Post-Covid Reconfigurations

Chou Mu-tzu

Chou Mu-tzu is a counseling psychologist, lead vocalist of the band Crescent Lament, and the author of books such as Working Too Hard and Emotional Blackmail (the latter has been published internationally). She offers fresh perspectives on familiar cultural topics.

Bringing hearts closer together

Many people found studying or working from home very challenging, but counseling psychologist Chou Mu-tzu seized the opportunity to slow down and take stock of herself. Returning to her favorite Japanese liter­ary works, she read between the lines to trace out the writers’ personalities by tapping into her ex­pertise in psychology. This led to “Scripting the Writers’ Souls,” her first-ever podcast series. In it, she delves into the lives of individual writers, suggesting that their psycho­logical wounds transcend the boundaries of time and culture and resonate with us.

Chou makes an analogy between physical and mental wounds. If someone’s arm is injured, they’ll prob­ably seek medical treatment, and others will sympath­ize with them and offer help. But when people suffer a mental injury, it’s likely that they’ll try to ­ignore it or put up with it.

During lockdown, our relationships with those who live in the same household may either improve or worsen. How can we cope? Are there any techniques that will help assuage the anxieties associated with the pandemic?

The most important thing to do, albeit also the hardest, is to take good care of yourself first.

When you find yourself in a negative mood or severely stressed, slow down and ask yourself what has happened, and how you would like others to treat you. Getting to grips with your own emotions before you make decisions is something that requires constant practice.

People have had to cut down on their social activities due to the pandemic. Some feel very lonely as a result. What is your advice for them?

When our connections with other people become tenuous, our sense of ourselves weakens too. Under these circumstances, we need to grasp every opportunity to express our feelings. Many people find it embarrassing to lay bare their feelings, but then they also complain when others don’t declare how they feel. Treat others as you would like them to treat you.

Benson Yeh

Benson Yeh, a professor of electrical engineering at National Taiwan University, is a cofounder of PaGamO, the world’s first platform to combine online gaming and learning, and the founder of BTS, an experimental educational institution. He is using digital technologies to innovate in education in Taiwan.

Working wonders

While it took many other countries several months to resume the provision of education, the majority of teachers in Taiwan were able to teach online within two weeks of the school closures, ensuring disruption was minimal.

A Facebook group set up by Benson Yeh—Synchron­ous Online Teaching in Taiwan—was of tremendous help. In May, when infection rates surged in Taiwan, Yeh invited the staff at BTS and Hong Kong FlippEducators to come together and set up this group, where they could share their online teaching experiences. This gave Taiwanese teachers a place to turn to just when they were starting to explore digital teaching tools.

Among those who shared useful tips with the group were teachers who had never taught online before, but who gradually came to develop their own successful methods. Yeh, who has been promoting digital education for many years, regards it as a miracle that as many as 200-300,000 teachers across Taiwan were able to adjust to online teaching within such a short time.

PaGamO is an educational platform that uses online gaming to encourage learning, inviting students from across the world to learn and compete with each other. If you pass a quiz on the platform, you will be able to build your “kingdom of knowledge” by expanding your “territory.” (screenshots from www.pagamo.org)

screenshots from www.pagamo.org

screenshots from www.pagamo.org

screenshots from www.pagamo.org

How did the government and the private sector work together to ensure that education was only minimally disrupted after the schools were closed?

The Ministry of Education contacted major nongovernmental e-learning platforms very early to discuss possible modes of col-labora-tion, to make sure the move to virtual learning would be a smooth one. It also encouraged teachers to join the Synchronous Online Teaching group. I think the key to success was that the govern-ment takes a positive attitude to nongovernmental initiatives.

During the Level 3 alert, what skills did children acquire from virtual learning? Did these skills help them become more internationally competitive?

During the outbreak, children have learned how to attend online meetings and how to look for learning resources on various digital platforms. They have realized that computers and digital tech-nologies are not just for gaming, but also for learning. I think this is a very good way to introduce them to digital literacy.

In the future, more and more of us will be undertaking international work from home. This will hinge on the ability to use digital technologies to communicate with people online and bring projects to fruition.

Looking back on the past year in education in Taiwan, what are the things we can be proud of?

Throughout the process, our teachers have demonstrated a spirit of self-reliance, mutual aid, and seeking the common good, setting great examples for their students.

Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corporation

The Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corporation now has its own physical and online stores (store.tapmc.com.tw), where it sells fruits and vegetables in gift boxes, as well as agricultural produce and specialty food products from various places in Taiwan.

Forging a new brand

Because of Taiwan’s 2021 Covid-19 outbreak, fruit and veg boxes have suddenly become very popular. But as early as 2020 the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corporation (TAPMC), which operates two wholesale fruit and vegetable markets in Taipei City, was already selling three types of boxes on its new website: Organics, Traceables, and Top-Class Fruits.

