I don't know how reflective a sample size these interviews of Taiwanese youths are, but there are indeed a number of disturbing signs: 1) There appears to be a profound lack of understanding of Taiwan's economic structure and its place in the global supply chain which inevitably leads to its heavy dependence on mainland China. Many of the youths interviewed seemed completely oblivious to this and view 台商 and China as an obscure far away population that has nothing to do with their livelihood. I don't expect everyone to know such things in detail, but surely most should at least demonstrate some awareness on a conceptual level? None of the interviewees are vaguely even aware of that! 2) This is just a general impression, but the youngsters interviewed here look somewhat negative and very resistant to change. There's a general vibe that they are not interested to what is going on around them and are simply content with just doing what they have been doing in the past. 3) Their inability to articulate the rationale behind their choices and the tendency to switch options once guided in a certain way is also quite surprising. I'm not sure if it's because they know they are being recorded and switched options out of fear of looking stupid on TV or if it's because their thought process is entirely driven by emotions and sound bites of information. If it's the later, then that's not a good sign of the the future generation.
I'm shocked to see so many young Taiwanese remains ignorance. On one hand, they are heavily depending on their mainland China to survive, on the other hand - they are denying their root, still believing that they have better future without unification? OMG what's in their head??
