1. President's remarks

I am delighted to meet here at the Presidential Office Building with the members of the Overseas Chinese Women Writers Association. Your presence here first thing on Monday morning adds an unmistakable note of cultural refinement to the atmosphere.

You are all veteran authors from Taiwan or mainland China who have resided overseas for over 20 years, and have continued with your craft in your adopted lands. While some of you have careers unrelated to literature, you still use your spare time to pen new works. You have shared your observations of life overseas, and more importantly, you have continued while living overseas to play a major role in passing along the legacy of Chinese culture. Your outstanding works have been very well received both within the Chinese-speaking world and beyond, and for that we hold you in the greatest respect.

The Overseas Chinese Women Writers Association was founded 21 years ago by over 20 overseas women writers. The founding group included Chen Ruo-xi, who is with us here today, as well as Yu Lihua and the late Qi Jun. All of them were already very famous writers at that time. The association presently has over 200 members from the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.

Publishing houses in Taiwan and overseas place great importance on the literature produced by the organization's members, including Chen Ruo-xi's 歸 (The Way Back), Shi Shuqing's 維多利亞俱樂部 (Victoria Club), and Ping Lu's 何日君再來 (When Will You Come Again?). These novels have been translated into many languages, helping to expose people in other places to Chinese culture. I hope that you will take advantage of this visit to Taiwan to catch up on current events in recent years and to share your insights with the global ethnic Chinese community through your works.

Since taking office two-and-a-half years ago, I have attached great importance to cultural pursuits. This past May 19th, the day before the second anniversary of my inauguration, I put forward my idea of "six steps to a better Taiwan," which I suggested would pave the way to a "golden decade" moving forward. These six steps are: first, to strengthen the country through innovation; second, to revive the country by promoting culture; third, to stabilize the country by adhering to the constitution; fourth, to save the country through environmental protection; fifth, to secure the country by providing social services; and sixth, to protect the country by promoting peace. I chose "reviving the country by promoting culture" as the second of these steps mainly because I've noticed that over the last 60 years and more, Taiwan has developed a "Chinese culture with Taiwan characteristics," which manifests itself in the performing arts, cuisine, and religion.

Take the Pili style of televised glove puppetry, for example. It has combined modern technology with traditional glove puppet theater, creating totally new lighting and sound effects. The audiences, ranging from senior citizens to children of all ages, simply love it. I also remember the Taipei Beef Noodle Festival that was first held five years ago when I was Taipei City mayor. Today this event has expanded and become the Taipei International New Row Mian Festival. The story of beef noodles is an interesting one. The dish is a real crowd pleaser, but they don't even have it in mainland China, nor does its history in Taiwan date so far back. The reason for this is that many older people in Taiwan do not eat beef. The dish only began to take root and gain popularity here after the ROC government moved to Taiwan in 1949. Research indicates that beef noodles originated in villages for retired soldiers and their families. If you want to eat this type of beef noodles in the mainland, you have to specifically order "Taiwan" beef noodles, otherwise you will get something different. Similarly, Buddhism has a history dating back nearly 2,000 years in mainland China, but its development in Taiwan over the past six decades or so gives Buddhism here a different face than you will see elsewhere. Organizations such as Tzu Chi Foundation, Buddha's Light International Association, Dharma Drum Mountain, Ling Jiou Mountain Buddhist Society, and Chung Tai Chan Monastery are all very active in society and have adopted management practices from the business world to run their organizations. Each has specific objectives and strategies, and the Buddhist monks and nuns who head the organizations function much like corporate CEOs. All of these organizations also have recruited enormous numbers of volunteers, as volunteerism is a prominent feature of their activities. What's more, they are all international in nature, having established a presence in all five continents and attracted many overseas devotees. This is something that you would not have seen in mainland China in the past. Taiwan's prosperity, freedom and democracy have enabled a civil society to take root. All of these examples point to a Chinese culture with Taiwan characteristics.

On another front, Taiwan plays an important role in continuing the legacy of Chinese culture. All of you are quite familiar with the publishing industry. In 2008, a total of 40,575 titles were published in Taiwan, while 149,988 titles were published in mainland China. While the mainland published 3.7 times the number of titles of Taiwan, mainland China's population is 57 times that of Taiwan's. In other words, Taiwan's per capita publishing activity is roughly 15.4 times that of the mainland. While this is a rough quantitative indicator, it does carry extremely important significance. Taiwan is such a small place, but it has the ability to publish such a large amount of work. This points to the possibility of transforming Taipei into an important publishing center for Chinese-language literature.

