition, the people who are being held incommunicado are of course unable to defend themselves against the misreporting and the leaks in the news media.

在此同時，檢察官辦公室很明顯地將相關不利消息透露給媒體。這種「透過媒體辦案」的方式違反司法程序的基本標準；也讓外界認為國民黨政府利用司法系統來報復已下台的民進黨政府。此外，被收押禁見的人，在與外界斷絕聯繫的情況下，無法澄清外界不實報導與媒體洩密。

We do firmly believe that any alleged wrongdoings must be dealt with in a fair and open manner in an impartial court. Justice through the rule of law is essential to Taiwan's efforts to consolidate democracy and protect fundamental human rights.

我們深信任何宣稱的犯罪行為應該以公正與公開的方式，在中立的法庭裡審判。透過法治落實司法，才能強化台灣民主與保障基本人權。

We do not want to see Taiwan's hard-earned democracy jeopardized in this manner. Taiwan can justifiably be proud of its transition to democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It would be sad for Taiwan and detrimental to its international image if the progress which was made during the past 20 years would be erased. Taiwan needs to move forward, not backwards to the unfair and unjust procedures as practiced during the dark days of Martial Law (1947-87).

我們不願見到台灣辛苦得來的民主陷入如此困境。台灣因 為在八零年代後期與九零年早期成功轉型為民主國家，而引以為傲。如果過去二十年來的民主進展從此抺煞，這不僅將令人難過，台灣的國際形象也將受到嚴害傷 害。台灣必須向前邁進，而不應是開倒車回到過去戒嚴黑暗時代的不公與不義。

Signed:

簽署人：

Nat Bellocchi, former Chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan 　
Julian Baum, former Taiwan Bureau Chief, Far Eastern Economic Review
Coen Blaauw, Formosan Association for Public Affairs, Washington DC
David Prager Branner, Director at Large (East Asia), American Oriental Society
Gordon G. Chang, author, "The Coming Collapse of China."
June Teufel Dreyer, Professor of Political Science, University of Miami, Florida
Edward Friedman, Professor of Political Science and East Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Bruce Jacobs, Professor of Asian Languages and Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Richard C. Kagan, Professor Emeritus of History, Hamline University, St. Paul Minnesota
Jerome F. Keating, Associate Professor, National Taipei University (Ret.). Author, "Island in the Stream, a quick case study of Taiwan's complex history" and other works on Taiwan
Daniel Lynch, Associate Professor, School of International Relations, University of Southern California
Victor H. Mair, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, University of Pennsylvania
Donald Rodgers, Associate Professor of Political Science, Austin College, Texas
Terence Russell, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, University of Manitoba
Scott Simon, Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Ottawa
John J. Tkacik Jr., Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation, Washington DC
Gerrit van der Wees, Editor Taiwan Communiqué, Washington DC
Vincent Wei-cheng Wang, Professor of Political Science, University of Richmond, Virginia
Arthur Waldron, Lauder Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania
Stephen Yates, President of DC Asia Advisory and former Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs
---------------------------------------------------------------

Specific cases of concern:
-- The arrest and detention on October 15th of former Interior minister Yu Cheng-hsien;

-- The arrest and detention on October 27th of former Hsinchu Science Park Director and Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection Dr. James Lee;

-- The arrest and detention on October 29th of DPP Chiayi County Commissioner Chen Ming-wen;

-- The indictment on October 30th of DPP Tainan City Councilor Wang Ting-yu;

-- The arrest and detention on October 31st of former National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general and Deputy Prime Minister Chiou I-jen;

-- The questioning of former Foreign Minister Dr. Mark Chen on November 3rd and insinuations in the press that he might be charged and arrested.

-- The arrest and detention on November 4th of DPP Yunlin County Magistrate Ms. Su Chih-fen.

Note: Ms. Su Chih-fen has refused to post bail and is currently on a hunger strike in protest of her detention. She has several health conditions already, including high blood pressure and liver problems. Here's an article about her arrest.

