INDUSTRIAS DE SERVICIO

¡A su servicio!

POR OSCAR CHUNG
FOTOS DE CHANG SU-CHING

El sector de los servicios contribuye actualmente más que la industria al producto interior bruto del país, pero necesita una mejora cualitativa lo más pronto posible.

La columna vertebral de la economía de Taiwan, el sector de los servicios, comenzó a exceder al sector industrial a principio de los años ochenta.

Pregunte a cualquier visitante que viene a Taiwan sobre sus impresiones de este lugar, y la mayoría comentará sobre la variedad de comidas que se venden en los puestos callejeros y restaurantes. Es muy seguro que hayan ido a Ding Tai Fung, un restaurante de empanadillas que es una especie de icono en el itinerario de los turistas. La fama local se ha transformado en una gran fortuna ahora que Ding Tai Fung opera en 15 ciudades de Asia y en Los Angeles. Es uno de los mejores anuncios comerciales de Taiwan como un destino epicúreo.

“Al personal de Ding Tai Fung se le paga muy bien, porque ellos ofrecen un servicio excelente”, dice Bob Lin, director de recursos humanos de Ding Tai Fung. “Pagamos por la satisfacción del cliente”.

Así como Ding Tai Fung se ha convertido en el orgullo de la industria de los restaurantes de Taiwan, la Librería Eslite ha hecho lo mismo por el sector de venta al detal del país —fue seleccionada por la revista Time en 2004 como un sitio que los visitantes tienen que ver. Ambas compañías han logrado su posición actual principalmente debido a su insistencia en la calidad del servicio. Con 49 tiendas alrededor de la isla, Eslite se conoce por su amplia selección de títulos y sus ambientes convenientes para los lectores, diseñados por algunos de los principales arquitectos de Taiwan. “Nuestro negocio se orienta al cliente”, dice Frances Tang, director de recursos humanos de Eslite. “Se trata del servicio, de cómo tratar a la gente. Ofrecemos clases de gerencia emocional a nuestros empleados, para que se desempeñen bien en sus trabajos”.

La utilización de tecnología de la información también ha ayudado a llevar a los suministradores de servicio local a otro nivel. Tanto la Librería Eslite como Ding Tai Fung han creado tiendas virtuales en Internet, donde los clientes pueden fácilmente hacer pedidos desde su hogar. “Los registros de transacción obtenidos a través de nuestro sitio web, permiten a Eslite saber qué le interesa a nuestros lectores y nos ayudan a satisfacer mejor sus demandas”, dice Tang.

Dos nunca son suficiente

Estas dos historias de éxito son un indicativo de la calidad mejorada del creciente sector de los servicios de Taiwan. Según la Dirección General de Presupuesto, Contabilidad y Estadísticas del Yuan Ejecutivo, en 1981 el sector de los servicios representaba el 47,23 por ciento del PIB de Taiwan, y el sector industrial el 45,47, del cual el 90 por ciento era de manufactura. En 2005, los servicios se incrementaron al 73,5 por ciento del PIB, casi igual al de los países desarrollados, tales como Alemania y Japón, y se espera que se eleve al 76 por ciento en 2015.

El éxito de Ding Tai Fung es muestra del gran potencial de la industria de restaurantes de Taiwan.

Sin embargo, aparte de los ejemplos de Ding Tai Fung y la Librería Eslite, el sector de los servicios de Taiwan en general está lejos del nivel mundial en términos de calidad, dice Richard Vuylsteke, director ejecutivo de la Cámara Americana de Comercio (AmCham, abreviatura en inglés) en Taipei, quien cita la educación como un ejemplo. “Hay muchas universidades, pero el estándar no es muy alto”, dice. Ahora Taiwan cuenta con más de 150 instituciones terciarias, pero pocas pueden catalogarse como de primera categoría.

