People only want to hear nice things.

A new crop of Chinese-speaking Koreans have recently emerged on YouTube and are becoming popular among netizens. I particularly like this Korean YouTuber who followed his father to Taichung when he was a child. He has a good understanding of the animosity that middle-aged elderly people in Taiwan hold towards Korea, and he is articulate in his analysis of Korean society. So natural I have become a fan. But he is rare. The majority of Chinese-speaking Korean YouTubers only talk about delicious Chinese food and their videos are like Japanese variety shows. They are samey and uninspiring, but still the creators have a lot of fans.

One can see that many non-Asian YouTubers have many Taiwanese fans as long as they speak Chinese or their videos have Chinese subtitles. Many of them praise not only Taiwan’s food but also the beautiful nature of the island and the friendly locals in small cities. And they all emphasize how Taiwan is “a travel destination ignored by the world” or something to that effect. There are also YouTubers from China who make Taiwan-centric videos, but at present they cannot easily travel between both sides of the strait. The content of their videos may have more depth and the feelings they express may be less superficial, but there are less and less of such YouTubers nowadays. Also dwindling in number are those who often said “the most beautiful thing in Taiwan is the people”.

Honestly, most of these YouTube videos are nothing special and there is nothing original about them. Still, people like to hear nice things and so the creators can easily have tens of thousands of followers in Taiwan. Our tourism officials even spend part of their promotion budget on these YouTube figures despite their lack of insight.

Whereas people like to hear nice things, their response to criticisms or sarcastic remarks is totally different. A few weeks ago, a South Korean tourist incurred the wrath of many Taiwanese netizens by comparing Taiwan to a slum, saying “Taiwanese buildings are as gloomy, old and backward as those in Mumbai in India” and that clothes hanging outside the buildings made the latter “look like a slum”. The tourist also said although he heard"Taiwanese girls are pretty", it turned out that “few are pretty” and most “mediocre-looking”. Besides, “Korean music is played everywhere in Taiwan because Taiwan lacks its own cultural resources”, the tourist claimed.

For the South Korean people, Taiwan is indeed not that nice.

Those who are not too forgetful should remember the 2017 incident in which a taxi driver in Taiwan spiked the drinks of three Korean tourists and then sexually assaulted one of them while the other two fell asleep under the effect of the sleeping pills he added to their drinks. The incident caused a stir in South Korea and was widely reported by the country’s three major TV broadcasters SBS, KBS and MBC and the 24-hour news channel YTN. Prosecutors sought a heavy 15-year prison term, saying that not only did the cab driver violate the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act, but the sexual offence he committed also had huge repercussions for Taiwan’s public security and tourism.

Is Taiwan really that good? Perhaps it is. Whenever I have the chance, I like to visit the country’s night markets and friendly towns. But then why do people react so strongly to any negative comments on Taiwan? How come it is getting rare for the media to quote foreigners' criticisms of Taiwan, including constructive criticisms? This is a phenomenon seen not only on the social media that young people embrace. Likewise, in the conventional media and on formal occasions, we only read or hear about news that contain compliments on Taiwan.

In early September, a nearly 100-strong delegation of the Czech Republic, headed by Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil, visited Taiwan. The delegation consisted of experienced lawmakers, Prague Mayor Mayor Zdenek Hrib, vice president of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, university chiefs, head of the Prague Philharmonic, and business leaders. Then on September 17, Keith Krach, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment, also led a delegation to Taipei. When the U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar went to Taiwan in August, he was the highest-level U.S. official to visit the island in decades since diplomatic ties between Taiwan and the U.S. were severed. But the record was broken by Krach, whose position is higher still. In addition, former Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori led a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers to visit Taiwan in August and September on grounds of paying respects to the late Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui.

All these are indeed rare breakthroughs for Taiwan’s diplomacy since the island’s withdrawal from the United Nations in 1971.

All these are positive developments. But history tells us when it comes to international diplomacy, striking a balance in different directions is all-important, as every country has their own considerations. The Taiwanese people are equally excited about the visits of the Czech, U.S. and Japanese officials and they greeted the officials in a very friendly way. Since the three countries do not dare interact with Taiwan officially on the diplomatic front, the visits of their officials have served to ease Taiwanese people’s long-standing sense of insecurity and please our narcissistic side.

The level of excitement brought to Taiwan by Chinese-speaking foreign YouTubers and the visits of foreign officials to Taiwan is without precedent, and so is the way the Taiwanese people feel proud and love the country at present. As for the truths behind all the friendliness shown towards Taiwan and positive reports, no one seems to care. As long as our narcissistic side is satisfied, everything is true. On the other hand, friendliness with a condition is completely ignored or dismissed.

In his speech delivered at the Legislative Yuan, Vystrcil praised Taiwan’s democratic achievements. Towards the end, he said: “I am a Taiwanese.” That was indeed a touching moment and made one feel proud. But Taiwan seems to have overlooked the democratic value and spirit of justice underlying his last words, which in Taiwan are, like the idea of nationalism, to be taken for granted.

To be sure, not everyone is narrow-minded. There are still many people in Taiwan who take things seriously. Quite a few netizens noted that in response to the South Korea tourist’s criticism of Taiwan, a Korean woman pointed out in a Taiwan-Korea exchange group that “most Koreans like Taiwan; please don’t listen to this person”. She also said the critical post actually originated from an anti-women website called “ilbe”. Later, some other netizens discovered ilbe is an extreme right website that has gained notoriety through posts that voiced hatred towards Korean women, foreign workers, and certain regions in Korea, attacked and vilified the left, and spoke ill of the incident concerning the sinking Korean vessel, MV Sewol.

Nonetheless, we have to be careful not to get carried away by our collective narcissism as that could take away half of our collective ability to see things as they are, in that we only hear compliments and fail to feel and reflect on any criticisms, be they well-meaning or malicious.

(Wang Hao-Wei, board member and executive director of the Taiwan Institute of Psychotherapy)

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