 Hello everyone, welcome to V-Class today. I'm your host Howard Chen and it is my honor to have our digital minister Audrey Tang to be with me. Please say hello to the camera. Hello, good local time everyone. All right, so it's my great pleasure to have digital minister Audrey Tang to be with me to have this all English interview and we will have the subtitles here for you. So don't worry about our English and it's a great time for us to learn English and also learn about digital democracy. All right, so shall we begin? Yeah, anytime. You're welcome. Let's start from our first question. So let's start from what you have been pushing forward that is the three main topics that you have that is digital democracy under that we have open government using engagement and also social innovation, right? Of course we have the threat definitions rather be available online but would you please explain them or elaborate them to us in your own words and give us some examples about the three topics? Certainly. So open government is fundamentally about trustworthiness. It's about trusting the people and making sure that people can see the ideas being brainstormed by public officials. So the transparency on one side and participation which is the other side are the first core pillars in open government. We are to that the two ideas of accountability meaning that we need to give an account whether we included some people's idea or not. We have to explain that. So one example would be on the daily central epidemic command center press conference where the commander Chen Shijong used to every 2 p.m. give an account of the ideas we received the previous day through hotlines such as 1i22 and then whether it's pink medical masks or rainbow medical masks or whatever. New ideas that we get from the community we make sure that we amplify it and give an account of how that's going to integrate with our counter coronavirus plan. So that's accountability and there's also inclusion because not all people are very comfortable using digital channels to express their ideas or suggestions. So there needs to be people who are trusted intermediaries such as the community pharmacists who are already trusted by the local neighborhood and elderly people already go there to refill their chronic prescriptions anyway and so for like wearing a mask to protect oneself against one's own unwashed hunts that idea if it's the pharmacist doing the convincing then when the elderly have some innovations or some questions and things like that they can channel it through the professionalism of the pharmacist so that's called inclusion so transparency participation accountability and inclusion that forms the basis of open government. Yes that's wonderful for your explanation and definition for open government and you mentioned a few keywords here for example transparency accountability and also inclusion and trust. I'm especially curious about how the trust is formed in public because we know that for a policy to be trusted or to be carried out successfully it requires a lot of trust of the people. So for example open data is trust and also we have a lot of systems that require trust of the people so for especially for our pandemic and the government's response requires a lot of trust and in your view how is it formed how do people know that they can really trust the government is transparency enough? Yeah as Lao Zi said in Dao Dijing to give no trust is to get no trust that means to me that the government need to trust the citizens and then the citizens may or may not trust back so trusting the citizens what does it mean for example when we're rationing out the medical masks in the pharmacist if we decide to publish only open data as data every day so people will have to basically believe have faith in the national health insurance agency's accountability mechanism but there is no way to audit that in a participatory fashion. On the other hand we decided early February to publish every 30 seconds and that changed the dynamic because when you're queuing in line when you see the person queuing before you swipe their IC card then you can check your phone on the mob or on the line chat bot and so on and actually see that the mask availability in that particular pharmacy decreased by two because at the beginning it's two every week and so if you see it rather increased by two you're probably call 1922 right there and so auditing by participation I think that really shows the trustworthiness not only of the pharmacy of the entire system. I see that's why that's where participation comes into play right so we don't just give people the data and say that you can take a look but you also require their participation so they are part of it that's right and if the quality of the data needs improvement for example early February there were performances that are handing out those take a number plates so when they do that and collect the national health insurance card and then send the card back with the mask to people coming back with those take a number of plates that actually renders the mask availability mob useless because you will see that it still have a lot of masks but actually the take a number system has already run out so these are two social innovations mask availability mob on one side and take a number system on the other but they kind of run bump into each other and cancel each other out and