El cuidado de los ciudadanos de la tercera edad es otra área que tiene mucho espacio para mejorar, dice Vuylsteke. Taiwan es una sociedad senil, con gente mayor de 65 años o más que representa ya el 10 por ciento de la población de la isla, según las últimas estadísticas del Departamento de Salud (DOH, siglas en inglés). La demanda de servicios en esta área no es satisfecha por el suministro, ni cuantitativa ni cualitativamente. Vuylsteke indica que hay una falta obvia en el número de asilos y empleados entrenados en el cuidado médico geriátrico, en comparación con las economías avanzadas que cuentan con redes de instalaciones médicas del sector privado para los ancianos. “La calidad de vida de los ciudadanos de la tercera edad de Taiwan que están enfermos, es extremadamente baja”, dice.

Reglamentaciones restrictivas

El estado actual del sector de los servicios de Taiwan ha sido en gran medida el resultado de la naturaleza excesivamente restrictiva del régimen reglamentario. Este fue el principal asunto discutido en la Conferencia Nacional de la Industria de los Servicios celebrada por el Consejo para la Planificación y Desarrollo Económicos (CEPD, siglas en inglés) en 2004. El evento tan importante reunió a más de 1.000 funcionarios gubernamentales, intelectuales y empresarios, que redactaron las Directrices y Planes de Acción para el Desarrollo de la Industria de los Servicios, publicados a finales de este año. Cada tres años, el CEPD revisa el progreso de la implementación de las directrices.

A principios de este año, el Ministerio de Economía (MOEA, siglas en inglés) celebró la Conferencia Nacional para el Desarrollo del Comercio, donde las discusiones se centraron en el desarrollo de sectores tales como distribución, transporte y venta al detal. El MOEA decidió, siguiendo los principios de las directrices, programar el evento cada tres años, una señal de la mayor importancia dada al desarrollo de los servicios.

Las directrices consisten en planes de desarrollo para 12 sectores de servicios, desde el financiero hasta el turismo, y con su puesta en marcha, el Gobierno espera alcanzar dos metas: un sector de alta calidad y alto rendimiento y muchas oportunidades de trabajo. “Taiwan ha experimentado un aumento en el desempleo estructural durante los últimos años, por lo que tenemos que desarrollar la industria de los servicios para absorber la fuerza laboral que ha perdido trabajos en el sector manufacturero”, dice Cheryl Tseng, directora general del Departamento de Planificación Sectorial del CEPD, que es responsable de la investigación de la industria de los servicios para el Gobierno Central.

A pesar de todo, es un gran reto superar la mentalidad antigua. “El sector manufacturero es generalmente gobernado por el MOEA, que suele tomar medidas más estimulantes y menos restrictivas hacia aquel, pero la situación es diferente con los servicios”, dice Woody Duh, director general del Departamento de Comercio bajo el MOEA.

Fuente: http://maillist.gio.gov.tw/gio_maillist.php?m=44

Consultado: 09/abril/2007

Why isn’t it a waste of time?

Watching TV has become the most common entertainment of people. The content of the programs are the main material of people’s chatting, such as the plots of the soap opera or the news happening recently. Also, the changing of the weather reported on TV is the good issue at the beginning of the conversation. With the rapid change of the relationship between people, TV plays an important role in setting the new relationship with other people.
People can gain nearly as much information as they want by watching TV in this modern society. Without paying any extra money, students can learn such as math or English from the square box—the TV. And supervisors in the companies can improve their ability of administering by referring others’ experience shown on TV. In addition, whenever the cooks want to get some new ideas of the meals, they can just turn on TV and switch to the channels of cooking teaching. Soon they can know about the material and the way of recuperating the meal.
The most part of our new information comes from the TV programs, especially from the news reporters and the informational channels, like Discovery channel. Both of them can give people many new ideas and the new stimulations to their thought. I think watching more programs above can be good for our increase of knowledge and the level of the mature of our thought.
Most often, the tendency on TV can be a very evident symbol of the whole society we do live now. We can realize the outline of the dramatic change in the effective way as long as we notice the transposition of the hosts’ speaking style or take care of the conversation in TV series. In this way, we don’t have to go through the whole country, but still we can hold on the fluctuation of the whole word. It is because the programs on TV are tending to fit the most people’s need, standing for the public culture. There are many programs created to help the people relax their nervous feeling and get away the pressure temporarily. In my view, livings in this industrialized society, people do need some ways to release their bad mood or the stress coming from their job. And people really feel more comfortable after watching a funny comedy. At least, people can recall their happy spirit through their laughing. Some people say that people can get the compensation from the fail made by the characters on TV, and they would feel luckier to their poor condition.

