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Taiwan at the Crossroads
In order to become good citizens of the global village, we need to learn quickly and also to teach our young to have a global view and to respect, appreciate, and understand different cultures of different peoples.

     The proper education of our young generation is of utmost importance in order to meet the challenge of the 21st century. Indeed, many countries around the world are engaged in the educational reform. Apparently, educational systems in many parts of the world have not caught up with the changing world.

     It is quite clear that the young generation need to do better in everything, in math, in reading, in expression, and in science, in order to become competitive in the globalized world. But it also seems to be clear that our education should go far beyond the goal of achieving competitiveness. It is important for us to educate everyone on earth to be good global village citizens who possess various abilities to make a productive living in this changing world.

     We should also be aware that, in the rapidly changing world, many good practices for bringing up our young in the past might not work anymore in the highly industrialized society in which social structure has changed substantially. It has been pointed out many times that even the best school education can never replace the important role played by family education. But as the family becomes simple and family ties weaken, the family unit is often not the same as the family in ancient time of agricultural society. It is not the same old ideal environment for children to grow up in. This situation is especially true in urban environment. The problem cannot be solved by social leaders' continual stress on the importance of family values. For nuclear families with the husband and wife and only one child, children can hardly learn how to live with brothers and sisters. I agree entirely with what Hillary Clinton once said, "It takes a village to bring up children properly." Building blocks of society should be considered to be communities rather than simple families. It is especially true when families become smaller and smaller. It is only in a strong and healthy community that children from broken families or neglected children have chances to grow and develop properly. At present, I am the chairman of a young organization in Taiwan called "The Society of Community Construction" which is engaged in activities of community renaissance or so-called bottom-up social transformation.

     Well, I believe that the 21st century will be the critical turning point for the people living in Taiwan as well as for all human beings. I am quite convinced that the globalization of the world economy will no doubt reduce the chances of military confrontation as a means to settle international disputes.

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