so at that point the important thing to do is to always trust the citizens and trust the pharmacist and we say sorry we cause you trouble but we will change it the very next week next Thursday to make sure that there is two different data fields in the open data making sure that the opening hour is divided into handing out the numbers and the handing out actually the masks and then later on when pharmacist requested that they want to press a button and disappear from the map as soon as the take a number system runs out of the number cards we implemented that also on the following Thursday and so basically owing up to whatever errors we may and also showing competence that we can give an account of how to fix that the very next Thursday that also earns trustworthiness for everyone I see so that is to me a very open attitude to show the public that the government is trustworthy because it's a dynamic process and the government is keeping improving itself that's right it's wonderful now please allow me to take a look at my notes okay for the next question um okay so we've finished two questions and um yeah yeah we're moving on to COVID-19 related question actually we've talked about some of them right so trust and ah the highlights for digital policy sure okay okay all right okay it's outside there's a sound okay how did it sound just now okay everyone doesn't feel the speed is too fast or too slow or you haven't given up yet okay well minister what do you think can be seen as the highlights of our COVID-19 response policies especially digital policies implemented yeah in addition to the mask rationing and availability map system that we just talked about I think another key measure is really the quarantine system yeah in our quarantine system you're asked to go to the quarantine hotel for 14 days where you're physically far from leaving but receive a stipend of around 33 us dollars per day but if you break out of that quarantine of course it's 1000 times that that's a fine or if you live in a place with your own bathroom it's the one you can also choose digital quarantine in which case your phone is put into the digital fence and the triangulation done by the signal strands in nearby several towers is used to monitor the whereabouts of the phone in a situation much like the advanced earthquake warnings flood warnings and things like that people understand that this travels through sms and it only used a cell phone signal not wi-fi or gps or bluetooth or 5g or 4g or anything like that so if you turn off all those you know gps wi-fi bluetooth it still works right and so it is quite inclusive in that it doesn't mandate the installation of any particular operating system or any particular app and it is um privacy preserving in a sense that it only knows your journal where about like 50 meter radius but not which room you're in and also people understand that it's a telecom doing the sms sensing so they will not hand that information to the body processors that want to sell the advertisements or something like that so that is a pretty good system and we did implement the quarantine system in addition to the mask use and that has kept the r value to the other one meaning that there's no community spread in taiwan well so i think in my view that is the considerate use of technology that is to strike a balance between the surveillance and also the pervasiveness of technology and personal privacy that is wonderful right moving on we like to talk about how to take taiwan to the world and as we have already witnessed a lot of great achievements done by taiwan and also by you that is to talk to international media outlets to talk to them and my first question in this regard is how do you prepare because for a lot of presentations we know there are a lot of preparations required and you i'm sure you have to look at a lot of information and materials every day and especially when you're preparing for an interview or a presentation how do you usually prepare for these public presentations when you need to communicate to so many different people yeah usually i just read the materials by day and especially right before i go to sleep but i do not make any edits or nor do i make any judgments on the material i simply scan them into my visual memory and then i go to sleep if i sleep for eight hours or more then i wake up usually with a pretty good outline of the structure of the key ideas in those materials and how they connect so that's how i woke up a day and found my like eyes open and then fast very fun i just imprinted on my visual field and i just you know opened keynote and started typing in fast very fun but those were of course the key ideas in the materials maybe hundreds of pages that i have absorbed in the previous night and do you have some tricks or special tools you use that you care to share with us in terms of preparation for a big amount of material or a big amount of information yeah sure i usually think was a stylus so all my computing devices this is an ipad but also my phone which is a note all use stylus and this has been like that since i don't know palm pilot which was ages ago and sharps of rs and things like that so because when i write with a stylus my mic mapping flows to two dimensions or more and i can zoom in and zoom out and that shows the interconnectedness of all the ideas on the other hand if i'm forced to type then i have to