Polygamy

As something illegal is shown on TV in front of public eyes, it’s much more possible to cause the originally illegal issue become acceptable. According to the article from Washinton Blade, “The Dutch gay community's official history of the same-sex marriage movement notes how important a turning point it was when a gay couple appeared on a popular Dutch honeymoon show. That appearance helped pave the way for legal gay marriage in The Netherlands.” No wander people who are against the program are so worried about the effect of “slippery slope” which was practiced by gay marriage before.

In my opinion, however, polygamy disobeys human nature unlike gay marriage that can be regarded as a choice of people’s sex tendency without serious influence on others. The most harmful point that may be caused by polygamy is we can’t ignore our nature --jealousy so that it’s difficult to share our lover with others. The article of slate mentioned: “While 21 percent of married or divorced Americans admit to having cheated (and surveys suggest husbands are more likely than wives to stray emotionally and physically), only one in four women says she'd give a cheating husband or boyfriend a second chance, and only 5 to 6 percent of adults consider polygamy or extramarital affairs morally acceptable. As the above cases show, even people who try to practice polygamy struggle with feelings of betrayal.” Thus it’s obvious that polygamy is an ideal choice of our marriage.

Therefore, we should take the program, Big Love with seriousness for no one can stop the public opinion from changing after the trend is brought by the TV show.

Why are People so Fascinated with the Vampire?

The image of a black shadow appearing secretly with thunder and lightning in Gothic castle at night has been deeply implanted in our impression on the vampire. Even in Taiwan, without Gothic castle, the image of the vampire is spread to minds of Taiwan people. Why are people so fascinated with the vampire? According to the article, “The Origins of Vampire,” the author concludes numerous statements into three points. The first one is sexual appeal. The act of sucking blood makes people to connect it with sex. In the movies of the vampire, the place that the vampire always sucks is neck, which is fragile and sexy. When the vampire sucks blood, the gesture of the vampire and the sufferer is like hugging and kissing. Besides, the exchange of blood is the exchange of body fluid which is close contact, like sex which is attractive and preys one’s living.

The second one is the power of the vampire, especially the power of terror. This kind of power appeals people admiring the vampire. People might wonder what they would do if they were vampires. In addition, people would image to use the power to solve their problems in common life. In this way, they can relieve their dissatisfaction through the vampire’s power. The third one is the immortality of the vampire. Being immortal not only mean that people could live forever, but also keep young and beautiful. How can people refuse the appeals of the vampire? In conclusion, the vague zone between life and death, mortal and immortal, and love and evil build up an imaginary world for people and makes people fascinated with the vampire.


Biography:
http://vampires.monstrous.com/vampire_origins.htm

Plastic surgery, a corruption?(revision)

Plastic surgery itself is not a corruption; instead, values of the society which prompt the trend changing faces corrupt. According to the cases mentioned in the article fromTIME, it’s apparent that are getting more and more people judging others by their appearance at the first sight and the climate forces people to be choosy about their looks causing the bloom of plastic surgery.

