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★ The China Times (中時), 2024-8-5: After Taiwan's (Chinese Taipei) winning a badminton men's doubles gold medal in the Paris Olympics (the only gold till present, Taiwan ranks about 46), Lai ching-te (Taiwan's president) craps he gazed the night stars finding out "the dark clouds broke away, revealing the glorious moon" (鬼扯夜觀天象發現「月亮破烏雲」) and already gave a prophecy of a gold-medal winning.   chinatimes.com/opinion/20240805004377-262101?chdtv  (What a superstition !  Taiwan is one of the most superstitious countries in the world, Taiwan's president should not foster it )

★ New York Times, 2023-7-27: our society remains patriarchal and hierarchical. Under Confucian values, women obey their fathers and their brothers and eventually their husbands. People are expected to respect and yield to their elders and superiors — in short, the powers that be... In a collectivist culture like ours, the burden of being nice and preserving group harmony falls on those with less power and authority   nytimes.com/2023/07/27/opinion/taiwan-women-metoo.html  Vickie Wang

★ New York Times, 2024-1-20: insecurity and frustration with a lack of influence over its own fate had become an even bigger part of Taiwan's identity.nytimes.com/2024/01/20/world/asia/taiwan-united-states-views.html

★  BBC, 2021-4-14, Crisps have a sacred role in Taiwan's office culture.  ‘Kuai Kuai’,  this savoury product  end up assuming near-mythical protective properties... on or around vital machines in many of the island’s laboratories, banks and even hospitals to ensure the machines continue to do their jobs.   the crisps, whose name means ‘listen to me’ or ‘obey’, ‘behave’ or ‘be good’ in both Mandarin and Taiwanese...The bags also cannot be used as amulets beyond their expiration date, so...usually swapped twice a year –  Lunar New Year, and the Ghost Festival . Those in the tech world say the snack shouldn’t be consumed, otherwise you technically void its protective warranty.  Kuai Kuai can even be found at Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s premier research institute. bbc.com/worklife/article/20210414-the-good-luck-snack-that-makes-taiwans-technology-behave

★  Yahoo, 2024-1-22: ‘Kuai Kuai’(tsmc edition 「綠色金順乖乖」) that many engineer "believe in" raises its price 11 times as its original price.  tw.news.yahoo.com/台積電乖乖限定員工搶購-網路轉賣-漲幅超過股價-123758446.html

★  The Liberty Times (自由時報), 2024-2-20: Under the hype of the media, there are too many superstitions, taboos and customs shrouding Taiwan's society for many years. Traditionally, Taiwanese people need to worship on 110 of the 365 days in a year, which is equivalent to one-third of the entire year. (媒體的炒作之下，迷信、禁忌多如牛毛的習俗，長年籠罩社會。傳統上台灣人一年三百六十五天有一百一十天需要祭拜，相當於全年三分之一的日子。在台灣過一個春節，有許多禁忌；如果不照辦而犯忌，就會有破財、衰困、災厄…諸多惡果厄運降臨。這些禁忌和迷信，透過各種媒體以「民俗」、「命理」、「星象」之名傳播渲染)   talk.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1631494

★ Fox News, 2023-7-28: perhaps most alarmingly, some Taiwanese youth, it turns out, are reluctant to die for their country.  Research in 2018: Large numbers of young Taiwanese were "apathetic toward the military and averse to service."  a critical question – is Taiwan committed to its own defense? There are multiple indications that the answer is no.

★ L.A. Times,  2022-7-31: As tensions flare between the two superpowers — risking the worst crisis in the region in a quarter of a century — people in Taiwan appear by and large to be responding with a collective shrug...The threat of Chinese military action has loomed for so long that few seem to raise an eyebrow when Beijing lashes out, ca.news.yahoo.com/possible-pelosi-visit-elicits-shrugs-170042930.html

★ New York Times,  2021-11-18 ("What makes people happy" ): Most world people in a Pew Research Center survey said that family made them the happiest, such as the Australian(56%), New Zealander(55%), American(49%), English(46%), Swedish, Italian, Canadian etc ranked family first, their percentages are about 3-4 times of that (15%) of Taiwanese, the % in Singapore and Japan is about 2 times of that in Taiwan.  Taiwanese ranked Material well-being above family.

 
★ Guardian, 2021-8-30: Covid in Taiwan's Ghost month   theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/30/not-open-for-humans-covid-changes-east-asias-ghost-month-but-free-spirits-remain
Some suspicions are still common among younger generations. A recent survey of Taiwan office workers found a third of respondents avoid working overtime during Ghost Month. The poll found 40% of office workers had reported strange encounters in the late hours. More than 70% reported “eerie sounds” from office corners, while others said they heard footsteps, saw windows open on their own and elevators arrive on their floor without being called, or heard toilets flushing in an empty bathroom

★ BBC, 2-10-2021, "Why Taiwan has 'luck-improvement services' ": There’s a pervasive idea running through Chinese culture that things aren’t random, Stevan Harrell, emeritus anthropology professor at the University of Washington said, “There’s a belief in order: there’s some sort of order behind everything.” Many people believed in a simple maxim: “tian zhuding” (“heaven decides”).  Some higher power has plans for each person on Earth, traditional Chinese belief also holds that “heaven never seals off all the exits” – there is always a way out.  “We call [this attitude of openness] ‘youbai youbaoyou’,” (有拜有保庇)“, It doesn’t matter if you believe in gods. If you pray, you’ll be blessed.” So, even the upscale Eslite Bookstore has a cosmological self-help section chock full of do-it-yourself fate-improvement guides.  People in the Chinese-speaking world seem particularly preoccupied with luck, from boarding gates to high-stakes baccarat tables and school exams to political races, (Even politicians are compelled to publicly try their luck, visiting temples to draw fortune sticks ...) .   brief http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20210210-chinas-enduring-obsession-with-luck

★ United Press International, 2024-1-27: Taipei, for its part, announced a record defense budget for 2024 and has begun extending its compulsory military service from four months to one year.   If all else fails, Wu at the fish market has another line of defense in mind. "The gods of Taiwan are very powerful," he said, gesturing at a shrine set up in the market to some of the island's thousands of folk deities. "They will protect us.    news.yahoo.com/taiwans-red-beaches-nonchalance-threat-172625593.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall    Thomas Maresca

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★  Reuters, 2021-4-16,  Global Times, 2020-10-22 

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★  Taipei Times, 2021-11-20: Heartbreaking racism towards Indians /  The Chinese-language media reported not only on the vicious and abusive comments, accusing Indians of being dirty and uneducated and the men of being rapists and molesters,  it is indicative of the insularity and provincialism that marks the way Taiwanese think about the world... one of the inexplicable aspects of Taiwan’s brainless xenophobia is the nation’s utter dependence on trade with the outside world...a frequent response of people to encounters with the xenophobia of Taiwanese is silence.  brief taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2023/11/20/2003809423