China Times: Nostalgia for the Non-Existent Good Old Days

The bizarre case of the drunk who hit an old man on a scooter and then returned to the scene, apparently to finish him off:

The incident happened early on Friday morning in Caotun Township (草屯), Nantou County.

According to police investigations, Hung Jung-hsiang (洪榮祥) was driving under the influence of alcohol when he crashed into Liao Chin-chuan’s (廖金川) scooter from behind on a road in Caotun. Liao was knocked off the scooter and the driver drove away without stopping.

Three young men in a car later drove by, and stopped to help the injured Liao. They set up obstacles in the road around Liao to prevent other cars from hitting him. Not long after, a nurse, Lu Wan-chen (呂婉禎), who at the time was going home by scooter, also stopped to help Liao, police records showed.

However, while the four were attending to Liao, they saw a car approaching. It ran directly over the obstacles in the road and crushed Liao’s legs and head, killing him on the spot.

It is an article of faith among Deep Blues that the nation is going to the dogs. Indeed, if you meet a random person and they start lecturing you on what a mess things are in Taiwan, they are more than likely to be Blue. The political import of this stance should be obvious.

The pro-KMT China Times editorialized on this case:

Over 30 years ago, a psychology professor, Wu Ching-chi, published a best-selling book titled "Young People's Four Dreams" in which he encouraged youngsters to "search for the true meaning of life," "find good teachers and good friends," "pursue a worthy career" and "seek love."

Are these four dreams still in store for today's young people? Given the current reality, the answer may be a saddening no, as a majority of them have lost their sense of direction and even their hope. Some of their problems are personal, but others are directly related to society as a whole.

Take a few major social news stories for example and it becomes plain how our younger generation is confronted with chaotic values and even destruction.

The editorial, meant to give the audience the sense that the nation is hurtling toward moral and social destruction, then goes on to give three instances of this shocking moral decline: the case above, a girl who gave birth to her grandfather's child, and the case of a drunk driver who killed a woman. Her husband then died, leaving their eight year old.

The incest case is terrible, but such cases are common in insular communities all over the world. Does the China Times mean to suggest that there were no such cases in the good old days?

It's not difficult to spot the real moral failure: completely ineffective drunk driving campaigns mean that the roads are crowded with drunks on the weekends. This is underpinned by a self-destructive drinking culture in which alcohol is consumed to get drunk, not merely to put a soft edge on the evening. I am sure many expats have experienced disbelief when they tell a father in law or friends that they are finished drinking after a couple of drinks. The government won't seriously address the issue of drunk driving and it has done nothing to change the alcohol culture. The result is carnage.

Nor is this an issue of the young: most young people drive scooters, not cars, and the drink-til-unconscious drinking culture is not ordinarily practiced among the young either. If these issues represent moral and social decline, they illustrate the decline of the middle aged and above generation....

The paper should also have noted: in the case in which the drunk driver apparently returned to kill the injured man, three young people stopped immediately to protect the victim. A nurse also stopped. The selfless actions of four people apparently tell us nothing about the state of the nation, but a single drunk can represent the "majority".

I am fortunate to work at a university with many dedicated students. Many of them do volunteer work -- I have one brilliant student headed to Ethiopia this summer for a stint as a medical volunteer, and others on their way to Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Thailand. At universities all over Taiwan there are social work clubs. Many universities also mandate a 2 credit hour volunteer work class.

It's the China Times, not the nation, that is moving backwards.
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