Saeko Kimura, one of the examples from TIME article, was a shy, sleepy eyed university student who discovered that if she applied a strip of glue to her eyelids, her eyes became wider, rounder and prettier. “Men noticed me,” she says. “I became outgoing. Suddenly, I had a life. ” Her new looks also landed her part – time work as a hostess in an upmarket bar, where she gets top dollar on a pay scale determined by beauty. A trip of glue is the begging of Saeko Kimura’s changing and the attractive new life made her reluctant to face the original self without the wider eyes. Also, Saeko Kimura was afraid that people would discover her “fake” double eyelids; in this way, plastic surgery provided her with a new chance to keep life as attractive as she dreamed of.

The outcome seems ideal after Saeko Kimura had plastic surgery, but what would be her answer if someone asks about her pretty eyes? Will she admit her eyes are factitious instead of ingenerate? The candid answer may have passive influence on other’s impression of her because most of the society hasn’t agreed plastic surgery yet. In other words, people who judge other by appearance can’t accept the process of appearance improvement. Fans who trace their idols with frenzy, for instance, give the harshest critic on those practicing plastic surgery.

After all, we can conclude that if the sick value held by our society doesn’t change, plastic surgery tendency won’t stop flourish and it will be more difficult to identify the ingenerate face and the artificial one in the future.

Bibiliography:
Changing Faces (From TiME magazine. With reporting by Robert Horn/ Bangkok, Jorce Huang/Taipei, Zamira Loebis/Jacarta, Michiko Toyama/ Tokyo, Bryan Walsh/Shenzhen and Genervieve Wilknson/Singapore)
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/110102805/story.html

What I Want To Say(revision)

Pleasant hours fly fast and it is almost time to wave goodbye.

Four years ago, by taking a flight, a silly little girl reached an unfamiliar land — Taiwan. It was the first time that I was torn from my native country. And now, as a result of my many and varied experiences, I have grown up. I am no longer that little girl who did not know anything.

Now, I find myself packing many boxes to send back to my hometown, and also an additional box full of my memories. These boxes are filled with everything which I have acquired during these four years.

In one of the boxes I put the knowledge I have gained.
In one the boxes I put the friendships I have made.
In one of the boxes I put the happiness I have built.
But there is no room for unhappiness, because nothing is negative if we are healthy.

I am pleased to have chosen NCCU as my institution of higher learning. The educational system here allows students to follow their own path. NCCU students have many choices concerning what they would like to learn. Besides, it is a good place to form one’s own convictions, instead of just following the crowd.

As a foreign student, life was sometimes difficult, because it was necessary to take a part-time job to earn enough money. But I make a point to be always satisfied with my life, no matter how rough the road gets, because I know that “what is hard, isn’t fun, what is fun, isn’t hard.”

Taiwan is a place where I think everyone can achieve your dreams and create your own miracles. Always remember “No pain, no gain.”

Now, I have my single ticket (from Taipei to Kuala Lumpur) in hand. It is on June 28 and I am counting down the remaining days in Taiwan. My days in Taiwan are so worthy.

Above all, I am appreciated each professor and classmate. Thanks for a great four years. Bless you all!

Identical Beauty (revision)

With a lot of weight-loss center establish, it is true that more and more people, especially female ones, are eager to make their appearance more perfect: with big eyes, thin chin, and slim shape. Even males would like to have double-fold eyelids through plastic surgery. However, artificial beauty leads to a kind of universial standardization of modern human appearance.

Nowadays people normally identify a girl as a beauty by certain features such as white skin, big eyes, slender legs, cute smile, and so on. That means these features are just what females seek to own. I can’t deny that these features do make a figure attractive, however, since people are naturally born with different appearances, to change one’s original surface is a deed that violates the nature. I don’t think that to break the origin can be a good event because we are all unique by what we look now, do we really need to change ourselves into Venus or Apollo?

While more and more people choose to make their faces look better, will it be possible for them to meet a person identical to them? It might sound ridiculous now, but if the trend of plastic surgery continues to thrive, some well-known doctors will slowly but surely appear, and then people are likely to turn to them for a perfect image. Therefore, people might receive the same operation from the same doctor, and then could it be possible for them to have identical parts? It probably comes true.

