Enrique Ayuso

108305051
Global Issues in Asia
Discrimination in Asia

Discrimination is a taboo topic for some as many people do not like talking about it
because of the bad feelings it brings up. However, discrimination is very real and it
attacks a person just simply for being who they are. Discrimination happens
everywhere around the world. Generally speaking, The Europeans discriminate
against the Arabs, The Americans discriminate against the Blacks, The Taiwanese
discriminate against the South East Asians. This is not good because no society can
ever really thrive if we cannot come and work together despite our small differences
like race. We must learn to accept others, embrace our differences and work
together to make the world a better place. The world desperately needs acceptance,
understanding and compassion of others especially in times like these where we still
have many wars happening around the world and many problems that can be
overcome if we just work together. My paper will talk about some of the experiences
of some of these people in Taiwan while trying to compare it the experiences in
Guanzhou, China and trying to see if there is any hope in the future to stop
discrimination. Also, I will try to make some practical solutions to try to end
discrimination.

Discrimination according to the American psychological association , “ is the unfair

or prejudicial treatment of people and groups based on characteristics such as race,
gender, age, or sexual orientation.” Given this definition we can see why
discrimination is wrong and that is because it judges people based on factors that
they have no control over. For example, gender and race is something people have no
control over it is just how they are born. So why do people discriminate? Isn’t it
common sense to just accept people as they are? Have we not learned from the
previous world wars when Hitler was around that judging someone based on their
color of skin is wrong? Well, There are many theories as to why we do it . My opinion
is that we simply do not know enough about another person which leads us to draw
incorrect conclusions about someone. For example, we may not know enough about
a race and a group of people that we just start assuming negative things about them
like “those people must not be as educated as us”. Other reasons for discrimination
according to amnesty. Org. is that we feel the need to identify in a group. When we
identify to a specific group we then lead to the divisions and separations of other
groups. For example religion, People who identify to a specific religious groups will
tend to react negatively to those who don’t share the similar values and beliefs as
them. Like when it comes to gay people, these people would generally be
discriminated against by religious groups. Another example is that in America maybe
a lot of the people committing crimes would be black people so these people are a
target for police officers since police officers would see the race and automatically
assume that they are criminals.

