As Taiwan’s capital and an international metropolis, Taipei City provides better English-language service than most places in Taiwan and enhancing the bilingual environment has been a major goal of the Taipei City Government.
Efforts to improve the city’s English environment over the past several years included synchronizing English street names and road signs and relaunching its official English Web site (english.taipei.gov.tw) in 2003 under then-mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to provide information to the expatriate community in Taipei.
A closer look at recent activities held to promote tourism, however, found a lack of English-language information for the foreign community.
The latest event organized earlier this month by Taipei City’s Commerce Office, for example, promoted the food service industry in the city and launched a Web site containing basic information on more than 500 restaurants, including addresses, directions and maps — all in Chinese.
“The Web site is a huge database of great restaurants in the city and allows locals and foreigners to obtain information on delicious food in the city in a convenient way,” office director Liu Chia-chun (劉佳均) said.
The office said that the database was in Chinese and English. However, no English-language information can be found on the site (www.foodintaipei.com.tw). Asked about the lack of English-language information, Chiang Yi-hua (江宜樺), a division chief at the office, said the office was not responsible for putting together the content of the Web site.
“I am not clear about the English version of the Web site. We contracted out the Web site and you should therefore ask the company about it,” she told the Taipei Times.
The contractor, Corporate Synergy Development Center, said the English-language information would soon be available.
Another event held by the city government in September also targeting local and foreign tourists, the Taipei Hotel Festival, was another example of the city’s ignoriong of foreign visitors and expatriates. The festival, organized by Taipei City’s Department of Information and Tourism, sought to attract local and foreign tourists to Taipei and encourage them to spend the nights at hotels. Various promotional activities, including discounts of as much as 55 percent at more than 30 hotels, were offered during the monthlong event. However, no English versions of the promotional brochures or coupon booklets were offered.
Asked for comment, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Chen Yu-mei (陳玉梅) criticized the department for its limited approach.
“How many Taipei City or Taipei County residents would go spend a night in a hotel in Taipei City? Targeting only the local market and ignoring foreign visitors is a total waste of money,” she said.
Huang Chiu-chuan (黃修全), a division chief at the department, acknowledged the department’s failure to address foreign visitors’ needs by providing English-language information, adding that the department would expand the scale of the festival next year and offer English information to foreigners.
“It’s true that we did not advertise the event to the foreign community [living] in Taiwan or foreign visitors. We mainly targeted local residents this year because of a limited budget,” he said.
Chen said the city government should not blame the budget. The department’s bad habit of contracting out activities to private companies, she said, was the reason behind the poorly designed events. She urged the city government to put greater effort into promoting the city to the foreign community by improving its English-language environment.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) has acknowledged that the English-language information offered by the city government is insufficient and has promised to demand that all departments provide more English information to meet foreigners’ needs. Hau also promised to improve the quality of its English Web site by recruiting more staff to manage it.
Chen Chun-nan (陳俊男), a division chief at Taipei City’s Department of Information Technology, said the English Web site is maintained by two English editors and carries two stories daily.
Chen said the department was focusing its efforts on avoiding grammatical errors, adding that with an annual budget of NT$2.2 million (US$66,500), it was difficult to increase or ameliorate the service. The department will seek to create a support team to improve the quality of the Web site and demand that all departments provide English-language press releases for the Web site.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
RSS