Monthly Archives: November 2017

GNMT’s “horse” and “國民法官” GNMT is the Google Neural Machine Translation service. It translated a Chinese passage into English as:  “everything will be good for the horse, and the horse will not eat the grass.” The original Chinese is:  “凡事都又要馬兒好，又要馬兒不吃草”. … Continue reading →

Defending the Pope Criticism of Pope Francis for not mentioning the Rohingya while visiting Myanmar is despicable liberal ignorance. Does a house guest even have the right to criticize his host in the host’s own house? Pope Francis has spoken … Continue reading →

Continued slide in polls is puzzling A Beautiful Island Electronic News poll of 1,072 responses conducted on November 23-24, 2017, shows that in general, satisfaction with Tsai Ing-wen in November 2017 is at 28.1% and dissatisfaction with Tsai Ing-wen is … Continue reading →

Poll shows favorable view of KMT legislative action A Yahoo Taiwan poll of 4,600 responses conducted on November 23-26, 2017, about the performance of legislators of the Democratic Progressive Party and the Kuomintang in reviewing the revision of the laborers’ … Continue reading →

Comparative social conceptions At the November 23, 2017, reception for Taiwan’s team that won 10 medals at the 44th WorldSkills competition in Abu Dhabi held on October 15-18, 2017, Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen said:  “Technical and vocational education should be … Continue reading →

Shift in political attitude noted among Taiwanese A shift in political attitude among the Taiwanese was noted in a November 13-15, 2017, poll.  After the opening address to the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress by Chinese leader Xi Jinping (October … Continue reading →

Stuffing the duck 填鴨 The Mandarin term “填鴨” means “stuffing the duck”.  It is used in such expressions as “填鴨 式教育 which means “stuffing the duck style of education” or “stuff the duck education”. “Stuff the duck education” involves memorization, … Continue reading →

Tsai government’s talent:  Making things worse! A Yahoo Taiwan survey of 6,000 responses conducted on November 10-13, 2017, about chief cabinet minister Lai Ching-de’s revision of the work schedule law that proposes 54 hours of overtime per month with a … Continue reading →

The hubris syndrome and narcissistic personality disorder Observations of Taiwan’s politics and its politicians reveal some clues about the connection between the hubris syndrome and narcissistic personality disorder. For students of psychology and psychiatry, political science and personality development, Taiwanese … Continue reading →

Actual butterfly effect The bellicose rhetoric and mad missile launches of North Korea’s fat kid Kim Jung Un have produced an actual butterfly effect that unexpectedly boosted Taiwan’s exports to the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. Since February of 2017, … Continue reading →