David on Formosa

I came across this article on Yahoo! News which I thought contained some interesting ideas. I don't agree with all of it, but at least it was not filled with biases and incorrect facts like so many other articles about Taiwan in the international media.

But Taiwan is much more; a small island with lots of soft power. Above all, it is a hybrid culture, in many respects even liberal with gay rights to boot, that successfully mixes the civilizational attributes of America, China and Japan, which occupied it for 50 years. Indeed, it is the only country in the Asian region not consumed with anxiety over Japan rewriting its constitution, still doing massive business with China and sticking with America all at the same time.

And it continues with some stuff about politics and contrasts Taiwan with some other Asian countries. Then it says,

In all of Asia, only Taiwan could produce an Ang Lee, director of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," a globally-appealing movie which combines Asian sensibility, following traditional myths, with Hollywood production values. Ang Lee's brother, Zhan Lee, the director of Zeus Pictures, an indy studio in Taipei, is blunt about the future fusion of film in Asia: "Hollywood is a dinosaur that has destroyed and occupied our minds for too long," he says, "The world if full of new stories waiting to be told, and new audiences waiting to hear them, even if we use Hollywood's template to do so."

So many people only look at the negatives. Taiwan has really accomplished so much despite facing so many difficulties. Don't just look at the present situation and say why has it all come to this? Appreciate the fact that Taiwan has come so far. Surely there are even better days ahead.