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Thursday, November 15, 2007

Making Taichung More Foreigner Friendly

A friend in a local urban planning department passed me this for further discussion.

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Session on Friendly City: The Way

Making Taichung A Barriers-Free City for All International Guests

An Introductory Remark by Prof. XXX
Department of Urban Planning
____ University
10/23/2004
Friendly as Barriers-Free

For years, the United Nations (UN) has been working on protection and promotion of basic Human Rights. Rights to shelter, food, freedom, peace and more are fundamental to human survival and social enhancement. Though not an official member of the UN, Taiwan society was not immune from such global concerns and efforts. In fact, Taiwan not only has excelled quite well in certain categories, but also active contributors to such worldly efforts. In line with the enhancement of human rights, we are here today to address the issue of how to make Taichung becoming a barriers-free city for all international guests and visitors. Friendly-City Taichung means that all disabled foreign guests shall not be handicapped by our ignorance of their basic rights to have a happy life here.

In the past decades, daily needs of those people with disability (correctable or uncorrectable) have received transformative attentions in many societies, especially in the area of retrofitting existing environment to be more inclusive of all users regardless of physical and mental conditions. Ramps and reserved park lots and elevators are some of the obvious examples of such corrective actions.

However, the existing disability framework has yet recognized the needs of foreigners in a foreign land as culturally and phonetically disabled. As a result, complaints about confusing street names and inattentive medical emergency have gone unheard. For most of international guests and visitors, Taiwan is still a place full of living barriers. Can Taichung do something from past lessons of modifying facilities for the Handicapped? I believe we should and we can, for the betterment of our foreign residents.

1. Taichung City Foreigners’ Assembly
First, establishment of a Taichung City Foreigners’ Assembly (TC-FA). Ten years ago, a number of Japanese cities began to recognize the needs of foreign residents and decide to do some fixing-up of the legal system. One thing they proposed was the establishment of a formal Assembly made of foreign residents. Membership of the FA (around 20-25) is drawn from the foreigners’ community proportionally for a two-year term. The FA would meet four times a year (seasonally and two-days) to hear and decide on recommendations to be sent to the Mayor and in turn to the local Legislative Assembly for consideration and further action. There are roughly 15,000 foreign guests (with 73 nationalities) living in Taichung City, it would be interesting to see a TC-FA in action in the coming future.

2. Barriers-free Taichung
Second, smarter utilization of number and symbol for a barrier-free Taichung. It is often mistaken that English-lization is the only route to a barriers-free environment for all foreign guests. In my opinion, if we can realize the potential of number and symbol, maybe we can spend less and accomplish more. Why so? First of all, numerical symbol and signage in itself is more internationally recognizable than English. Second, it minimizes (or neutralize) the bias toward people from non-English-speaking places. Finally, it is more cost-effective. In order to have a good start, I recommend that street naming system of the city shall be rearranged immediately.

Conclusion
In the last ten years, Taiwan society has witnessed the growth of foreigners, especially in the areas of laborers and marriage. In 1991, the total population of foreigners was a little more than 30,000. Today, there are more than 400,000 foreign residents in every corners of Taiwan. In Central Taiwan (Taichung city and county, Nantou and Changhwa counties) alone, there are more than 74,000 (or 1.6%) people with foreign nationalities. Excluding the laborer category, Taichung City registers the highest number of foreigners (close to 6,000). Among them, people from the United States and Japan are the top two groups.

It is well expected that the growth rate of foreign population is going to rise in the coming future. The issue of barriers-free environment can no longer be ignored by the politics and the general public. Due to a lack of formal mechanism, Taichung’s foreigners’ community has received too little attention. By recognizing their rights to be heard and their disability to be pampered as early as possible, I believe that Taichung City can be the most friendly city in Asia in the days ahead. It is never too late to get started. Let’s act now.

12 comments:

  1. Equating physical and mental disabilities to cultural and linguistical 'disabilities'. I'm not sure I completely agree with that, but it's definitely a good idea to make Taiwan more accessible to foreigners...

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  2. HI Mike. Thanks for the efforts. I made the proposal to the city years ago. So far, there is not much positive reaction from the Mayor who claims himself a diplomat. Ideology does matter. Blue sucks, in this case.

    Thomas

    www.taichung.fcu.edu.tw/index.htm

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  3. 10/23/2004 - 2004 that's a bit old...

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  4. "However, the existing disability framework has yet recognized the needs of foreigners in a foreign land as culturally and phonetically disabled. As a result, complaints about confusing street names and inattentive medical emergency have gone unheard."

    Adopting standard pinyin would be a good step. It would help make the city more accessible to foreigners, including non-English speakers.

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  5. If Taichung suddenly changes to Taizhung, I will certainly get lost. I think the problem is not using unified spelling in placards, maps, literature, streets themselves, instead of not using pinyin.
    Of course, it causes trouble for Westerners using pinyin to type Chinese in writing. The Orientals should really just ignore their petit differences and use what is the norm, the norm as set by the Westerners because the Occident has deigned itself to adopt pinyin.

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  6. "the Occident has deigned itself to adopt pinyin"

    Whoa there! Don't be so critical about the role of the Occident in this case. Remember that all Chinese romanization systems exist to make the language easier to learn for outsiders (and also to promote literacy internally, but these days that is almost secondary).

    Who else would you have choose a romanization method that they are more comfortable using? The Chinese? Ridiculous! Hanyu Pinyin has become so widely used because China favors the system, and because there is more business with China than Taiwan these days.

    So yes, the Occidentals are more comfortable with Hanyu Pinyin, but then again, when choosing a common romanization system, comfort of the occidentals should indeed be considered.

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  7. When the goal is making the city accessible to foreigners, I have to agree. Similarly, I'd advocate putting political squabbles aside when it comes to choosing braille systems, too. Go with what the majority of the people who need it consider standard.

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  8. Your fair city makes the international press today. Unfortunately it's for apparently having the world's most polluting power station.
    The article seems to think that Taichung is in the city of LungChing.
    Even worse than this, the list has us down as Taiwan(China).

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/16/pollution

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  9. Mark,

    Should the U.S. adopt British English to avoid confusing foreign visitors? For example, colour, traveller, centre, etc.? Of course not!

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  10. Anonymous,

    In case you haven't noticed, the majority of English readers in the US are not British tourists.

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  11. hey guys i am from canada and i didn't know a word of mandarin when i went to taichung.. i was there for 2 months and didn't learn much .. but the people there treated me like god .. just for being different, free stuff everywhere .. girls giving you numbers and e-mails.. i never felt so good.. i got along perfectly there.. pretty much any younger person in taiwan can speak a little bit of english as it is taught in almost all of their schools.. shopping is easy..just point and they will get it for you.. if you want you could ask a younger person to walk with you and they will be like your personal translator ./. for free.. they enjoyed being seen by their friends with a foreigner.. i don't think taichung has to be any more foreigner friendly than it already is... i will be going back next june.. shane_a_anderson@hotmail.com

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  12. It would be great if Taiwan didn't cooperate with future wireless versions of the MKULTRA program at Taida university, putting Iraq war veterans who are trying to learn Chinese through a vigorous assault of harsh criticism , denial of scholarship funds, and death threats. There are some very dark things going on between Taiwan-U.S. with government joint venture star wars weapon testing contracts. You will not see it in the news but you will hear more and more about it in the future. I am one of more then 20 wireless "MKULTRA" experiment victims at the Taida university. We got Edward Snowden on board and more will be blowing the whistle shortly until the Taiwan and US media will hold their head in shame.

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