Comment on Finland Unveiled

The book Finland Unveiled, written by Brian Wu Siang-hui, describes a wide range of scenes, including cultures, education, social traditions, which had been seen by the author. It contains a lot of social issues like education methods, language policies, living conditions, internal politics, and even national defence. He had made a lot of comments and compared with the difference of similar issues that occurred in Finland and Taiwan in most of the chapters of the book. The first example is the textbooks applied in Finland are quite easy for the students to grasp because the contents of them are based on the things in actual situations, instead of the texts based on theories that cannot be easily understood by students. The author found that the arrangements of the textbooks are the major reasons for efficient learning among Finnish students. He suggested that the textbooks in Taiwan can be designed in the same way since a lot of contents can be derived from everyday life. He stated that the city planners of Helsinki, the capital city of Finland, consider the needs of different groups of people. There are three sets of pedestrian traffic lights on each post in order to let toddlers and wheelchair users to see the lights clearly. The main streets in the city are usually reserve one third of the space for pedestrians and bicycle users.
He also applied the issues in defence and successful diplomacy to explain the importance of frank and openness in governance for gaining trust among citizens and good reputation from the people all over the world.
        The author stated a lot of instance of the support to Finland and their cultural distinction among Finns, including the preservation of their ethnical heritage like folklores, music and maintaining their own values, in order to emphasize ‘Finnish identification’ and to make sarcasm on Taiwan social values.
The original text was published on 8:48pm, 27 July, 2008.