We are also paying close attention to the issue of Chinese characters. Of the over 1.3 billion people who use Chinese throughout the world, probably only 40 million people use orthodox characters, and most of these people are in Taiwan. Consequently, over the past couple of years, at a time when cross-strait cultural interaction is becoming closer, I have repeatedly urged that mainland China adopt my suggestion of encouraging people to be able to read orthodox characters, while writing either simplified or orthodox characters. In addition, orthodox characters should be used in publishing. This is extremely important in preserving our cultural heritage. Former Premier Liu Chao-shiuan currently serves as the head of Taiwan's National Cultural Association. When he served as president of National Tsing Hua University in northern Taiwan, he made a visit to Changsha in Hunan Province where he toured the Han Dynasty Tombs at Mawangdui. Many of the tourists were extremely interested in the jade burial suit and the female mummy in the tomb, but he found the silk manuscripts more interesting. The manuscripts featured calligraphy in clerical script. An American couple was quite surprised when he happened to read the characters out loud, and asked him how he was able to read characters that were 2,000 years old. Dr. Liu replied that most people from Taiwan would be able to read the characters. However, the tour guides from mainland China didn't understand the characters as the younger generation had never come in contact with orthodox characters. This has created a gap in our cultural heritage and legacy, and it is something that we are very concerned about.

In fact, quite a few individuals engaged in education and cultural pursuits in mainland China have advocated resuming the use of orthodox characters. Last year, mainland China's Ministry of Education restored the use of six orthodox characters. Taiwan's National Cultural Association is currently scheduled to publish a Chinese dictionary toward the end of this year. It will include both orthodox and simplified characters in its entries. This type of publication was one of the things I called for in my campaign platform. The dictionary will not be published on paper, however. Instead, cloud computing will be used to make the dictionary available online.The dictionary will also list nouns that are used differently on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, thereby enabling more people to familiarize themselves with the development of Chinese characters. Meanwhile, the "Taiwan Institutes" that my campaign headquarters advocated establishing overseas are not meant to counter the "Confucius Institutes" that mainland China is creating abroad. Rather, they are intended simply to teach Chinese and showcase the soft power developed in Taiwan over the past six decades.

Amendments to the Organic Act of the Executive Yuan that were passed in January of this year call for the establishment of a Ministry of Culture to replace the Council for Cultural Affairs. In addition, the Law for the Development of the Cultural and Creative Industries that was passed last February will help funnel greater resources and assistance to those industries. Next year will mark the ROC's centenary and the nation will hold a series of celebrations to take place throughout Taiwan. It will be equivalent to a year-long "Taiwan expo." Council for Cultural Affairs Minister Emile Sheng, who is sitting here, is responsible for organizing these events. Activities will address the past, the present, and the future, highlighting what has taken place here in all areas over the past 60-odd years. The activities focusing on the past will help the public to interpret history, while the events focusing on the present will be aimed at presenting Taiwan to a wider audience from beyond our borders. Activities focusing on the future will provide insight on what the future holds in store for Taiwan. Related activities have already begun this year. For instance, two days ago the 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition opened. In my National Day address this year, I specifically mentioned the role that the ROC should play in the world. It should be a peacemaker, a provider of humanitarian aid, a promoter of cultural interaction, and a creator of new technologies and business opportunities. We hope that this will enable Taiwan to exhibit even more soft power in the world, win respect, and move people's hearts.

Now that all of you veteran writers have returned to Taiwan, I hope that you will look around and write about what you see, so that the entire world can get a sense for our soft power. Once again, I warmly welcome all of you to Taiwan. Thank you!

2. Remarks by Chen Ruo-xi, Founding Chairwoman:

I would like to express my appreciation to President Ma for taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with the members of the Overseas Chinese Women Writers Association who attended the 11th general meeting of the organization here. We also truly appreciate the strong support of all the participants, which helped bring the event to a successful conclusion. I am pleased to see that the association, which was founded 21 years ago, has witnessed its membership grow from 21 to over 200. The organization has held its conventions in Europe, the Americas, Malaysia, Shanghai, and twice in Taipei. Everyone is extremely pleased by the unprecedented success of this year's meeting. I'd like to thank President Ma for his encouragement. After we return home, we will resume our writing. The president specifically advocated being able to read orthodox characters, while writing in either orthodox or simplified characters. We will work to promote this objective. During our conference, we also mentioned the importance we attach to restoring the place of orthodox characters among the 1.4 billion people throughout the world who read Chinese. We will certainly work in support of the president's vision. Thank you.