Darren on Taiwanese Humanism
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices, Unpublished)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2029/06/05
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How was your personal background? Like, what’s your story in early life? How would you tell your early life and story in terms of your interaction, with education, with family, with faith in Taiwan?
Darren: I’m from Taiwan and I am going to be a graduate student from my university and my major is economics but actually the university I study at is a good University which top the list of the social sciences and business school in Taiwan. Before I joined my university now, I had very low grades in in academic work and I didn’t perform very well in the past. At that time, I was not treated equally because the environment in Taiwan; they view those who have higher grades as a better person, a better guy and they are believed to be the best people who can earn more money and they earn prestige from the society. This is not the case for those who have lower and poorly graded students. I cannot imagine why people will think so. I think it’s unreasonable and this is what happened when I was studying at junior and senior high school. At the end of my senior high school time, I gradually got good grades in my tests and I finally passed the examination; so many examinations so that I can get into the university I’m studying at.
I experienced two different phases: the good grades and the bad grades. And I experienced totally different life experiences too. I can clearly feel that this is totally not fair. So, education should not be like this; education should be the light or the fire to inspire to live up anyone’s idea and make them much more courageous to explore much more deeply about the knowledge of the unknown. So, to reach this goal they have to respect individuals, they have to respect what they feel and what they are thinking about; the students. The concept of humanism comes into my mind and this is what happened in Taiwan. Educators and the researchers in educational fields must promote humanistic education in our classes and in the school and in so many fields. So, this is the point why I focus on humanism. It must begin in the field of education.
Jacobsen: How prominent, for those who don’t know, is humanism in Taiwan and how does humanism in and of itself reflect, what some would see many Asian region values although per country these values of course will differ and vary in many ways although there will be trends? How much of it is there in Taiwan?
Darren: It’s far from enough but fortunately we have just started the focus on humanism. You can see so many campaigns. They have their political ideas and they want to make the communities much more equal including the LGBTQ groups or those who have bad grades and encouraging them to do something different. Like, if they have different skills like maybe they’re good at assembling something and make the all the gauges into one machine; then they should be encouraged to do so. If you are one of the members of the LGBTQ group, you can earn respect. There is gradual progress but it is not very common. I think in general it’s not very common to see humanism and it is still not a time for humanism, the concept of humanism or the seed of the humanism to blossom. It’s gradual but it is happening.
Jacobsen: How about yourself? How did you become involved in humanism and how has the trajectory of humanism taken place in Taiwan? How has it developed?
Darren: In what way? In what field?
Jacobsen: I would say, in culture and in youth culture.
Darren: Youth culture. Okay. The first time I got involved in humanism, at that time I didn’t know if there is humanism organization or not. I totally didn’t know anything about that but I just participated in so many activities like the student consulting. The work I do is to share my experience in the university to the senior high school students to make them aware about what happened in the university and why you should prepare for your future and what kind of subject you are going to learn. I shared the experience and ideas with the senior high school students. I try hard to break the barriers in their mind like when they are told to be very good people. I encourage them to be the person who are courageous to be themselves. I share experiences and ideas and I try myself very hard to inspire them. Not only inspiring them but I try myself to start up the related courses like the design thinking courses, the user experience courses with my friends and with my partners on the business. We open and start up our classes and invite all the people around the society who are interested in to take part in our classes and share idea about what is the business of human orientation.
We share some skills to them and tools to make them do much better. In the past economy, Taiwan was just a manufacturer and producer of so many things but Taiwan is not the creator; they are not innovator. So, this is the source that Taiwan has to change, they have to turn themselves from the producer into the creator. The creator cares for science, that cares for the truth, that cares for the people; what people think about and cares for so many human based things. So, in education and in the field of business I do these things to improve them and to help them to change the ideas. In the business field we encourage the producers, the firms to make a good design and based on human habit which may make customer much more satisfied with your design and your product and live a good impression in their minds. We are not just a manufacturer; we care for how to create something that is high quality. This is what I do.
After that, I got acquainted with Kevin Wong who just start up the YHI and Young Humanism in Taiwan. I was very curious about why he did this and what did he do. It was quite interesting and so after a very long chat, I decided to spend part of my time with him and to develop a much deeper understanding and foster a good relationship with each other. I shared some experience; like human-based experience on marketing and branding to the Taiwan Humanism Association and we cooperated with each other and help them to create some projects. I taught them some skills to make a project and share ideas about how to create a good marketing based on human requirement. So, this is the trajectory of my experience in humanism from education, economics, and humanism organizations.
Jacobsen: That’s very exciting. And what would you hope for young humanists in the Asian region in general for the rest of 2019 and into 2020?
Darren: In Taiwan, in our organization, we hope we can prosper and grow and make other people know what humanism is and what is the related concept about humanism. For example, science; because we are living in a world based on science and human orientation. So, it’s very important to make them know what is the basic, the core idea of the system. So, this is the first thing we are going out to do. We will start to host some activities, fun activities to attract people everywhere from north to south, not to East but from north to south, for people from there to participate in our activities and try to make them know and the trajectory, the development of the… and idea from Europe to Asia know the history of this past. In general, in Asian associations, we hope to connect with each other more deeply because I hear from phone. Actually, not just hear from him but I also observe that although Asia is a big family we cannot foster a meaningful relationship as European country did; why? Because we have totally different culture, we have a different history path and we have totally different religion beliefs and we have totally different languages. Even though Singaporean look similar to us, we can’t understand what each other are thinking about because we are living in a totally different environment.
So, to make a good integration is the first and also the most important things to do. How to do? In my opinion, I hope we can start up our staff exchange project, for example, we can assign a country who are going to help activity, to make feedback to the local development. For example, Philippine can do this because they can do something meaningful for their local development like the health, the education, or the public hygiene, or something like this and other delegates and the staffs from different associations in Asia can take part in their projects to make deep understanding about what happened in their country and all representatives can get acquainted and know more about each other during the process of making a service to Philippines. So, this is the first idea and first Philippines and Singapore and then maybe India and Taiwan can do this, can play this role, and we can take turns for every year.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Darren.
Darren: Okay.
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