Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Tainan honors Japan engineer, wife

Taipei Times

Greater Tainan Mayor William Lai, left, and guests attend a ceremony to unveil a statue of Toyoki Yonemura, the wife of Yoichi Hatta, the designer of the Wushanto Reservoir, at the Hatta Yoichi Memorial Park in Guantian District, Greater Tainan, on Sunday.
Photo: CNA

More than 300 dignitaries and guests gathered in Greater Tainan on Sunday to commemorate Japanese civil engineer Yoichi Hatta and his wife, Toyoki Yonemura, for their dedication and contribution to Taiwan’s economy and agricultural development.

The event was held at the Yoichi Hatta Memorial Park at the Wushanto Reservoir (烏山頭水庫), one of the projects designed and built by Hatta during his 32 years of service in Taiwan from 1910 to 1942. A large Japanese delegation also attended the event, including Hatta’s daughter-in-law, Ayako, and other family members.

Happiness index not a true reflection

Taipei Times Editorial

Believe it or not, Taiwan’s first national happiness index shows the country rating close to the middle among the 37 countries assessed, ranking higher than Japan and South Korea in Asia. However, upon reflection, one might ponder if the index reflects the true experience of people living here.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) told officials in February last year to gauge the nation’s living conditions. On Friday, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released the results of more than a year of research on people’s degree of satisfaction with their wellbeing, with Taiwan taking 19th place among 34 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), plus Russia and Brazil.

Trade agreement and the Internet

Liu Ching-Yi 劉靜怡

No one disputes that the government’s decision to sign the cross-strait service trade agreement was both arbitrary and crude. In response to this criticism, however, the government — apart from attempting to co-opt anyone who would potentially stand to benefit from the agreement and answering their concerns with a lot of empty talk — does nothing to address the asymmetric access to information either side of the Taiwan Strait, and this is likely to create many problems for Internet users.

KMT2.0 has brought back the politics of the past

Chu Ping-tzu 祝平次

Taiwanese wrote another page in the history of the democracy movement at the weekend. However, some people seem to think that protests are “organized crime,” and that the protesters “should all be locked up.” This was the mentality of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politicians during the years of authoritarian rule, and in fact a core concept of KMT rule in general.

Egged on by New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明), Minster of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) — who did not come out to see what the protesters were saying — said that he would be seeking compensation for damage to property. It seems the law has become the weapon of choice for the KMT in its neo-authoritarian phase.

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