鄧志堅
The trend of globalization is spreading all over the world in recent
years. Globalization, which breaks the border of countries, makes
different countries work together and trade more freely and people have
more opportunities to go overseas. In contrast, people who insist on
staying in their hometown are finding it hard to survive in this
fast-paced century. Since Taiwan is going to be one of the members in
the World Trade Organization, there is no doubt that we』ll also be
influenced by this wave. However, it seems that our government isn』t
ready to confront this tendency yet.
One of the major factors that promote globalization is language. While
the trend of globalization is attacking different races, English is
becoming more and more important day by day. Apparently, people have to
master this language in order to survive in the future. However,
according to statistics, if we use English language ability as an index
to determine the future of different countries, East Asian countries
would undoubtedly be classified as lagging behind. Taiwanese are not
yet conscious of the importance of improving English. Moreover, our
government has prepared only some useless ways to let us learn English,
such as changing the garbage truck music to basic English conversation
sentences. The officials believe that the residents would learn English
while they are dumping their garbage. It may sound like a good idea,
but who would want to stand in front of the smelly trunk to listen to
the conversation? If the government really has the intent of improving
English ability, they really have to think of other methods to help its
people expand their range of contact.
While English language ability will help its citizens move globally, the
Taiwan government has not set up any effective measures to take better
care of those people who have come to Taiwan to seek jobs or higher
learning. The government has neither prepared courses for the overseas
Chinese students to learn Mandarin and English nor educated the local
people about the ways to treat foreigners. It』s hard for two different
groups to communicate if their languages and cultural backgrounds are
different. Moreover, people in Taiwan always look down upon people who
come from Southern-East Asian countries because the latter seem to be
willing to accept lower pay than Taiwanese and the competition leaves
the Taiwanese people unemployed. Well, the 21st century is a
hi-tech century and if you equip yourself with more skills, you can
easily triumph over other people. However, instead of upgrading their
abilities to compete with their rivals, the Taiwanese tend to put the
blame on those under-paid foreign workers, thus creating more unrest
among the labor class. Furthermore, though the English language ability
of people from Southern-East Asian countries is not good, Taiwanese
should still try to communicate with them because globalization is
doomed to fail if we have prejudice against other races or if we lack
skills of communication. Communication can not only stimulate our
desire to learn and improve our English language ability, but also
accelerate the process of globalization.
Globalization can promote the relationship between different countries
and we can learn about other cultures. With the emergence of more and
more transnational corporations, such mixing of cultures has already
become an irresistible trend. To better take advantage of the trend, we
must improve ourselves in order to adapt to this wave; otherwise, we are
destined to fall behind and even be eliminated eventually one day.