essentially serialize that is to say to make them flow in a linear fashion but that is quite arbitrary in many of the materials that i read there's more than one way to connect them more than one one way to organize them so my mapping to me is really important now on ipad i use good notes to mark them so in other words taking notes can help you generalize or forming a database for the materials that you have absorbed that's right that's right and my handwriting uh while like even i myself after they are two didn't recognize what i wrote the computer actually knows what i wrote quite well so the ocr the character recognition that also helps a lot so you can say you're not a fan of traditional note taking with the paper book yeah if anything doesn't have full text search it's broken to me because i rely on full text search to organize my thoughts i see right i need to take a look at one else okay it's the low tech part that's right not full text search it's just serially reading it yeah i kind of combine the two questions before number five yeah okay so maybe uh later i'll ask you if you have the final sprints before presentation that's the last of number five and that one move on to the next page the next question will be more about language and cultures all right so i think it's also related to taking taiwan to the world because taiwan still is not fully included right so we need to introduce our languages and cultures to the world all right okay ready right uh rather personal and also interesting question to ask you like for me i do have to have a final sprint before a big presentation do you have that do you have to review all the materials you have before a big presentation um i do but it's mostly in my head so i usually just take a few deep breaths um it takes anywhere from five seconds to 20 seconds and just run very quickly through uh those presentation slides and so on uh in my visual field and that's all the preparation i need does it have to be a very quiet time for you to be alone or you can do it if i can close my eyes for like that's that's good yeah as long as you can go into your own world that's right prepare for it that's wonderful the virtual reality helps when you're wearing vr people know that you're not in they do not disturb one mode sounds good yeah yeah this is the way to communicate that's right it's like wearing a really big earphone right headphone right now all right moving on to the next question about taking Taiwan to the world sometimes we do need to introduce our languages and cultures to people from a different country or totally different cultural background and i once actually experienced that when i was interpreting you to some uh experts from the mit you were quoting lao zi that's right right but you are so considerate you use english in that session so what i and my booth may needed to do was only to find the original text in chinese and read it out to the chinese audience yeah i even specified the chapter number yes your life easy yes that's so considerate thank you so much for that right so um my question here is how do you introduce our languages and cultures to other people i mean in a way that is easy to understand and also not too complicated because sometimes when we give introduction when it's too complicated people lose interest in it that's wrong um so first of all i would look up the work that previous translators did on the same field so for example when i was quoting dao zi on that particular occasion i quoted the Ursula leguin version which says nature doesn't make long speeches and that's a very beautiful like crystallization of the four very simple kanji character that's right right so so it's a like equally beautiful and elegant rendering of the core idea without going into the hermeneutics that is to say the getting the four characters are fully expanded so a poetic rendition i think it's important and one can practice that actually just by translating more uh and as a translator um okay we were talking about translation interpretation so my answer is okay i think we can talk about translation as a translator and as a translator and uh occasional interpreter i think what really makes sense is to practice that kind of subconsciously whenever you run into an interesting idea in your own culture try to translate that in english on the background of one's mind and that's how for example how um the workplace are made because some workplace makes a lot of sense in one language simply does not translate so you have to come up with equivalent workplace but if you do that um like on spot nobody can do that i can't do that so it makes more sense to just uh pre-compute some of this workplace and just cash it in one's mind so that when the situation calls for it like when somebody wants to ask me okay what's the official name of your state of your country i can go like yeah it's the transcultural republic of citizens i see so in your view or from my observation i think preparation actually is ubiquitous it's not just a one-time thing before representation and they're cumulative right that's right that's right when you laugh about a meme in Mandarin and you can subconsciously then ask oneself well what would you do if you have to translate that to english and sometimes there's no translation there's just a rendition but then keeping that in mind helps a lot yes especially it's so relatable to me especially