So in my opinion, plastic surgery really destroys one’s idea of the self by making people resemble(insert). Artificial beauty actually makes beauties, but they are likely to be similar. The word “artificial” not only means man-made but fake; in other words, artificial beauty means “fake beauty.” Isn’t it satiric? But still hundreds of thousands people seek for this kind of beauty for it indeed makes human commonly charming. The way to get rid of this fallacy is to be self-confident and not to blindly pursue after the fashion. We are born in different features, and those features are the primary elements to create our uniqueness. We should cherish what we have had, not to follow the popularity blindly.

Bibliography
1. In the Cut.
http://www.slate.com/id/2098850/
2. Changing Faces.
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story.html

What Should We Know When dying Hair (Revised)

Look around you, you will find that there are so many Taiwanese whose hair is not black. Are these Taiwanese half-blooded? No. They all just dye their hair. People dye hair because they want to be different from other people or to be like foreigners. But seldom people know the damage of dying hair. For example, their scalp would hypersensitive, inflamed, or even hurt due to the excess of hair dyes. (Bureau of Food and Drug Analysis) I think that people should know the terror of dying hair.

No matter you dye hair at home or in salon, and no matter you are the person who was dyed or dye hair for others, Bureau of Food and Drug Analysis suggests that before dying hair, be sure to check the label of the hair dye, such as the active ingredient, manufacturer, the date of production, and the permitting trade name of The Department of Health. The main ingredients of hair dye are 4-methoxy-m-phenylenediamine, a derivative of coal-tar, and hydrogen peroxide. According to the reports of U. S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and Taiwan Cancer Clinic Foundation, these two chemical ingredients may penetrate skin and increase the possibility of causing cancer, such as lymphatic system cancer, breast cancer. Besides, the chemical would cause strong irritation, dermatitis, flame, itch and blain. (Sina news) Note the permitting trade name to raise the dependence of the hair dye product and note the manufacturer to get indemnity when some hurt happened. Be sure to note the date of production or you can’t get compensation using the overdue product. Although some people use botanical hair dyes, such as garden balsam which is natural, the producer of hair dyes may still add some chemical components so people should still note the label before using it. The following are some matters needing attention of dying hair provided by Bureau of Food and Drug Analysis:

First, avoid dying hair when pregnant. (According to the article, 孕期禁忌應釐清, Doctor Jain Hua Wang from Song Shan hospital said that “in the study of America, the pregnant females who dye hair may cause the brain tumor to mothers.”) Second, read elaborately the matter needing attention before dying hair. For example, don’t let your eyes touch the hair dyes. If you ignored it, you eye would hurt or even be blind. Third, precede part skin test and then observe two day to sure that there is no unusual phenomenon before dying hair. Normally, skin test can help people to know do their body have IgE antibody to some specific allergen, such as pollen, dust mite. If the result was positive reaction, the tester would have a blain or inflame. (TrustMed Inc.All Rights Reserved) Fourth, avoid being bare-handed when dying hair, wash the scalp exhaustively after dying hair and then wash hand in order to avoid eat the hair dye through other food. Fifth, don’t use hair dye on the eyebrows and eyelashes or you may be blind.(U. S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition) Sixth, don’t mix different brands of hair dyes in order to avoid causing serious harm. Seventh, avoid a cold wave, a method of waving using thio-glycolic acid, after dying hair during one week.

Most Doctors suggest that people had better not dye hair or dye hair as less as possible. In my opinion, dying hair is the individual freedom, like the behavior of dressing distinctively, tattooing, and doing plastic surgery. But after knowing the damages of dying hair, people should be responsible for their scalp and their body when deciding to dye hair.
you should search some natural way! Use beer washing hair may be a good try.

