A simple lesson on modernization

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan — Until Saturday before I go back to Cebu, I live in a dormitory here at the Shu-Te University campus, around 25 minutes or 16 kilometers from the city’s main district.

Of note, there is no Bus Rapid Transit in Kaohsiung but traffic is fairly predictable, allowing buses to arrive on time at their designated stops. With the buses and the MRT, aided by the precise guidance of real-time apps, it is very easy to get around the city.

But just like any other city in the world, Kaohsiung is subject to the all-too-familiar criticisms from its own residents. In Cebu, we complain about poverty, traffic, lack of modern mass transportation, poor sanitation, and poor urban planning. Here, residents complain about a piecemeal drive toward further modernization which they say lacks an overall strategy. Obviously they are looking at other modern Asian cities as models.

Kaohsiung no doubt has the amenities and features of a modern city; efficient mass rapid transit system, neat underground railways stations, shopping malls, cultural centers, ranking universities, cashless transactions and other high-tech consumer processes, and a large middle class and upwardly mobile population.

Their heavy industries come with the heavier price of regular smog that chokes the city especially in the winter months, the same industries keep most people gainfully employed. Clearly the next thing forward for this industrialized city is to keep on modernizing toward alternative carbon-light industries and information technology-driven systems.

I have no doubt Kaohsiung, and in general, Taiwan, will reach that stage. When I was a kid BMX biking my way around the neighborhood, my friends and I used to deride Taiwan-made bicycle spare parts for their low quality compared to Japan-made spare parts. When we didn’t have enough money to buy Japan-made parts, we had to settle for Taiwan-made parts.

Now, you rarely hear such kind of reference to Taiwan. Geopolitical concerns aside, the country simply steadily trod on right past any challenge to their modernization. It managed to achieve leading status as a center of technological innovation in the world. Most likely the microchips and touchscreen technology in your smartphone right now was made in Taiwan, now the largest single computer chip producer in the world.

On my first and now second visit here, I spent a few moments reflecting on what could be the major reason for the country’s advance to modernization. In the city of Kaohsiung, for example, it wasn’t a clean city 30 years ago and even suffered from urban blight. But urban planners and residents managed to turn things around.

I often hear about the positive influence of Japanese culture and western economic models coupled with the philosophical foundations of Confucian values which emphasize discipline and good conduct, and proper social relations. But my Taiwanse professor has another slightly different perspective. He said something about Taiwan having more scientists and researchers per capita than most any other developed country in the world. Research conferences and publications in international journals are highly encouraged and regularly done here.

I think I’ve written about it before during my first visit here over a year ago –  that modernization is also a product of creating and sharing knowledge with humility, ethics, integrity, and hard work. That’s my takeaway in this trip. There will always be the necessary shuffle and distractions of human politics, but these are rendered worthless if society as whole is not able to produce knowledge and its products with integrity and social consciousness. That’s a simple lesson on modernization.