Three new Taiwan-related books in the former native speaker's library

Been out-of-my-mind busy recently, but I bought these (or they've arrived) within this past week.

• <<自由中國>>與臺灣自由主義思潮: 威權體制下的民主考驗 by 何卓恩
• When Valleys Turned Blood Red: The Ta-pa-ni Incident in Colonial Taiwan by Paul R. Katz
• The Taiwan Confrontation Crisis by George H. Kerr

The first book is about the famous journal Free China Fortnightly that was started by Lei Chen and Hu Shih and shut down around the time Lei Chen was arrested in 1960. The book looks pretty tough, though--lots of political philosophy (and in Chinese, yet!). The author, He Zhuo'en, is actually from Hubei and teaches at Huazhong Normal University. We'll have to see how that fact colors his perspective (or my perspective on his book).

The third book was published in 1986 by FAPA and the Formosan Association for Human Rights.

Now if I can ever get any time to read any of them...

CFP: Local memories in a nationalizing and globalizing world (1750 up to present)

via H-Memory:

CALL FOR PAPERS; LOCAL MEMORIES IN A NATIONALIZING AND GLOBALIZING WORLD (1750 UP TO PRESENT)

The Center for Political History, the Center for Urban History (University of Antwerp) and
FelixArchief (Antwerp City Archives) are organizing a conference on:
LOCAL MEMORIES IN A NATIONALIZING AND GLOBALIZING WORLD (1750 UP TO PRESENT)

Place: FelixArchief, Oudeleeuwenrui 29, 2000 Antwerp
Date: 15th-16th October 2009

In academic discourse, the concept of 'collective memory' has migrated, since the 1950s from the field of the social to that of the cultural sciences. Maurice Halbwachs' intuition that collective memory was essentially a pre-existing social fact structuring individual past-relationships, gave way to the recognition that social memories are more or less intentionally construed with the aim of creating and consolidating identities. It was in this constructivist vein that the concept became successful among historians, thoroughly influenced by the cultural turn. Their focus was on the way memories were forged through stories, monuments and other cultural artifacts, that came to serve as lieux de mémoire within specific collectivities. Among these collectivities, nations have received the lion's share of the historians' attention. In spite of a recent re-orientation to the memories of other - most often smaller - 'milieux de mémoire', the central premise has remained that intellectual and political elites deliberately produced memories, which were consumed by the masses. Even when it is admitted that 'consumption' can consist of active and creative appropriation, the overall top-down perspective seems to be largely unquestioned.

This conference opts for a more dynamic view of the creation and transmission of memories. It focuses on the ways in which memories were recurred to and used in the everyday discourses and practices of groups at a local level. These groups can be defined along different lines (socio-professional, geographic, generational, religious, ethnic, ...) and have various extensions (a neighborhood, a village, a town, a region); moreover, the discourses and practices can bear upon the most diverse aspects of life and take on the most diverse forms (textual, oral, visual, material). Not the straightforward creation of master narratives about the group's own past will be the main concern of the conference, but the way in which these groups more or less consciously - and more or less successfully - combined diverse, sometimes even conflicting memories. Doing so, the organizers hope fully to re-inscribe the concept of memory into the field of social history. The period that will be investigated - from 1750 until today - is characterized by the rise and the expansion of the nation state, and by the competing process of globalization. The efforts that were made during this period to create homogeneous national memories will serve during this conference as a background to the study of local memories. Did these local memories resist the growing prominence of national memory, did they incorporate aspects of it, or did they exist and develop without any interference of 'the national'? And how did local memories interact with globalizing processes
such as colonization and migration?

Within this general framework, papers should address one of the following themes:
- The deliberate creation of institutions for the preservation and transmission of local memories (local museums, associations, courses in primary schools on local history, citizen initiatives,...).
- Local forms of historiography, without or within the academic sphere.
- The presence of the past in ritualized forms of community building at a local or regional level (celebrations, liturgies, monuments,...).
- The presence of the past in non-ritualized, group-specific practices and discourses (the transmission of professional skills, name-giving, ...).
- The recurrence to the past in conflicts between groups or in acts of local resistance.
- The transmission (and alteration) of traditions as a way of preserving group-specific memories in changing contexts.
- The experience of the local past by individuals, through the study of ordinary writings, oral sources or their material heritage.