Now that we understand a bit more about discrimination, we can help to put all of
this into context and focus more on discrimination in Taiwan. First off, Taiwan is an
incredibly large and beautiful landscape. It has stunning views of mountains, it has,
oceans, unique flora, and fauna and much more. Taiwan has generally a low cost of
living, excellent health care and stunning scenery. Life you can say is unique in Taiwan
and it is a very peaceful continent compared to Europe, America, and Latin America.
There are some good and bad people. The food is also unique compared to other
parts of the world and people are hard working. What about when it comes to
discrimination? IT seems that Asians and Taiwanese acknowledge racism and other
forms of discrimination when it happens abroad but not when it happens in here in
Taiwan. According to a survey from the Pew Center in November, a staggering
number of 90 percent of people in South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, and many
other nations, believe that racial and ethnic discrimination is a “serious problem” in
the United States. But surprisingly many trust this is as an American issue and not in
their own countries too. Well, as we can see from this poll Taiwan and other Asian
countries need to work on discrimination so that they can further advance in the
world. In Hong Kong for example, about half of Hongkongers
say discrimination based on race, age and residency status is prevalent in Hong Kong.
In Taiwan, during the 2020 presidential campaign, the former Kaohsiung Mayor Han
Kuo-yu once called Southeast Asian workers “chickens” and “Marias.” In Malaysia,
one ethnic minority wrote in one of her pieces of work , “ Racial discrimination is a
pervasive issue in multiracial Malaysia and its schools. Schools are supposed to be
safe learning sanctuaries for every young Malaysians regardless of skin color, racial
identity, ethnicity, or nationality. However, the reality indicates that for many, it is a
place of racial trauma during and beyond schooling years.” In Singapore, according to
the National Library of Singapore it says that, “ Today, over 70% of women in
Singapore agree that gender discrimination exists in the workplace. However, men
face challenges too. Locally, male pre-school teachers make up only 1% of the total
pool of early childhood educators.” These are just some examples in Asia but there
are a lot more. As we can see from these examples , discrimination is a big problem
in Taiwan and other parts of Asia.
 Every now and then we see stories on the Taiwanese news about hidden racism
in Taiwan. In no specific preference, I’ll begin first with the story of an Indian man in
Taiwan who was harassed by a Taiwanese man over not wearing a mask. This story is
as recent as last year (2022). So, the stories goes that there was an incident that
happened in Hsinchu where an Indian man also known as Mike was having a cup of
coffee to drink in Hsinchu Taiwan at a coffee shop. Later, a Taiwanese man
approached him and demanded for him to wear a mask. The Indian man refused as
he had to right to sit in the coffee shop to drink coffee and was not violating any
rules. He also mentioned to the Taiwanese that if he felt that Mike was violating any
rules that he should call the police and that he will happily pay any fine. "Who are
you to come and yell at me to wear a mask?" The man replied, "I'm Taiwanese," The
Taiwanese man then got angry and said, “You Indian, Indian man, Black man, get out
of Taiwan." The racial slurs continued for about 15 minutes until the police arrived.
The police was called by the Taiwanese man and the Taiwanese man also called the
immigration hotline in Taiwan. The police came and asked for both their i.ds. Both
men were allowed to go but Mike had to go to the police station to file a report
according to the police officers. Mike went to the police station and reported the
incident under these terms. "Public insult, embarrassment, and verbal abuse.” Mike
then later told reporters that this was the first time he has received blatant racism. He
also mentioned that many cases like this happen in Taiwan but you do not hear about
it because many foreigners don’t have time to go report it and don’t want any
problems with the locals. Mike felt that it was his duty to go and report it because it
happens so often so he was doing it on behalf of all the people that it has happened to.
Mike also has a Taiwanese wife and two children. The link of this story will be placed
on the references section of this paper for further review if necessary. After reading
this story it reminded me of the readings of China because there are also a lot of
mixed races in China of African men and Chinese women. In class we also saw a
video of some of the challenges that these mixed children go on to have. For example,
in the video in class we saw that the child goes on to be called names or being asked
as to why he is black? Which is clearly racism. This also makes me feel a bit sad for
Mike and his children because maybe Mike’s children will also receive similar
treatment in Taiwan. The racial slurs or words in this story is also very wrong, I think.
Maybe the Taiwanese man felt that Mike had to wear a mask but it did not need to
escalate into racial verbal fights. I think the Taiwanese man could have just kindly
gone over and say, “ hi, sorry can you please wear your mask.” If Mike didn’t want to
wear his mask then the Taiwanese could have simply left or called the police but there
were was no need for all the yelling and calling Mike a black man and telling him to
get out of Taiwan. The Taiwanese man had no right to demand Mike to do anything.
Like Mike said these people give a bad reputation to Taiwan because I’m sure if it
was a White man the conversation would have gone differently.

My next story is about Laura, a woman who used to live in Taiwan for about four
years and was studying Chinese on a scholarship. I want to describe about what she
says in her blog to give a little bit of perspective about how where you come from or
your skin color determines your experiences in Taiwan. Writing in this format gives
me a way of comparing the experiences of some people by using the same format as
the Guangzhou readings we did in class. So, this blog article is entitled, “On White
privilege in Taiwan” . Laura starts her story by saying that she had an overall great
time in Taiwan and saying how she appreciated her time here but that she wants to
talk about something that is less talked about in Taiwan and that is the White privilege
she received. She started first with an explanation of the scholarship she received and
that it was only offered to foreign nationals and not to Taiwanese who were born in
America. She did say that this doesn’t necessarily mean discrimination as other
nationals from Africa and South America also received the scholarship but that it was
unfair to those American Taiwanese citizens. Next, she gave other examples about
when she met this White European expat who used to say he didn’t do any work at a
Taiwanese company, he merely talked his way into the company. When Laura asked
about it in the company the superioris would say, “who? , Paul? Oh, that’s our white
guy. Don’t worry about him. He makes our company look more international.” This
example clearly shows how white expats are perceived in Taiwan. Laura goes on to
give more examples. From her experience of living in Taiwan these are some more
examples of White privilege. She said that if you were an unemployed loser in the
U.S , you can basically come to Taiwan and make middle class wages. Next, if a
police officer stops you on the road and wants to give you a ticket then just go back to
being an American, talk in English and the officer will soon leave you alone and not
give you a ticket. She also gave examples of her male friends living in Taiwan.
American white men would always brag about how easy it is to “score” with
Taiwanese women. They simply pretended to be rich and successful back home and
Taiwanese women believed them despite this not being true. However, their
citizenship and skin color was all that mattered to Taiwanese women. Laura goes on
to talk about democracy in Taiwan. She gives this example at work between this
feminist Expat and this Taiwanese American who was also an expat. The expat would
go to church and show support for it being illegal to be gay. The feminist was angry
about this and reported this to the government saying that it was hurting the LGBT
community. Shortly after the Taiwanese American was arrested and deported. She
says that she didn’t believe with the conservative views but in a democracy, someone
should be free to say what they want to say without the fear of being arrested for it.
She goes on to give other examples of White privilege in Taiwan but you get the
picture. There is a big differentiation on how different foreigners are treated based on
the first story I mentioned.