Bibliography:
1.染燙髮要漂亮也要安全, February 2, 2006, Bureau of Food and Drug Analysis
http://www.nlfd.gov.tw/ShowModule.aspx?tab=435&mtab=DOC&act=Detail&docid=3623
2.孕期禁忌應釐清
http://www.sinocell.com.tw:8080/mababy/mababy_sub.asp?mababy_no=41
3.染髮前需做皮膚測試, May 23, 2005, Sina news
http://china.sina.com.tw/eladies/beauty1/xiufa/p/2005/0523/0821161591.html
4.如何測試自己的皮膚, 2005, TrustMed Inc.All Rights Reserved
http://www.trustmed.com.tw/new/home/newsinfo.asp?news_id=487
5.染髮會得到癌症嗎?, Taiwan Cancer Clinic Foundation
http://www.vghtpe.gov.tw/~tcfund/information/DYE.HTM
6. Hair Dyes Product, U. S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, November 13, 1997
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-hdye.html
7.冷燙的由來
http://content.edu.tw/vocation/make_up/ks_sd/hair/L06/s01.htm

Just Do It? (revision)

The large corporate companies, such as McDonald’s and Nike nowadays are making an immense amount of money and profits. These companies are also busy shaping their image as charitable enterprises that hold lots of activities and programs that seem to benefit society; for instance, they would invite celebrities to participate in some activities to promote the company image, to raise funds, to help poor minorities in the society, and so forth. It appears that most of these big companies are not the bloodthirsty monsters that devour as much money as possible; instead, they transform themselves into the charitable philanthropists. However, in reality, their merciful look seems to be just a disguise that blurs the fact that all they want is to make money.

In the article “My Year with Nike,” Cloues explores the problem of the sponsorship of enterprise. Nike paid for cost of four filed trips, helped the students to “meet the state physical fitness standards and even contributed more money to the school. Nike seems to provide a cozy and joyful place and many activities for the children; however, as Cloues noticed, its “true purpose for the ‘sponsorship’ was clearly exposed: marketing Nike products” (Cloues). Nike tried to build up their positive image and lure the heart of the children and manipulate their “brand-loyalty” (Cloues). Therefore, Nike is just more aggressive in exploiting their future markets by shaping the consciousness of the children. What it has done is benevolent not to the social mass but to itself.

We should consider whether it is good and right to encourage corporate sponsorship as Nike did. My position is that it is good for the corporate company as Nike to provide financial supports for schools. However, it is not right for what Nike did because it supposed to do something that would truly help the students in “a health and fitness program” (Cloues). Nike should not take the opportunities to produce and create its future loyal costumers by showing advertisements, giving gifts and bringing children to play at Nike Campus (Cloues). It is obvious that Nike doesn’t really care about what social welfare it can bring to the students and schools, it only cares about how much money it can make. If sponsoring the schools is only part of the commercial strategies Nike employs, we should prohibit it to do such thing. Nike should not play its tricks at such institution as school to indoctrinate the children and manipulate their ideology. It is morally wrong because the children do not have the opportunity to distinguish and choose what they want to accept. Nike sponsored the poor schools, but its intention of “partnership” (Cloues) with school is obviously to brand the children (Cloues). But my concern is that since Nike tries to help the students, we should consider what is best for students (Cloues). The truth is Nike doesn’t really care about what is best for the students, but for itself. If Nike only wants to help itself to consolidate and expand its markets but not to help the students, then we should consider whether it is right and fit for accepting Nike’ sponsorship. The school authorities should stand at the side of the students, tries to make a deal with corporate companies that are interested in sponsoring the school, and makes sure the way the companies practice their sponsorship really can help the students.


“Just do it” is the world-wide slogan prompted by Nike. Its appeal, of course, is to ask the customers to just do the purchasing action, to buy it. However, we should think twice before urging Nike to just sponsor the schools in whatever ways it prefers.

Bibliography:Cloues, Rachel. “My Year with Nike.” Adbusters. 2004.http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/60/My_Year_With_Nike.html (16 Jun, 2006).