Organizing committee:
Marnix Beyen (Center for Political History - Univ. of Antwerp )
Bert De Munck (Center for Urban History - Univ. of Antwerp)
Brecht Deseure (Center for Urban History - Univ. of Antwerp)
Inge Schoups (FelixArchief, Antwerp City Archives)
Carolien Van Loon (Center for Political History - Univ. of Antwerp)
Tom Verschaffel (KULeuven - Subfaculty of Arts Campus Kortrijk)

Contact:
Tel. : ++ 32 (0)3 220 42 68
Email: local.memories@ua.ac.be
Website: www.ua.ac.be/localmemories

PLEASE SEND YOUR ABSTRACT (OF ABOUT 500 WORDS TO local.memories@ua.ac.be BEFORE 1ST NOVEMBER 2008

New book in the former native speaker's library

• Formosa: Licensed Revolution and the Home Rule Movement, 1895-1945, by George H. Kerr (Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1974)
  Good condition, but no dust cover; title page autographed by George H. Kerr; inscription on inside front cover: "For Bill Kerr the 2nd, from Jack Kerr, the 1st, Honolulu, November 16, 1974" ("Jack" is most likely George Kerr, since Jack was his nickname [click on the image of the letter].* But who's Bill Kerr the 2nd?)

*Or check out these letters to Jack Kerr, written in 1947...

Our new pet?

This critter has decided to move in with us recently. What shall we call it?


(Click on the picture for a larger version... if you dare...)

In fact, what is it? I mean, I know it's a spider, but...



It doesn't seem to do much but wander around, yawning and stretching...



and occasionally picking its nose...



Seems to have taken a shine to us, though. Maybe it's the reincarnation of Mei-Mei.

The spammers are getting more creative

Here are the subject lines of three four lots of e-mails I just received:

• "Stray javelin kills promising US sprinter"


• "Russia launches nuclear plant"


• "Charred bodies found on White House lawn"


• "Freak accident causes Tom cruise to be paralysed"


• "Two-headed baby born in Texas"


• "Michael Vick escapes from Federal jail" (this one might need a footnote)


• "Madonnas Former Home Destroyed By Jesus"

More as I get them... maybe it could be a found poem.

(Pardon me for a moment while I put my fist through this computer monitor...)

[Update: There. That felt better.]

CFP: Matters of State, Leuven University, Belgium

Call for Papers

Matters of State: Bildung and Literary-Intellectual Discourse in the Nineteenth Century

Leuven University, April 23-25 2009

The American and French Revolutions are generally considered as decisive episodes in the emergence of what we have come to know as modern democracy. Their displacement of time-honored models of hereditary rule and of monotheistic conceptions of sovereignty inaugurated Western modernity. The fall-out of these ruptures made the 19th century an era of unprecedented intensity in the history of politics and the political. As a time of massive demographic change, new patterns of production and distribution, seismic surges in geopoliticization, and relentless social differentiation and specialization, the 19th century became a ‘condition’ demanding to be addressed. This challenge was met by a multiplicity of discourses, few of which can be decisively told apart: poetry, political economy, cultural criticism, historiography, philosophy, and science in their different ways all attempted to measure the impact of the displacements that defined their modernity and to shape an adequate response to them.

It is from this context that nineteenth-century discourses of the State derive their urgency. As strategies to imagine – and to actively pursue – forms of collectivity that can serve as a concerted response to the challenges of modernity, these discourses enlist (or reject) categories such as the nation, education, or the imagination in order to formulate a new rhetoric of community. What distinguishes the discourse on the State is its express ambition to contribute to an appropriate response to the modern condition by training its audience to become responsible citizens of the State. This typically involves the adaptation of models for the cultivation of the modern self, such as those inherited from the German discourse on Bildung, to contexts of increased scale and complexity that challenge these models to the core. Not only in Britain or Germany, but in every locality where the task of articulating the nation with the State is recognized as a discursive challenge, literary-intellectual discourse becomes an archive where many of the tensions and contradictions of the nineteenth century intersect in a particularly condensed way.

