School event row sparks debate on Taiwanese history

By Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

A cosplay event at a school in Hsinchu City has sparked debate about Taiwan’s past, with politicians saying that the Republic of China (ROC) national flag and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s praise of the Japanese colonial era are manifestations of the “Nazi spirit.”

The legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee yesterday convened a meeting to examine Sao Tome and Principe’s decision to cut its 19-year diplomatic ties with Taipei, but it was briefly overshadowed by the widely criticized campus event featuring a group of Hsinchu Kuang Fu High School students dressed as Nazis on Saturday.

Controversy about the school event has snowballed with Representative to Germany Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) attributing the students’ actions to ignorance about history.

“If the education system had fully incorporated history about the state violence that occurred in Taiwan, young students would naturally be critical of Germany’s Nazi regime,” Shieh said on Facebook on Saturday. “Instead, certain political parties still boycott the revelation of historical truth and continue treating the [ROC] national flag as a special symbol.”

Saying that the students were also victims to some extent, Shieh lamented the nation’s continued “worship” of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and retired military officers’ efforts to curry favor with China while waiving the ROC flag in Taiwan.

“I will tell Shieh that he is now the nation’s representative to Germany and is no longer just a college professor or TV anchor. We will let him understand this,” Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) said in response to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ma Wen-chun’s (馬文君) criticism of what she said was mockery of the flag.

Separately yesterday, New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) issued a statement urging the Presidential Office to apologize to the students for throwing them under the bus over the cosplay event simply because of opposition from Westerners.

“It was just a student event that school authorities did not have a hand in creating the content for, as it was aimed at facilitating creativity ... not advocating Nazi ideology,” Yok said, adding that the public had blown the issue out of proportion.

Yok said the real “modern Nazis” are the DPP government, which has beautified the Japanese colonial era, as well as members of the 2014 Sunflower movement who cut classes, staged demonstrations and illegally occupied government buildings.

He also called on the Ministry of Education to reinstate Hsinchu Kuang Fu High School principal Cheng Hsiao-ming (程曉銘), who resigned on Sunday amid public outrage over the event.

Osaka poetry enthusiasts visit Taiwanese master

By Cheng Hsu-kai and William Hetherington  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

Taiwanese poet Lee Chin-shang, second right, speaks with Kenichi Okada and Shuichi Horiguchi as Taiwan Senryu Association director Tu Ching-chun, right, looks on in Taichung on Tuesday last week.

Photo: Cheng Hsu-kai, Taipei Times

Two retirees from Osaka, Japan, with an interest in songs and poetry from the Japanese colonial era on Tuesday last week visited renowned contemporary poetry master Lee Chin-shang (李錦上) at his home in Taichung.

Kenichi Okada, 69, and 74-year-old Shuichi Horiguchi said that it is exceedingly rare in Japan to find a person like Lee who is proficient in the various forms of haiku, tanka, senryu and free verse, adding that they sought out Lee to ask about his methods.

Okada said he joined the Taiwan Senryu Association two years ago and that he and Horiguchi enlisted the help of association director Tu Ching-chun (杜青春) to arrange a visit with Lee.

Okada said he first learned of Lee’s poetic prowess after joining the association and seeing his works written in various forms, including the limerick-like senryu, the 17-character haiku, the 31-character tanka and the more modern free-verse style.

Okada said Lee’s works have gained him a reputation in Japan, where he has been published in Yomiuri Shimbun’s art periodicals.

Lee completed elementary-school studies at colonial-era Lukang Second Public School, which is today called Wenkai Elementary School, in Changhua County before attending advanced studies at Lukang First Public School, which is at the site of today’s Lukang Elementary School, before sitting examinations at the Japanese Imperial Navy’s Sixth Fleet fuel plant.

After passing the tests Lee was selected for training at the Japanese Imperial Navy’s Second Fleet fuel plant worker training facilities in Yokkaichi City, Mie Prefecture, Japan.

Lee said that during World War II many Japanese navy vessels were sunk in waters between Taiwan and Japan, adding that the training institute thought its trainees would flee in fear.

Lee said that in reality Taiwanese candidates were excited about the prospects of studying in Japan.

He was passionate about Japanese literature and began reading his father’s collection of Japanese books while he was in elementary school.

Lee said he wrote many letters to Japanese servicemen during the war, often incorporating poems into them.

Lee, 90, says he still enjoys writing to Japanese newspapers and poetry associations.

Okada and Horiguchi said they were drawn to Taiwan because of the friendliness shown to Japan by Taiwanese, adding that Japanese are thankful that Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) did not seek reparations following the war, allowing Japan to focus on rebuilding its economy.

The two men said they wish to better understand why Taiwanese do not think highly of Chiang.

“Taiwan and Korea were both once under the rule of Japan. Animosity toward Japan is common in [South] Korea, but Taiwanese are friendly toward Japan. It is touching,” the men said.

School principals oppose retiring military instructors

By Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

Pan-blue camp Taipei City councilors hold a news conference in Taipei on Friday, criticizing the Ministry of Education (MOE) and calling on the Taipei City Government not to sacrifice military instructors in schools for political reasons.

Photo: Shen Pei-yao, Taipei Times

Ninety percent of senior-high school principals in Taipei are against a central government policy to retire military instructors from campuses, a Taipei Department of Education survey has found.

The department this month conducted a survey among principals at 69 senior-high schools in Taipei, which found that 90 percent of them were against the Ministry of Education’s policy to replace military instructors with security guards, while 99 percent of respondents said that they were satisfied with military instructors’ service at their schools.

Military instructors are soldiers assigned by the Ministry of National Defense to high schools, colleges and universities to teach basic military training courses and protect students.

The legislature in 2013 passed a supplementary resolution to an amendment to the Senior High School Education Act (高級中等教育法), which states that military instructors should be gradually retired from senior-high schools, by closing job vacancies — on the condition that student safety can be ensured — so that soldiers can reintegrate into the national defense system.

Seventy-four percent of principals said that they disagreed that instructors’ work can be handed over to security guards, according to the survey released on Friday.

Military instructors are no longer a symbol of authoritarian education, but are concerned with protecting students, preventing schoolyard bullying and violence and barring drugs and gangsters from entering campuses, the department said.

“The survey results showed that the majority of principals believe removing military instructors from campuses would give rise to a transitional period that would be unsafe for students,” it said.

The department said it would forward the survey results to the Ministry of Education and ask it to be prudent about its policy to retire military instructors.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei city councilors on the same day held a news conference to defend military instructors’ role on campuses.

The ministry has set out a plan to train 1,000 security guards every year and replace all instructors by 2021, but every security guard would only receive 70 hours of training.