Inhabitants Of Taiwan Research Articles

An Environmental Improvement Strategy for an Urban Green Farm Garden: A Case Study of Dongguang Green Garden Road, Taichung City

Amid rapid urban growth, the inhabitants of Taiwan’s ‘concrete jungles’ have tended to neglect the protection of natural resources, and to engage in activities that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide. The urban heat island effect also remains a serious problem, only partially addressed by urban green spaces created or protected via intergovernmental urban planning. Nevertheless, Taiwan’s cities still contain many small areas of wasteland – both the sites of demolished buildings, and former green spaces that have been allowed to die off. If transformed into urban gardens and/or farms, this waste ground could meet the public’s need for additional green spaces and experiences, and help to gradually improve their quality of life. Plans and mechanisms to that effect have existed since 1990, and Taipei City was the first place in Taiwan where farmers provided land for urban dwellers to cultivate. However, due to insufficient governmental support, the operation and management of such initiatives has been largely ineffectual, and thus their development has not been sustainable. Therefore, this paper uses Dongguang Green Garden Road in Taichung as a case study of this sustainable-development bottleneck, with the wider aim of increasing the quantity and quality of urban agricultural gardens in Taiwan and beyond.

A Study on the Willingness to Develop Sports Tourism in Taiwan

Objective - This study aims to construct a model for the willingness to develop sports tourism, using the factors of place attachment, the impact of sports tourism, attitude and willingness to develop sports tourism. Methodology/Technique - The study gathers data via questionnaires. Following this, purposive sampling is used to distribute the questionnaires and the collected data is analysed using descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and a structural equation model. Findings - Once the aforementioned analysis is conducted, the following conclusions were drawn. First, the model construction fits well. Second, the factor of place attachment has a significant positive influence on the perceived impact of sports tourism. Both the positive perception of sports tourism and the attitude for developing sports tourism have a positive impact on willingness to develop sports tourism. Contrary to this, negative perceptions of sports tourism have a negative impact on the attitude to develop sports tourism, although it has no significant impact on the willingness to develop sports tourism. Novelty - This study demonstrates that the higher the degree of place attachment associated with the inhabitants of Taiwan, the greater recognition there is of the impact of sports tourism. The most important finding of this study is that this positive impact enhances the attitude and willingness of inhabitants to develop sports tourism. The study also develops some practical strategies based on the study results. Type of Paper: Empirical Keywords: Place Attachment; Willingness; Sports Tourism; Tourism Impact. JEL Classification: Z30, Z39.

Are the Shau people in Taiwan of Dutch descent?

In this paper, the culture and origins of the Shau Aborigines of Sun Moon Lake in Central Taiwan are examined. Conclusions presented in this article depend on clues from documents and long-term observation, that reveal that the characteristics of the Shau Aborigines are quite different from those of other aboriginal inhabitants of Taiwan. They lived on islands for a long time, were good at trading, and had a high material living standard, versatile language, and facial features similar to Western people. It is assumed from many reasonable interpretations of questions concerning their cultural characteristics that they may be descended from Dutch preachers and their families in Shaulon, Tainan, who married local Pingpu Aborigines. The Shau fled from Soulang when Zheng Chen-Kung (also known as Coxinja) attacked in 1661, moving to Mattauw, then to Dorcko, Tilaossen, and finally to Lehyee, the territory of Chou Aborigines, where they settled at Laichi for a time. When they discovered Sun Moon Lake, they moved to its island where they are today.

Direct medical costs in patients with Alzheimer's disease in Taiwan: A population-based study

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) has the potential to become a major health concern and associated health care costs may become a significant economic burden on society. Objective: The aim of this study was to estimate the direct medical costs attributable to AD in patients aged ≥60 years in Taiwan from 2000 through 2002 and to explore the correlation of these costs with patients' age and sex. Methods: This study was based on the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan's National Health Insurance (NHI) program. The NHI program insures >98% of the 23 million inhabitants of Taiwan. Detailed data were extracted from a random sample of 0.2% of inpatient and 5% of outpatient recipients with AD ( International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification diagnosis code 331.0) who were aged ≥60 years and who received inpatient or outpatient services with claims from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2002. Duplicate charges for a specific patient and diagnoses of other types of dementia were excluded from this study. Results: A total of 69,780 patients were found to have a diagnosis of AD. The direct medical costs for outpatients were estimated at US $1.2 million in 2000, US $1.9 million in 2001, and US $2.3 million in 2002; the costs for inpatient care were estimated at US $670,000 in 2000, US $2.4 million in 2001, and US $3.2 million in 2002. The total direct medical costs were estimated at US $1.86 million in 2000, US $4.24 million in 2001, and US $5.48 million in 2002. The increase of total direct medical costs was not significantly correlated with patients' age or sex. Conclusions: From 2000 through 2002, the direct medical costs of AD increased annually in Taiwan among patients with AD aged ≥60 years. No significant correlation was found between increased total direct medical costs and sex or age. The cost estimate presented here has implications for future decision making about reallocating medical resources for treating AD in Taiwan.