Because the imagination of the State, as a political and social unit, relies on rhetorical, tropological, and imagistic processes, disciplines that explicitly focus on textual and imagistic strategies are crucial in the analysis of the politics of the State. ‘Matters of State’ proposes to revisit significant instances of the literary-intellectual attempt to re-think the State, and relevant intersections of these attempts with related and/or competing political, literary, scientific, (crypto-)religious, iconographic, … discursive strategies to imagine the State. We are interested in papers that focus on explicit or implicit contributions to a public aesthetics of the State by way of new or modified rhetorics of community.

Possible topics include but are not restricted to the following:

• What are the means of production, cultivation, preservation and reproduction of “moral sentiments” appropriate to an ethos of the State?
• How do affective dispositions like sympathy and trust travel from the intimate sphere of personal encounter to the public sphere of citizenship?
• Given the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment reassessment of the impact of religion on the individual, what are the discursive formations that take over, at least in part, the public administration of emotional investment traditionally monitored by religious institutions?
• How do available or emergent routines of identity formation in terms of class, gender or race relate to models of citizenship?
• How do concepts such as “region,” “country,” “nation,” and “Empire” find a place in a rhetoric of community centering on the State?
• What are the effects of the interaction of organic metaphors and an increasingly industrialized nineteenth-century reality?
• In what way do present-day discourses on governmentality, biopower, and sovereignty allow us to reflect on nineteenth-century conceptualizations of the State?
• How do discursive constructions of the State differ in different countries, both in Europe and abroad?
• To what extent do literary-intellectual discourses exploit not only the educational but also the imagistic denotation of the term Bildung?
• How do constructions of the State construct the State’s other?
• How did poetry, and literature more generally, operate as a privileged space for the embodiment, testing, and subversion of models of the State?
• To what extent do imaginings of citizenship, equality, fraternity … inevitably entail the persistence, or even the promotion, of economic, ethnic, and/or gender inequalities? How do inclusive models (fail to) account for their exclusions?
• How do scientific models taken from mathematics and the natural sciences influence discourse on community and citizen formation, and to what extent are these models (biological, psychological, sociological, anthropological, economic, …) accommodated in a prospective science of State or Staatswissenschaft?
• How do nations and individuals come to terms with modernity as a growing dependence on the specialized, expert discourses of science and technology, and how are these ideas of dependence and expertise themselves constructed rhetorically?
  

Keynote speakers:

Amanda Anderson (Johns Hopkins University)
Karl Heinz Bohrer (Stanford University)
Eva Geulen (Universität Bonn)
Thomas Pfau (Duke University)
Tilottama Rajan (University of Western Ontario)
Joseph Vogl (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, to be confirmed)

We welcome proposals for panels and for 20-minutes papers in English, French, or German. Please send your one-page proposal (two pages for panels), together with your contact data, in a separate word document to matters.of.state [at] arts.kuleuven.be, before September 30. For panel proposals, provide a general introduction and short abstracts for the different papers (3 or 4). Notification of acceptance no later than November 15. For more information, check www.arts.kuleuven.be/matters_of_state. The conference website will be updated regularly as more information becomes available.

Some changes in the works regarding (some) foreign scholars?

The former native Chinese speaker pointed out this article to me in the China Times that mentions a few interesting things about work permits and visas for foreign scholars. Some of them are a bit confusing (to me, anyway), so I want to write this out to see if I'm clear about it.

