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Wednesday, July 01, 2009

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Is this really how children are treated in Taiwan?

From today's Taipei Times we see that some people are concerned that their children will study with Chen Shui-bian's grandson, who they fear, at age 6, will corrupt their own children:
... several users of the school’s online message board who identified themselves as teachers and parents whose children are pupils at the school voiced objections to the possibility of the boy’s enrollment.

“I have been worried that my child will make friends with bad classmates, but I feel relieved, because your school will serve as a gatekeeper,” a user with the screen name “a parent of a student” said.

“Children of corrupt convicts [sic] like Chao Yi-an should not be allowed to attend the school. I don’t want my child to go to the same school as convicts’ children,” the user said in a message posted last Thursday.

The school has issued a statement saying that it would never discriminate against students based on their sex or social, economic or political background.
Here's a google cache link to a discussion board on the topic. Now, we know in the instance of inherited debt that Taiwanese children do get burdened with the mistakes of their parents and we know of parents using credit cards in their child's names to carry out egregious activities. We also know that family name reputation is something that can both help and hinder young Taiwanese as they grow up and try to better manage their lives in the shadow of their parent's influence and control. That being said, to argue that a six year old is a 'convict's child' or to call the biy a 'bad classmate' before he has even stepped into the school is beyond contempt and despicable. Thankfully the school seem to have some sense of professionalism even if some of the teachers don't. If we were to ban the child for the crimes of his grandfather, we would have to then consider banning all the grandchildren of legislators convicted of vote buying or those of rich tycoons who have stolen shed loads of cash before fleeing the country. Otherwise, its just one rule for one and another rule for another (I guess some might say that's exactly how it works in Taiwan today).

3 Comments:

At 3:08 PM, Blogger D. said...

Irrationality is a sickness. Ours is a sick species.

 
At 10:29 PM, Blogger Claudia Jean said...

I actually don't think the school has a sense of professionalism. Those terrible messages, inciting hatred, were there for days. The web administrator didn't delete them or intervene and the school left them there even when the public has noticed it. Why didn't the management tell the web administrator to take those messages down instantly? After the school said they were deleting those messages. Were they left there to send the Chen's family a message?

When interviewed by the press, one of the teachers (教務主任) said that they would remain politically and administratively neutral (行政中立). What's that got to do with the child? I think that just shows what the school has been thinking all along.

 
At 9:35 PM, Blogger David said...

I felt both sad and sick when I read this news. Intelligent people have had their minds poisoned by the media. Society has lost its sense of compassion.

 

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