when there is a pun and the punchline is in the language itself that's usually untranslatable right and in your view i think to me your view to your approaches to languages and cultures to me sounds like open source or open data because you have to be aware of where the resources are and also you are constantly checking what's new what's the updates and when you need them you consult them so it's not a one-time thing all right that's very good tips for our learners here definitely thank you very much all right no time thank you thank you oh that was an English learning just the key words are there yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay okay so yeah i mainly want to let because because the degree of the committee is still very high with the public because i think this is what i want to let everyone have a connection with you is to bring you to you when you're still at a beginner level so you can review some let the time go by or you feel like there's a difficult place to share some small stories now i would like us to talk about your English learning journey right so can we take the time machine now and back to the time when you were still a beginner for learning the English language English language do you still remember that time and do you have some yeah it's still do and there might be some awkward experience or memories about using the language and maybe making the scene of yourself without knowing right it happens to it can happen to every one of us when we're learning a foreign language so would you share with us some of that awkward moments back then sure so i first learned English purely as a written language like i i don't have a community to speak to when i was eight years old when i was first learning programming so i would as a beginner of programming i don't even have a personal computer in the beginning so i have this a4 paper that i use a pencil to draw the computer's responses on the upper side and then use a pen to draw the like qwerty keyboards right so so while i do know how to pronounce individual alphabets i don't have a pronunciation for most of the words so i would just wake up and then write or rather and type cls enter and then use a eraser to erase the upper side but i didn't know at the time the cls actually stands for clear screen and so i thought cls is a word to memorize it as cls right right right and and i don't even know how to pronounce it because there's no vowel in the sound right so so for the longest time i thought that cls is a very English there's a sound in our own mind right to help us memorize that's right that's right because the other keywords in the language in the basic language they are pronounceable um you can say print how the world you can say randomize timer and things like that but but but but the word cls really evaded me for the longest time eluded me but of course later on i would learn that it actually stands for clearing up the screen but that's not until i was like 14 years old or something yeah right well but you actually didn't say it to anyone so it was fine thank you well of course it's it's less embarrassing if you're just putting it in writing i guess right on right then about motivation that it's a key question for many people because when people are motivated they keep learning and they keep propelling themselves to move on and to keep learning more so what was your motivation what was the motivation for you to keep learning english well initially it's purely instrumental like um quite literally not figuratively if i know more about the basic language then i can play the instrument that's the person the computer better because eventually i had a person the computer and then that would save my time because i don't like doing calculations by haunt but i was very interested in mathematics but not in the mass part of it so the more i learn about the computer programming languages the more the computer can automate away those chores to me and then i can learn more mathematics so that's my initial motivation i see that is to use a tool better so you you learn another tool even better that's just the english language thank you for that and now do you still see yourself consider yourself an english language learner definitely i make mistakes all the time and because i learn english with no community to practice the spoken part of the english language i tend to pick up the accent of whomever i'm talking to uh but i may make a lot of mistakes when it comes to the pronunciation all right do you have some special learning methods that you can share with us well it's about listening to rap i guess and trying to catch up to the rappers i know your favorite is hamilton that's exactly right yeah so yeah listening to hamilton uh both the original soundtrack and later on disney plus uh that that's really educational for me all right thank you so much for sharing with us your learning journey and language learning tips all right now it's not time to get the last part i think yeah behind the scenes is finally we're transitioning to some softer topics right so in your leisure time if there's any what do you do to relax or let off some steam especially during the pandemic period i mean i believe there are a lot of pressure coming from all parts of the society definitely um i usually listen to music make some pee and then sleep but with the emphasis on the sleep part right so