The article mentions that Taiwan University was having trouble getting a work permit for a foreign Nobel scholar they wanted to bring in to lecture, so legislator Ding Shouzhong is pushing for some changes to the Employment Services Act (就業服務法) to allow foreign scholars in to do research or teaching for up to six months, pending approval of the MOE. In other words, they wouldn't need to go through the process of getting a work permit through the Council of Labor Affairs, a process which includes getting blood tests for HIV and venereal diseases. (There's an interesting racial/class issue in this whole thing, by the way--particularly in this article, that suggests that it's too embarrassing to ask famous foreign scholars to submit to the kind of process required of foreign laborers.)

There's more to say about this article, but I don't have time to work through it right now. (Got other things to do.) Anyway, below is a copy of the article in Chinese:

台大去年有意聘請諾貝爾得主崔琦來台講學，卻因需申請工作證而受阻。立委丁守中昨天在立法院衛環委員會提案，並通過修正《就業服務法》第四十八條，增列經教育部認可，即可來台進行六個月內短期講座、學術研究，不受限是否有工作證。

對此修法，學界一片叫好。台大主秘傅立成大表贊同，他說，延聘海外知名學者是追求國際化的重要環節，禮遇有益促進學術交流，是相當進步的政策。半年免工作，即表示可一整個學期待在台灣，都免辦工作證，對學界相當方便。

陽明大學校長吳妍華表示，之前找國外學者來台，得經過體檢是否有愛滋病、傳染病。但大學實在開不了口要求海外大師配合抽血檢驗。現在都免了，邀請更方便。

成大校長賴明詔說，以前的方式對學者太不尊重，像是「外勞」，要花二、三個月向勞工局申請，對校方是沈重的負擔。

我國《就業服務法》第四十八條明白規定，「各級政府及其所屬學術研究機構聘請擔任顧問、研究工作者，或與中華民國國民結婚並獲准居留者，不需申請許可」。去年傳出台大聘請諾貝爾得主崔琦來台講學卻需申請工作證，引發爭議。

勞委會主委王如玄指出，教育部蒐集十四個國家對大專院校聘僱國際知名人士規定，僅四個國家簡化行政流程和文件，但所有國家都要求入境工作就需申請許可，沒有優惠待遇。勞委會需顧及本國人工作權益，不宜對外國學者來台從事學術研究工作全面免申請許可。

經勞委會、教育部和丁守中等立委協商後，增列進行六個月內短期講座、學術研究者，經教育部認可，可免申請許可。全案送院會審查。

Comp/Oral I debate contest

I just finished judging a debate contest in which students from the Composition and Oral Practice I classes at Tunghai (first-year English majors) debated the resolution, "Mainland Chinese students should be allowed to apply to universities in Taiwan." We listened to three debates on this topic today.

I have to say I value the opportunity to hear what first-year students have to say about this issue. They brought up some interesting points, illustrating, perhaps, some of their own anxieties about education in Taiwan. They evidently frequently hear about how hardworking students in China are--several groups mentioned stories about Chinese students studying under streetlights when the dorm lights go out, for instance, and compared these stories with examples of university students in Taiwan who play computer games and chat on MSN all night long. (Evidently Mr. Ma has mentioned this at some point in his argument in favor of allowing Chinese students here.) In the end, I found my own point of view about this issue complicated a bit by what they said.

I found, not surprisingly, things to criticize about the students' debates, but also things to praise, like the way many of them arranged their arguments, rebutted opponents' arguments, and cited sources. One thing I forgot to say, that I wish I had the opportunity to say to them, is that we teachers sometimes forget that what we ask students to do is something that has taken us years to be able to achieve. (This is true at least in my case. I'm still terrible at impromptu speaking!) So my hat's off to the students and teachers of Comp/Oral I this year!

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Michael Turton asked about the arguments students were making in the debates, so I thought I'd mention some of them here. I'm just listing some out here without comment. Also, some arguments might overlap.

