Don't be confused between Thailand and Taiwan

I personally never faced with that myself. And right now I don’t think our foreign friends will be confused any more. Once I said I came from Thailand, they asked how the Red Shirt, the Yellow Shirt and the street protests were.

Yes, Thailand and Taiwan recently encountered flood problems, and foreigners might have seen physical fighting and chaos in Thai Parliament, and we also have two major political parties competing in political arena- one conservative and the other populism. But we can still see some difference easily.

Not that we have a female prime minister.
 
I went to Taiwan last month to witness the inauguration of the second term of President Ma Ying-jeou from Kuo Min Tang Party.
 
Tens of thousand people staged street protest against him just before the inauguration. They cited controversial policies especially on the hike of energy prices despite the slow economy.
 
During the inauguration ceremony, President Ma gave the policy that the energy prices must be reasonable and encourage energy conservation, carbon reduction and increasing of investment in green energy industries. Therefore, the prices of energy and electricity will be more market-base and the "user pays" principle will be exercised.

 
Ma asserted that the policy was part to promote Taiwan competitiveness. As the trend goes green around the world, he said, Taiwan is turning into a "low-carbon, green-energy island".
 
In Taipei, I asked the people I met what they thought about Ma and what they felt unhappy with. The people I talked to agreed that they were unhappy with the energy prices. However, they understood that Ma’s policy would be good for the country in the long run.

At about the time of the inauguration, the media reported plunged popularity of Ma according to surveys. Ma, both before and after the inauguration, apologized to the people and promised to do better.
 
It could be that Ma is really in popularity trouble. The vote result that brought him to the seat four years ago was almost 60 per cent while it was a little over 50 per cent. At least, the manly leader showed he cared about what people said.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra also cares about what people said. She many times expressed the sorrow that she received unfair teasing from the media and the public.
 
A classic case could be "Ao Yu" (We can handle it), her comment she made last year towards the flood problems that she is still teased with the word so far.
 

Okay, let’s be fair, just let alone who said what for now. Action speaks louder than words, and we need evidence, right?
 
Despite the policy on environment and natural resources, Yingluck Shinawatra Cabinet on April 9 approved Bt13 billion to build Mae Wong Dam, which means we have to sacrifice the trees in the abundant forest in the "national park."

I remember well how over a decade ago I was impressed when seeing big trees in the city in a music video of Taiwanese singer Wang Lee Hom. My own impression of visiting Taiwan is how green the country is. There are a lot of trees, big trees everywhere.

Taiwan is very clean, any visitor can tell. Even when my friend firstly heard that I was going to visit Taiwan, she said, "I’ve been there. I was impressed. It was stunningly clean."
 
The fact that Taiwanese municipalities pick up trash twice a day is not enough to believe that it is what makes Taiwan clean. My impression was clarified very soon after coming back to Bangkok when I saw a man, who was crossing the road, spitted right on the road- while walking.

Seeing optimistically, at least he used the zebra cross.

With behaviours of some Thais like that, no matter how many times the responsible agencies pick up the trash each day, Thailand cannot be a clean place.
 
I come to my impression here, one big difference of Thailand and Taiwan is the people and their mindset- thinking only about themselves or thinking about others too, and thinking only about now or thinking about the future in the long run.

In Ma’s speech, he seemed to realized Taiwanese policy to go green will not just benefit the country itself, but it is for the world also. I don’t know if Thais learn that everything counts, after seeing more and more natural disasters to our country and the world in recent years, or how we are affected by the haze caused as a result of fires in Maynmar and Indonesia.

It is certainly not because of the name of Taiwan’s Formosa Island which means beautiful island that make the 23 million Taiwanese keep it beautiful. Thailand also has vast variety of naturally beautiful land and islands. In fact, it is not about the population and it does not need so high education for 65 million Thais to be aware and help keep their land of smile beautiful.

I don’t really care about Taiwan as much as my motherland Thailand. But after all, it’s actually not just anyone’s land. The Earth is our home where we live together