um i mentioned that if i have to prepare for a important presentation i really have to sleep uh like eight entire hours but if it's even more complicated like i remember when the like world health assembly before that a few days before that we had a 14 economies and countries kind of pre-assembly assembly organized by our ministry of health and welfare and i needed nine hours of sleep that the night before that to make the full preparation the longest i've slept is after i've watched the movie tenet and i can't figure out what's going on while watching so i slept for 10 hours and then i woke up and oh it makes so much sense but do you have the control of your the duration or the length of your sleep it's just i don't set alarms right so i just let it sleep as as long as it takes to organize the mind i see and you found out that the longer you need it the more complex the topics might be that's right that's right i see so whenever you feel stressed just sleep that's a very good tip taken out it's like with sleep with a purpose that's right exactly purposeful sleep that's very productive that's right right and now uh what would you do if you are not in politics probably a translator interpreter and also a youtuber any particular reason for that i know you you you actually have an interest in translation because you are in love with learning about different cultures and different languages so it makes sense to me and maybe to the audience but what about the other different things that you might want to do yeah um so i do have uh the channel the pd's channel at digital ministry that tw that this recording also has a copy uh in right and it's in the creative commons meaning that it's uh open innovation anyone can take clips or samples from this particular rendition and make i don't know rap songs like the band dos monos from japan actually did that they just took a random interview uh where i talk in english and then they sampled that into their japanese uh rap song so i think uh just contributing to this creative community is something that i really enjoy and so in a sense i'm also a youtuber except uh just with a you know public purpose but uh funded by all the taxpayers so thank you very much and and making sure that not only the what of policies but why and a half of policymaking is clearly explained to everyone who cares to watch right that totally makes sense to me especially when i am interpreting some conferences i see your video remarks so in a way you're a streamer that's right you're doing pre-recorded programs exactly to stand out to everywhere all right that is wonderful and that concludes our all-english interview today thank you so much i'll be tanked thank you for the great questions you know no problem thank you so much it's my honor and let's say goodbye live long and prosper okay guilty is the most disgusting meaning but pleasure pleasure is the language that how do the two have to cooperate yeah i i just think guilty pleasure this word it's more like i feel like i'm happy but i don't want to let others find out this kind of situation but because talking about crime seems a bit a bit too impulsive yeah yeah we think about crime here is to think about punishment that kind of thing yeah there's a kind of public nature that seems to be going to harm others but guilty pleasure is too small to harm ourselves this inner self will feel that i'm a bit of a but actually not to harm others so maybe it's called just bad確信 bad bad conceded by the rest of the bad conceded by the conceded I think good conceded have pretty good we can look at how much people in life need a little like this kind of book secretly yes it can be balanced it's a bit like the word hi But I still feel like there's nothing special about it. There's no guilty part. It's a pure pleasure part. What's your bad news? What's my bad news? I think I have a bad news that I will hug Xiaobai. I will go on the Internet to find out especially to fight, especially to be my personal to be the kind of person who is more determined to fight. Then go to his friend and then send him a message. And then say, what you asked is actually not like this. I have been working in the executive committee in 2014. There's no party or anything like that. Go to fact check him. This is actually what the other party will do the next day. Because I will reply to my friend because he posted it. Because he is KDQ. So I searched it. It's all online. Yes, of course. Otherwise we can't see it. So he posted it. Sometimes I don't know a minute. I will suddenly have a friend. So from his personal point of view I feel like my wife is being controlled. Yes, I really feel like my wife is being controlled. But I am sincere. I want to communicate with her. Then there are some friends who really turned out to be good friends. So my bad news is called Troll Hugging. Troll Hugging is not easy to turn. Now it turns into a hug Xiaobai. I think Troll personally thinks that in our culture it is more like a nickname. Or something like that. Right. It's going to be a blank attack on the Internet. Right. Or it's going to be a deliberately challenging person. Right. So you are going to hug these people. Wow. I think it's not easy. Because he actually needs a certain courage. Yes. And usually the other person will be more surprised. Because you are more brave than him. Yes, yes, yes. Then it's like you are complaining to others