For allowing Chinese students to apply:

1. Will stimulate/promote cultural exchange between Chinese and Taiwanese students
2. Will promote cultural understanding between Chinese and Taiwanese society
3. Can give students from the PRC a chance to live and learn in a more open society
4. Will help promote colleges in Taiwan that have declining enrollments
5. Will help internationalize education in Taiwan by encouraging foreign students to apply
6. If we accept students from other countries, why not accept students from China?
7. Will help motivate Taiwanese students to work harder (the Mr. Ma argument)
8. Will bring more elite students here from China

Those were most of the more frequently cited "pro" arguments the students made. As Sam Spade says, "Maybe some of them are unimportant - I won't argue about that - but look at the number of them. And what have we got on the other side?" Well, let's take a look:

For not allowing Chinese students to apply:

1. Will require Taiwan to provide Chinese students with scholarships, causing a further drain on the educational budget
2. Schools with declining enrollments are not high quality, so should be allowed to close
3. Students coming to Taiwan from China might not be all that elite (especially if they're sent to low-ranked schools)
4. Will result in a lot of illegal labor from China (workers pretending to be students)
5. Could result in legal problems concerning whether students from China are to be considered "international" or "domestic"

There was some interesting back-and-forth related to a lot of these assertions, including citations (on both sides) of examples from other countries like the U.S. and Belgium. A lot of discussion centered around who was going to have to pay for their attendance in Taiwan's universities and why we should or should not (or even can) prop up schools with declining enrollments by 'importing' students from China. There was some grudging acceptance of the idea that bringing students over could contribute to cultural exchange and understanding, but the "cons" rejected the idea that bringing in students from China would encourage more international students to come.

One thing I wanted to hear that I didn't hear until the very end was a number: how many Chinese students are we talking about? No one had a clear number for how many might be accepted to Taiwan, but one "pro" debater mentioned that in Hong Kong, only 205 of the 2000 Chinese students who applied in 2005 were accepted. This eased my mind a bit--some of the "con" debaters' arguments made me think that perhaps we were talking about allowing millions of students in. (One person on the "con" side expressed concern about traffic problems that might be caused by an influx of Chinese students!)

[Update, 23 June 2008]

More pictures taken on Sunday

Here are some pictures we took of the Central Mountain Range on Sunday. They were taken from the fifth floor of the Humanities building at Tunghai. We had a good view of the mountains after the rain cleaned up the air.

The construction on the left is of "Moon River," a new apartment building (like we need any more around here...)




The tall tower is a building called, simply, "Hotel ONE".

The following two are "stitched" shots...

Trip to the Daodong Tutorial Academy

The weather cleared up a bit yesterday, so the former native Chinese speaker and I took a trip to Hemei in Changhua to look at the Daodong Tutorial Academy there. We went to the Huangsi Academy in Taichung County a while back and thought it would be interesting to see another of the traditional schools set up here.

The visitor's guide to the Academy describes it as follows:

Local gentlemen advocated and offered a land for building the Daodong Tutorial Academy in 1857, and it was completed the following year. It is a compound with traditional Chinese houses around a courtyard which sits north, and faces south.

Here are some of the pictures we took of the Academy. Most of these were taken by the former native Chinese speaker.

The main gate



The front of the school



Some lianwu (wax apples) growing on a tree said to be over 100 years old



The entrance to the school building--the guide told us that the center door was reserved for officials, elites, or other grand high muck-a-mucks. If you look at the picture of the front of the school, you'll see the two side doors have steps leading up to them, but the center door has a ramp. That wasn't for wheelchair access; it was for carrying someone up in a palanquin (轎子).



A newer painting, dating from 2004. This painting is found near the front door of the building.



An older painting, dating from 1884. I have to admit I like the older ones better than the newer ones, but a lot of the school had to be rebuilt after years of disuse. The most recent major work done on it was after the 921 earthquake in 1999.



Prayers from area students who want to get into particular schools (the local 'deity' is Zhu Xi, the "father" of Neoconfucianism)



This is interesting--they used this to burn paper that had been written on, as a way to honor Cang Jie, who, as legend has it, is responsible for the Chinese writing system. Since Chinese characters are, I guess, sacred, people were not allowed to throw away paper that had been written on.

I've got more pictures of the school here, in case anyone is interested. We had a nice time, and a staff member named Miss Tung was especially helpful in answering our questions. Here's a pic of her and me:

(Next time I'll shave before going out with a camera. You never know...)

