Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said his remarks made in a recent interview with Foreign Policy magazine were grossly misrepresented and asked that foreign reporters be more accurate when translating in the future.
In an online version of the interview published on Thursday, Ko was quoted as saying: “For the [world’s] four Chinese-speaking regions — Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Mainland China — the longer the colonization, the more advanced a place is.”
The reported statements have drawn flak from academics and legislators for overlooking the problems created by colonization.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
In response to reporters’ questions yesterday on the reactions to that statement, Ko said the idea he was trying to convey was that, with the rise of modern civilization, the longer a society comes into contact with a modern civilization, the more civilized it will become.
“How was that translated into: ‘The longer the colonization, the more advanced a place is.’ Good grief. They are miles apart,” Ko said on the sidelines of a book launch in Taipei that he attended.
Accurate translation should be ensured the next time foreign media outlets report, he said, adding that he would also reflect on how to answer questions more precisely.
Elaborating on his idea, Ko yesterday said that the rise of modern civilization was influenced by the Renaissance and began as Spain and Portugal discovered new sea routes around the globe. As such, the earlier a region is introduced to modern civilization, the more profound the influence, he said.
The main point of his remark was that a civilized society is not built overnight, Ko said.
“Habits such as stopping at red lights and going when the lights turn green and staying on the right side of the road take decades of education to foster,” he said.
He said that China, for example, was capable of boosting its GDP and developing nuclear energy in a short time, but the above habits that form part of a civilization in their subtle ways take a long time to enter the public consciousness.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
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The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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