about this. Then I suddenly go to the side. You are right. He said actually, the way of thinking is wrong. Yes, yes, yes. In fact, how is the facts? Yes, yes. Then it means it's not necessarily his idea. Yes, I'm wrong. For example, it looks like a flat picture. It looks like this piece here. Then if he thinks but in this fact what can be strengthened? I am a pure spirit. I'm not just going to give him a word. It's not a clear answer. Right. Or if he has any specific suggestions, then I would be very willing to make it. I understand. Later, the point of view is more far away. Let's put it this way. Let everyone see the face is actually not that lonely. That's right. Wow. I think this word is really high quality. Really thank you for your sharing. The second interesting point is maybe a little bit personal. So look at how I think. When was the last time you cried? I think it was when I cut the onion. Did you get disappointed? No, I didn't. I didn't wear a mask. So do you cook? Yes, I cook. Do you like cooking? I quite like it. But when the epidemic is over, I really don't have time to cook. Because the epidemic really makes too much public food go up to the stage. Yes, yes, yes. The main thing is that the epidemic is relatively short. Probably around April. I just woke up about about 6 o'clock in the morning. So I have to start preparing 7 o'clock and especially in the East. There are a lot of meetings there. Or interviews. When it's late at night, there are Africa and Europe. Yes, so it means that the whole day probably will interact with about four or five different lost friends. So it was still a bit early in the past. So now it's early, late, late, it's not necessarily the boss. Wow. Then it becomes that you have to find a good just to be sure. Yes, yes, yes. So in the end, it's easier to think about other people. It's a little easier. Oh, it's true. And at any time, at any time, there is no time limit. You can catch 5 minutes. Yes, it's true. The third thing we're curious about is whether there is anything unusual or it's a little difficult to do. Because we often think wow, you seem to be using your brain to deal with a lot of things. Actually, since I was a child, because my body is not good, so I actually the whole outdoor activity is to do anything outside. Whether it's climbing mountains, diving, running, it's all very uncomfortable. Of course, after that, I started to practice a little bit. But basically, as soon as my heart beats to a degree, my brain will be very serious and say, are you going to faint? But in the world, no, because my heart has already been cured. It's still a relatively stable activity. The main reason is because of these large-scale activities, I really have been in my mind that I'm going to faint right away, but in fact, no. I understand. That sounds like a quiet time. That's right. It's very, very... It can be a kind of activity. Yes, it can be a kind of activity. Yes, it can be a kind of emotional demonstration. Yes, as long as we are all involved in the quarantine. That's right. In the end, because we are still back, it is a English learning to encourage everyone to learn the platform. I would like to use this opportunity to maybe encourage our Japanese fans to learn some English ideas or to speak to them. And then finally, speak to Taiwanese friends. Because we know that you have many Japanese fans in Japan. Maybe now you can speak a few words with them in English. Hello, I'm Audrey Tang, and I'm a foreign minister. As a fellow English learner, I would like to encourage you in thinking English as something that you does not need to be perfect. For example, I just said you does not, but actually you do not as the right grammar, but you still understand the point that I'm trying to make. So as long as it's a tool for communication, the other side would not care about that much of a perfect grammar. And if you keep the grammatical mistake consistent, it even becomes your style. And maybe you will define the new grammar of the new century. And so just keep using English without worrying too much about a perfect grammar. This I think is very difficult to share. Because I learned in Taiwan and grew up, I found that my article agreement is very common. It's so boring. Is it important? It's a real agreement. Is it important? Because I've been thinking about it so I won't spend so much inflection because I'm not a native speaker. So article or single or plural agreement often appears like the situation doesn't. But I think the other side also understands it. So in the end can you share with your friends in Taiwan some ideas or ideas? Okay. Actually English is to talk more and then listen more. We don't care with any cultural friends actually he speaks English unless he is a native speaker otherwise it's not necessary to compare like culture, right? Or in the end it's all about understanding. Like when we talk we don't want the gun to put our focus on the gun but not on what the other person wants to say English is the same especially so-called international English he doesn't have any discussion about accent accent accent so in this situation I still suggest to listen more and don't care so much whether it's foreign law or other things. That's all from Tang Feng very thank you for accepting today's interview I am very happy to have so many conversations and I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope