A Beautfiul Country

By Hayley Swinamer of Canada

As a Canadian who lived in Taiwan for three years, I feel compelled to speak about last Saturday's elections.

I do not pretend to understand all the intricacies of Taiwanese politics and culture.

But what I do want to say to all Taiwanese is that you already have an interesting, vibrant, beautiful country that charms people who visit it, even for a short time. It would take too many pages to write about all the wonderful experiences I have been fortunate to have in Taiwan. I consider my years there as the best of my life, and I will be forever grateful for all the things I learned in Taiwan.

I spent some weeks in China during that time as well. I wish I had not. In all the cities I visited in China, I found none of the sparkle and charm of Taiwan.

I saw only downtrodden people, children begging on the streets, a tense atmosphere everywhere and horrible pollution. I am not implying that all of China is all of those things, or that China has no positive qualities, but my experience there was very negative.

Aside from my personal experience, China's horrible environmental and human rights records are very well-known. I was so thankful to get back to Taiwan after those weeks.

As I understand it, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has no interest in furthering Taiwan as it is, or taking it to its full potential. From all the information I can gather, the KMT will only use Taiwan to further its own ends, possibly eventually making it unrecognizable from the place it is today.

I frequently hear from my Taiwanese friends and acquaintances a wish that Taiwan was "more," "bigger," "grander" and so on. Please look around at your wonderful country, which bears much less resemblance to China than most people know and realize what a wonderful place it is and all its potential to be even more. Please don't allow fear, or short-term thinking to give the KMT -- or anyone -- the power to harm or destroy such a wonderful place as Taiwan.