Before Covid infections in Taiwan surged, fewer than 100 of these fruit and veg boxes were sold per month. During the Level 3 alert, TAPMC worked with its sup­pliers to increase their capacity to meet increasing demand. As many as 3000 boxes were sold per week.

While delivery companies found it difficult to cope with the vast increase in orders, TAPMC had started its curbside pickup service long before lockdown. If you drive to the store and ring the bell, a staff member will come out with your order and load it into your car. It’s both safe and convenient.

Hsieh Shu-hua, head of marketing at TAPMC, says the company used to sell its products on Postmall and PChome Online, using a name that was not immediately recognizable as their brand. Moreover, the products advertised were not the ones the company was focusing on developing. Un­surprisingly, sales were lackluster. Early in 2020, when Covid was starting to spread across the world, TAPMC general manager Weng Zhenxin predicted that online shopping would become a dominant trend. He decided to integrate the com­pany’s e-commerce distribution channel with its physical store and establish a shopping website, adopting a new marketing model based on “online shopping and offline in-store services.”

TAPMC’s mission is to promote Taiwan’s farm produce and specialty food products. Hsieh Shu-hua says there is a widespread perception that agricultural products are traditional and old-fashioned. But in fact Taiwanese producers have put much effort into quality control and packaging.

Since the launch of your online store, what changes have you observed? What are your operational plans?

Our shopping website was launched in May 2020, and we now have more than 26,000 members. While we usually made a six-figure annual income from online sales through other portals in the past, our revenues for 2021 already reached NT$22 million in October. Now that the Covid-19 outbreak in Taiwan has been brought under control, we are focusing on customer retention by developing our Facebook page, offering special online discounts, organizing hands-on food and farming educa-tion events in our physical store, and giving guided tours of traditional markets and talks on healthy eating.

iCHEF

Devoted to providing innovative technology for the food service industry, iCHEF is serving clients based in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia. It publishes a summary of economic trends in Taiwan’s food service sector every six months, offering businesses informed and holistic perspectives.

A tribute to Taiwan’s food service businesses

In September 2021, iCHEF held its biannual iCHEF Day and proposed a keyword for pandemic-era food service: “­convenience.”

With the rise of food delivery companies, food service businesses will have to embrace technological innovation. 2021’s domestic Covid outbreak accelerated the process. People rely on the Internet for information about restaurants. If a restaurant can’t be found online, then customers won’t know it exists. “If you lose out to others whose food tastes better, fair enough, but you shouldn’t be losing just because you don’t have the right technology. All restaurants should be on an equal footing when it comes to benefiting from digital technology,” says Ken Chen, cofounder of iCHEF. He doesn’t want to see small and medium-sized restaurants going to the wall because they’re less visible in the virtual world. Most of the clients iCHEF serves are small and medium-sized restaurants, and the company is devoted to promoting digital equality in the food service industry.

In 2020, iCHEF launched its online food ordering service. Business owners can set up accounts by entering their details, and customers can order takeaways simply by clicking the links. In addition, iCHEF has integrated its system with de­liv­ery companies and with eateries’ Line accounts and Facebook pages, enabling businesses to use a single system to manage orders from different sources. In 2021, iCHEF became the world’s first point-of-sale (POS) system to be integrated with Google My Business, helping restaurants increase their visi­bility on Google and Google Maps.

To help reduce the adverse impact of the 2021 outbreak, iCHEF brought out zero-cost packages and a reimbursement plan for businesses whose monthly revenues fell below NT$200,000. In this way, iCHEF wished to encourage more restaurants to use its system to maximize their visibility. Adept at using statistics to analyze commercial trends, iCHEF has discovered that although the revenues of food service businesses fell by 60% in May and June, since then they have benefitted from the easing of lockdown, the Quintuple Stimulus Vouchers, and other factors. If we look at any given restaurant, the income they made during the 2021 National Day extended holiday is likely to approach what they made during the same period in 2020. “It’s a relief to see that the food service industry is re­cover­ing from the five-month downturn,” Ken Chen says.

During the 2021 Covid outbreak, has Taiwan’s food service industry as a whole taken a turn for the -better?

Restaurants are now better at management, better able to navigate more sales channels. Business owners are capable of establishing their websites and controlling customer flow. Food service businesses in Taiwan have significantly upped their game over the past year. Every-one has been working terribly hard to learn new things in order to survive.

How do you see the future of Taiwan’s food service industry?

Overall, there will be a greater diversity of sales and ordering channels available to restaurants, and they will want to have their own websites. So customers will interact with restaurants in a greater variety of ways, and more frequently too. What we describe here is the future for all parties involved in the industry. Restaurant manage-ment will become more complex, so young business owners will have plenty of scope to show off their talents, breathing new life into Taiwan’s food service industry.