Most short and long term visitors to Taiwan will comment on its unique characteristics, culture and style. Taiwan has an identity that makes it clearly different from all its neighbors; further its people are hardy, resilient and adaptive. Why? This is no doubt more than just the result of historical experience and development; it may also be its nature. Theorists certainly wonder how and why after century upon century of diverse colonizers, with each striving to impose its brand of imagined community on it, Taiwan has still managed to develop its own characteristics and culture. I posit that Taiwan did this not so much by rejection, but by absorbing the colonizing cultures and cross breeding them into its own indigenous ways and stock. In other words, Taiwanese have forged what can be called their own unique hybrid culture and way, the Taiwanese way. ...

Jason Hu was born in Beijing and grew up in the hierarchical, one-party state culture of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). As a one-party state, it was a culture of privilege, power, and entitlement. Within that culture one could easily rise if one had reasonable talent, kept one eye closed under the party mask of hierarchical respectability, and was loyal to the party regardless of its actions. It was a culture fostered by Chiang Kai-shek (CKS), a warlord among warlords and one who manipulated events so that he seemed the logical choice to bear the mantle of Sun Yat-sen. If one followed the above precepts particularly that of loyalty, one could expect to be taken care of by the benevolence of the KMT. Jason Hu did that and was rewarded by being its representative for Mayor of Taichung. ...

The November elections approach and the voters of Taipei have many questions to ask. One important question concerns the quality of Mayor Hau Lung-bin's past leadership. When it comes to quality, whether it is Quality Assurance, Quality Control and/or Quality Management, those familiar with the topic would know the name of Philip Crosby, author of "Quality is Free" (1979). In that work, Crosby gives his famous maxim, "Do it right the first time." Crosby's maxim is simple and direct, and it explains the title of his book. If a person, a company, a mayor, or the mayor's staff does something right the first time, then there will be no need for the cost of re-doing it or for the cost for repairs. In other words, quality will be free. ...