The government is making a strong effort to preserve Taiwan’s endangered languages so as to maintain a multicultural society. Taiwan has long been a place of linguistic diversity. Besides the Chinese languages of Mandarin, Hokkien (Taiwanese), and Hakka, the various indigenous tribes have each had their own version of an Austronesian language, and many senior…
Some critics have expressed reservations about the individualized, market-oriented nature of lifelong learning and wonder if it might even exacerbate existing inequalities. Among scholars, there has been concern that disadvantaged groups, such as women and low-income populations, may face greater difficulty than others in accessing opportunities to engage in adult education. Hsu Min-Hsiung, Director of…
Taiwan’s population is projected to peak at 23.61 million in 2021 and then begin to decrease. The fertility rate of an average of 1.17 children born to each woman is insufficient to maintain the present population level, never mind expand it. Government efforts to boost the fertility rate – primarily in the form of childcare…
Some time ago my mother-in-law started urging me to buy a house. She did so by relating the Chinese folk tale Five Sons (五子登科), from which derive the five modern “necessities of life”: silver (money), wife, children, house, and car. Without doubt, housing has been the most expensive and fraught of the five necessities. First…
High prices, a dysfunctional rental market, and limited public housing make it difficult for many citizens to find a suitable place to live. Liu Wei-ting has a graduate degree in urban planning and is six years into a career as a manager of an engineering consulting firm, but he says he has little hope of…
A massive social housing program is viewed as the means for the Taipei municipal to build an integrated smart city. The development of smart housing– utilizing Taiwan’s strengths in the ICT (information and communications technology) sector – is central to the Taipei City government’s blueprint for the future. The plan also matches the national government’s…
In August, Taiwan’s Directorate General of Budget, Accounting & Statistics revised its GDP growth forecast for 2018 upward to 2.69% due mainly to increasing private investment. Government investment is also expected to increase this year by 5.06%, with the authorities aiming to spend NT$420 billion (about US$13.8 billion) on infrastructure over the next four years…
Some major new projects are in the works for Taipei’s Xinyi district. When the Breeze Center opens its latest outlet in the new 48-story Nan Shan Plaza later this year in downtown Taipei’s Xinyi Planning District, it will be the 14th department store or shopping mall within an area of half a square kilometer –…
Entrepreneurs in Taiwan are redefining the term ‘café’ in the era of social media. With the proliferation of cafés in Taiwan in recent years, proprietors have been looking for ways to make their shops stand out from the rest. Besides offering single-origin coffee, more and more cafés are dedicating space to displaying premium, handcrafted goods…
Some of the multinational company’s busiest stores in the world are located in Taiwan. Among the 759 Costco stores in the United States and 10 other countries and regions, the operation in central Taiwan’s Taichung ranks at the very top in the number of members and is second in the world in sales volume (the…
