When the US media reported recently that former US vice president Al Gore's daughter Sarah Gore had married Taiwanese-American businessman Bill Lee (李君偉) in a California ceremony attended by both the Lee and Gore families, the local media in Taiwan took the news as a happy omen. However, a racist comment appeared on an Internet chatroom in the US just after the wedding that read: "Al Gore's daughter is marrying a chink? Boy, that is one Inconvenient Truth."
For readers here who might not be familiar with the insult, "Chink" is a derogatory word for people of Chinese or Taiwanese origin.
It is sad to see such racism in the US. But it's also interesting to note that none of the US news reports about the marriage mentioned that Lee's family was originally from Taiwan. This shows how multicultural the US has become, in that none of the wire services or gossip magazines felt the need to mention Lee's ethnicity.
Bill Lee, 36, is an American whose parents emigrated from Taiwan, and his father, Lee Chin-mu (
Lee Chin-mu, who is a professor of medicine in the US, hails from Tainan County and moved to the US soon after graduating from the medical school of National Taiwan University, media in Taiwan reported.
Sarah Gore first met her husband at a function for her father's Oscar-winning environmental documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, People magazine added, noting that the movie's executive producer, Jeff Skoll, served as best man at the wedding.
"As one person joked during the wedding toasts, global warming helped bring Sarah and Bill together," a family friend told People.
What does this marriage of the Lee and Gore families mean for Taiwan? It will probably lead to more news reports here about the former US vice president's work on global warming, and to more invitations for Al Gore to give lectures here.
Other than that, this is a typical "boy meets girl, girl marries boy" story uniting two families in the US, with a small but interesting sidebar about the connection to Taiwan.
Dan Bloom is a freelance writer in Taiwan.
Two weeks ago, Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) raised hackles in Taiwan by posting to her 2.6 million Instagram followers that she was visiting “Taipei, China.” Yeoh’s post continues a long-standing trend of Chinese propaganda that spreads disinformation about Taiwan’s political status and geography, aimed at deceiving the world into supporting its illegitimate claims to Taiwan, which is not and has never been part of China. Taiwan must respond to this blatant act of cognitive warfare. Failure to respond merely cedes ground to China to continue its efforts to conquer Taiwan in the global consciousness to justify an invasion. Taiwan’s government
“If you do not work in semiconductors, you are nothing in this country.” That is what an 18-year-old told me after my speech at the Kaohsiung International Youth Forum. It was a heartbreaking comment — one that highlights how Taiwan ignores the potential of the creative industry and the soft power that it generates. We all know what an Asian nation can achieve in that field. Japan led the way decades ago. South Korea followed with the enormous success of “hallyu” — also known as the Korean wave, referring to the global rise and spread of South Korean culture. Now Thailand
This month’s news that Taiwan ranks as Asia’s happiest place according to this year’s World Happiness Report deserves both celebration and reflection. Moving up from 31st to 27th globally and surpassing Singapore as Asia’s happiness leader is gratifying, but the true significance lies deeper than these statistics. As a society at the crossroads of Eastern tradition and Western influence, Taiwan embodies a distinctive approach to happiness worth examining more closely. The report highlights Taiwan’s exceptional habit of sharing meals — 10.1 shared meals out of 14 weekly opportunities, ranking eighth globally. This practice is not merely about food, but represents something more
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
RSS