My next story of discrimination takes me to Taiwan. Taiwan formerly known as the

island of Formosa is a progressive country filled with lovely and large amounts of
nature. This story is about a woman who was riding in the back of a taxi in Taiwan
where there was a stop light and then asked by the cab driver if she thinks Taiwan is
racist. She then said said yes but the cab driver replied, “Taiwan isn’t racist because it
doesn’t compare to the racism in America”. She did not argue with the cab driver
since it didn’t seem reasonable to have an argument since she was almost going to
reach her destination anyways. Instead, she wrote an article where she started with
the discrimination of the aboriginal people in Taiwan. The following is a short snippet
of what she wrote “ Taiwanese aborigines have for generations been treated as
second-class citizens, limiting their social mobility. Chinese expansion made
aborigines subject to heavy-handed, sometimes brutal, assimilation practices. In the
1940s, the Chinese Nationalist Party took away centuries-old aboriginal ancestral
lands – the aborigine communities’ main source of income. Now, they are still more
likely to be unemployed, more likely to hold lower-paid or riskier jobs, and less likely
to graduate from college. According to the Council of Aboriginal Affairs at the
Executive Yuan, the average wage of aboriginal workers in 2014 was 75 percent of
the average wage earned by a Han-Chinese counterpart. And, in a move that was
outright exploitative, the Taiwanese government built a nuclear waste facility on an
island off the coast of Taiwan populated by the Tao people without the local people’s
explicit approval. This demonstration of the Taiwanese government’s power over the
indigenous people is a clear example of racism, where locals like the taxi driver are
not.” The dates that the person who wrote this story were in 2014 but I think it’s still
relevant today because I had a roommate 2 years ago and he used to call aboriginals
monkeys. I’m sure he was not the only Taiwanese who thinks like this. In addition to
what she says about the aboriginals she goes further on to explain the racism and
mistreatment of Southeast Asian workers. She notes that people of darker
complexion are associated with menial labor and are associated with lower wages
and essentially being looked down upon by Taiwanese. There have also been threats
in Taiwan by Policy makers to ban the minimum wage for migrant workers.
Personally, my experience of Taiwanese racism is also prevalent in teaching English as
a foreigner in Taiwan. Hiring people prefer white skinned teachers than any darker
skin teachers as that is what the Taiwanese parents want. White skin is preferred
even if they don’t come from a native speaking background. Sometimes you have
people from Poland for example teaching English in Taiwan even though there
English is not good but they have the “white” characteristics that Taiwanese parents
want. Taiwan is a good prospering economic country but if it is ever to be more than
it currently is and especially in times like this where China plays a major threat, it will
need to accumulate more friends not more enemies. The final example or examples
of discrimination I would like to give has to do with the working conditions of
foreigners in Taiwan. I did some research into the matter and found stories that are
related to the Foxconn cases that we covered in class. The case that I found out starts
like this. There were about 800 Vietnamese employees of a compal factory in Taiwan
that engaged in a strike due to poor living and working conditions. Labor authorities
were called in and the dispute finally reached a mutual agreement. The next example
the article mentions is about fishermen. When it comes to southeast Asian workers
fishing in Taiwan, wage deductions are common just like being forced to stay on
boats. This is like the Africans in China readings we did in class. This is because some
of these workers are illegal in Taiwan which means that they do not have the proper
documents to come into the country. Some Taiwanese employers take advantage of
this situation and treat these workers anyway they want as if they do not have any
human rights like paying them less than they deserve or treating them unfairly. This
also leads to more serious bad treatments such as human trafficking which is a
problem around the word and a problem in Taiwan that needs to be faced and
solved. There was even a big problem that occurred in 2019 because even
international students in Taiwanese universities were being forced to work in
Factories. As a result, The Indonesian government suspended on temporarily
stopped sending Indonesian students to Taiwan in 2019 because of the alleged
reports of Indonesian students being forced to work in factories that did not meet
basic working conditions. The link to this article with all the information will be
placed below for further readings. However, just reading about this makes me think
that Taiwan has a serious problem with discrimination in the working environment
too. People all have the same value despite where they come from so the things
mentioned above were very surprising to me. There was another scandal that
occurred in Taiwan in 2019 with students from Eswatini. Eswatini is a country in
Africa that happens to be Taiwan’s only diplomatically African country. The story goes
that some students applied for an internship in Taiwan but instead of improving their
business administration skills, they were made to peel chicken skin in a factory for 40
hours a week. The ministry of labor and ministry of Eswatini both did some
investigations into the matter and both condemned the school for these types of
actions. The school then had to pay compensation to the students in forms of tuition
waivers and deductions of certain expenses. What is even more interesting is that
even after the school was caught, it has since denied of doing anything wrong to the
students. The article also touched on that I have personally experience. It talked
about how in cram schools in Taiwan, White foreign teachers are preferred over
African- Americans or even Asian- Americans. In fact, higher salaries are often paid to
white teachers or sometimes they will tell you directly that it prefers teachers with
white skin. When it comes to the corona virus. During the pandemic certain
restaurants in Taiwan even told the employees not to serve foreigners. While this is
debatable and understandable to a certain degree. It does not take away from the
fact that some of the foreigners that were in Taiwan during the pandemic never left
Taiwan or that some people that looked like foreigners were Taiwanese and or
foreign resident holders.

