Residents of TOngsing Village (東興) in Taitung County’s Beinan Township (卑南) have been complaining about the tourists visiting the Danan (大南溪) and Sangshu rivers (桑樹溪), who they say have been littering in the area. Some tourists have even apparently stuffed plastic bags and empty bottles into the crevices of nearby stones.
Upset by these actions, Tongsing residents want to restrict tourists from the area.
The Beinan Township Office has asked the Taitung Environmental Protection Bureau to provide closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance, so that those who lack a sense of public decency can be identified, reported and penalized.
The residents are not being narrow-minded or making a fuss over nothing. Tourists have shown no respect for the locals. They do not care about the environment. They need to own that.
The area around the Danan and Sangshu rivers, known as the Danan Valley, with lush trees and clear streams, is a great summer vacation spot. I once took my students there to have a barbecue and swim. Before we left, I told my students to gather their trash and dispose of it properly. Inconveniencing the residents and damaging the environment was the last thing we would want to do. This is the “excursion etiquette” that I teach my students, who hopefully would pass it on to their students.
Taiwan has a high standard of living, and many highly educated people. However, the way many Taiwanese behave in public spaces leaves a little to be desired. They fight over a bowl of rice on the Internet and treat giving up priority seats as a somehow controversial issue, while new traffic rules based on the principle of honesty and good faith have made pedestrians “emperors on the road.”
The simple solution to all of this is empathy. So many people fail to respect others and lack the ability to understand the feelings of other people. We are not civic-minded enough to be self-reflective, self-respecting and self-disciplined.
The other day, when I was waiting for the green light, I saw a luxury car across the intersection. The driver opened the window and tossed trash onto the road, and sped off when the signal turned green. I was shocked. How could such an uncivil thing happen in a civilized society like Taiwan? The driver might have believed that trash had no place in their luxury car, but does that mean it belongs in the street? Who do they think is going to pick that up? Is it good enough for us to look the other way and pretend that nothing had happened?
Students who took the Advanced Subjects Test this year said that the competency questions in the civics section were tough. How could students of competency-based education complain about questions on a subject dealing with cultivating etiquette? It does not make much sense to me that exams might be expected to cultivate civic behavior in students, anyway.
Evaluating students’ etiquette is a part of the college entrance exam, but in schools, students are not educated on the significance of respecting teachers and morals. Consequently, “etiquette” remains on paper, but not in the minds of students. It is only natural that students would not internalize good manners in their daily lives. It is no wonder many Taiwanese are neither civically minded nor socially responsible.
In Taiwan, it seems that we rely on CCTV surveillance and penalties to correct behaviors such as littering, ill manners and refusing to yield to pedestrians. This is surely a sign that our education system has failed us, and of moral decay in society.
Shiao Fu-song is a lecturer at National Taitung University.
Translated by Emma Liu
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