Diaspora Regime into Nation: Mediating Hybrid Nationhood in Taiwan

Based on an empirical inquiry, this article seeks to assess the role of television in the process of national identity-formation in Taiwan. It situates both the formation and transformation of national identity in the contingent particularities of post-WWII Taiwan, where a powerful regime in exile met an indigenous majority population that gave rise to what I refer to as “the double-homeland complex.” This article sets out to explore not only whether but how the inhabitants of Taiwan have appropriated the quintessentially modern sense of nationhood and to identify the role that television has played in shaping and mediating that appropriation. This thesis first examines how multiple identities, especially Chinese and Taiwanese identities, have been articulated and represented by the media since 1971; and, secondly, how different ethnic groups in Taiwan have engaged in different ways to accommodate the variety of identities against the backdrop of a changing media environment. It is Taiwan’s uniqueness, in terms of the degrees of post-war media control and current media globalisation, that makes it a fascinating case study of the interplay between the local, the national and the global in the formation of national identity. In this article, the idea of “hybridity” receives close attention as a basis for evaluating the role of television in national identity-formation in Taiwan.

Beijing and Taipei: Dialectics in Post-Tiananmen Interactions

The brutality of the 4 June 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown ordered by Beijing quickly checked the former growing “mainland fever” among the inhabitants of Taiwan. It seemed that, with their aspiration to reunify with the People's Republic of China shattered forever, Taiwan's expanding non-governmental interactions with the mainland would cease indefinitely. Yet, on 5 July, 76 Taiwanese businessmen crossed the Taiwan Strait to attend an export commodities fair in Dalian. There, one Taiwanese visitor even made an investment of US$5 million.

Prevalence of betel quid chewing habit in Taiwan and related sociodemographic factors.

The prevalence of betel quid chewing habit in Taiwan was surveyed in a group of Chinese people from Kaohsiung city and in a second group from the aboriginal inhabitants of South Taiwan. In all 1299 participants constituted Group 1 (85.2% response rate) and 827 Group 2 (70.1% response rate). People were interviewed in their homes in house-to-house survey, according to a structured questionnaire developed and evaluated by the authors. Of the Kaohsiung inhabitants covering all ages and both sexes, 6% was a current betel chewer and 4% was an ex-chewer, whereas 42% of the aborigines aged over 15 yr was a current chewer and 1% an ex-chewer. Lifetime prevalence was 10%. Betel chewing enjoys islandwide popularity among the 20 million inhabitants of Taiwan; the number of current and ex-users was estimated at 2.0 million (95% CI 1.6-2.4 million). The betel quid was prepared in two different ways. In one, used mainly by aborigines, fresh areca nut was simply wrapped with betel leaf and in another, popular mainly among Chinese, a lengthwise piece of betel fruit and lime paste was sandwiched between two halves of an areca nut. A high proportion of chewers was also a smoker and drinker, but tobacco was not found to be chewed together with betel quid. Consumption varied between 14 to 23 portions per day, with individual frequencies ranging widely from 1 to over 200 portions a day. A statistical analysis of sociodemographic factors showed that lesser educated older men, blue collar workers, smokers and drinkers were the likeliest betel chewers.

Taiwan in Transition: Prospects for Socio-Political Change

President Chiang Kai-shek's death on 16 April and President Gerald Ford's announcement that he would visit Peking in the autumn of 1975 once again direct attention to the political future of the Republic of China and the 16 million inhabitants of Taiwan. Progress towards diplomatic normalization between the United States and the People's Republic of China has been slower than many would have expected following President Nixon's visit to the mainland in February 1972. For the island's inhabitants any dramatic change in their political status may spell a permanent alteration in their life style, which has become substantially different from that of the mainland. Precisely because of this, one needs to look closely at their political aspirations and the socio-political changes that have occurred. Any political solution for Taiwan's future should be analysed with respect to its impact on these vital human interests.