It is very sad to read the cases above and I sincerely feel bad for the people that
are not having such a good time in Taiwan due to discrimination since sometimes I
also feel I get discriminated upon. With that said I think Taiwan in general is a very
beautiful, progressive, and unique country. In regard to discrimination here are some
things that can be done to change this issue in Taiwan. My strongest
recommendation would be to enforce more laws to protect victims of discrimination
and to punish those severely who engage in discrimination such as the factories that
mistreat employees. Especially the south east Asian workers since there are
hundreds of thousands of them currently living in Taiwan. With these laws we can
make it official that these acts of discrimination weather it be racial, religious, or
gender to not be tolerated. My second recommendation would be that we can try to
educate people about the matter. For example, I have lived in Taiwan for almost four
years primarily as a student and in classes most of the topics almost always involve
American or European companies. I think this is a factor that leads to discrimination.
There is nothing wrong with learning about American or European companies, these
companies are great and deserve to be learned about but there are also students
from all over the world with companies just as great as these American and
European ones. If teachers could do an extra effort in researching about these
companies and teaching them in classrooms, I’m sure it will be appreciated by non-
American or European students. In addition, this will make students in Taiwan and
across the world more knowledgeable and more open minded about different
companies around the world. As a result, having a better more sound and quality
education. My final recommendation would just be to simply increase awareness
about the topic. Everyone deserves to be treated equally because we are equal.
Racism and discrimination are foolish since everyone is a human being with flaws
which is why I decided to write my paper about it to increase awareness of the topic.
I know that not everyone in Taiwan discriminated but a few bad people give Taiwan a
bad name and these bad people need to be corrected in order for Taiwan to thrive as
a nation. Right now Taiwan faces a big enemy which is China and the threats of
invasion. If Taiwan can first battle discrimination in it’s countries then it can have
more friends to fight the big enemy which is China. For example if Taiwan befriend
The Philippines this will be really helpful since the Philippines controls the South
China Sea which would be useful incase of an invasion. Finally let’s encourage love
and harmony in the world. Not hate and violence. The world has had enough of that.

References

Yes, Racism Exists in Taiwan - Ketagalan Media

Taiwanese man calls Indian 'Black man' for not wearing mask while drinking | Taiwan
News | 2022-05-05 14:45:00

On White Privilege in Taiwan. I have lived here in Taiwan for over… | by Laura
Clements | Medium

It's Time for Taiwan to Confront Its Own Ethnic Discrimination Issues - Ketagalan
Media