[Updated 17 June 2008]

[Update 11 June  2016: I just came across a more recent post on the Daodong Academy on Alexander Synaptic's blog. It includes a pretty creepy story about an event that took place at the temple after our trip there in 2008.]

End-of-the-school-year activities

I've been getting my picture taken a lot lately, not because of my killer good looks (though I'm sure that's one reason), but because my Freshman English students took me out for dinner this week. In return for their feeding me, I stared into the lenses of their many cameras and gave the "Y" finger gesture (known as the "V" for "victory" in the US) many times. Here's some of the evidence.

I had a great time with my students this year and will miss them. They're like the children I don't have (and, hence, whose tuition I don't have to pay). Seriously, though, it has been especially poignant for me this semester because two of my students, a current student from International Trade and (her boyfriend) a former student from Public Management, were in a serious traffic accident in April and have both been in the hospital since then. Sometimes I feel like the world is such a dangerous place...

This afternoon we also went to a going-away party for two teachers who are retiring, Olivia Chang and Paul Harwood. Olivia and Paul (and Jan, too!), we'll miss you and wish you the best!

Dragon Boat deliciosities

Mmmm.... good... Nothing like homemade zongzi...

What philosophy do I follow?

I'm evidently quite confused...

What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Utilitarianism Your life is guided by the principles of Utilitarianism: You seek the greatest good for the greatest number. “The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.” --Jeremy Bentham “Whenever the general disposition of the people is such, that each individual regards those only of his interests which are selfish, and does not dwell on, or concern himself for, his share of the general interest, in such a state of things, good government is impossible.” --John Stuart Mill More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page... Utilitarianism 60% Justice (Fairness) 55% Hedonism 55% Strong Egoism 50% Kantianism 50% Existentialism 45% Nihilism 45% Apathy 35% Divine Command 35%

CFP: Tamkang International Conference on Second Language Writing: Issues and Concerns

Tamkang International Conference on Second Language Writing: Issues and Concerns

Call for Abstracts:
Writing as one of the fundamental language skills has traditionally posed a variety of challenges for second language teachers and learners. Once the writing skill is placed within particular contexts, these challenges multiply. These range from addressing writing skills within exam-driven traditional curricula to navigating the proliferation of technologies, to creating meaningful contexts for the learning of writing and managing the workload created for teachers when students write and expect feedback. This conference is intended as a forum for addressing the full range of pedagogical and research issues on second language writing. Abstracts are invited for papers on any aspects of foreign or second language writing learning and pedagogy. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Cognitive perspectives in L2 writing
• Learning Strategies
• Critical Literacy
• Identity in Literacy Instruction
• L2 writing pedagogy
• Reading/writing connection
• CMC in literacy instruction
• Academic writing
• Foreign language writing within school curricula
• Writing instruction integrating other language skills
• Second language writing integrated with other content areas (content-based instruction and writing across the curriculum, for example)
• Emerging literacies and issues of register (including technology-enabled influences on literacies and register exerted by the proliferation of e-mail, mobile devices and messaging, and the rise of the blog)
• Issues of feedback on student writing
• Research issues in writing pedagogy
• Voice and issues of empowerment
• Writing within standardized/institutional exam systems: (TOEFL, GEPT, etc.)
• Writing and technology
• The composing process

Important Dates:
Abstracts due: July 20th, 2008
Acceptance Notification: August 20th, 2008
Camera-ready papers due: November. 30th, 2008
Conference dates: December 5-6, 2008

Submit abstracts via email to: Wendy, miracle [at] mail.tku.edu.tw

Or mail to:
English Department, Tamkang University,
151 Ying-chuan Road, Tamsui, Taipei County Taiwan 25137, R.O.C.
Tel : 886-26215656 ext. 2344

Abstracts should not exceed 350 words in length (including references) and should include a clear description of the issue(s) addressed and a sketch of results. Include the author’s name, affiliation, and postal and email addresses.