Those who are more critical about rather not you as a person but your role, they say…
Absolutely.
I’ve talked to some people in preparation for this. Those who are more critical – everybody likes you, that’s very obvious…
What about them?
Absolute, but still you have people who have more practical technology, people you’re saying…
You have no budget at all?
I know, but you have a budget, right? You have, in this budget…
Of course. As an anarchist, you don’t want to say…
You’re saying 21 staff in total? Is that your staff? Because I’ve talked to some people..
I think you started by allowing tax filing with Mac computers as well, right?
Yeah.
Wow, interesting. Give me some examples of what kind of government services in the last year you made more human-centric with this method?
[laughs]
Why not? Because of the…
Hiking year?
Wow, so many. Why so many interns?
In total, how many people? OK, 21 people.
I’m just going to write that down for my notes. That might be important later in the interview. You said Ministry of Justice?
Right, within service.
I know. I was surprised you actually…
…environment, if you could just quickly show me around your office. It’s small, and show me the…
Yeah, why not? Yeah, just, thank you very much.
Are you bored yourself?
Sorry, does that mean, am I boring you? [laughs]
Absolutely. First break, or if you want to.
Yeah, and other countries did that too. My newspaper ran a big story as well, like how to make your own mask.
Probably they were even struggling for those ones, but OK.
That’s what happened in many European countries. In the beginning, they were very reluctant. They said you don’t have to wear a mask. It’s even better not to wear one. There might be false incentives and all that. Basically I think it was because they didn’t have masks, and then ...
I felt that a lot, and maybe it’s true, right?
That’s very interesting, but then when I speak with Taiwanese people, they say just what you mention, like, “Oh, this is a sign, we are Asians. We care about the collective. Europeans are so individualistic. You don’t mind. You don’t care.”
Of course.
How do you mean by design? You said something like about the special design of Taiwanese masks? What do you mean?
That’s a very interesting aspect. Just one minor aspect, but very interesting. Why is that, actually? Why is that, according to you?
Nothing ironic about it.
Yeah, you’re right, because of the special COVID-19 situation and all that. Are you just, basically, how do we say, being very cool, doing an understatement, or is this really what you think?
Just to keep some structure and order maybe, just one thing that you said in the very beginning about yesterday struck my mind. You said, “Oh, it was nothing special there.” Of course President Tsai Ing-wen said yesterday, it was, I think she said in her speech, the most special ...
Good. There are many things you already mentioned just in this one answer, basically. I want to come back to many topics, and of course I want to talk about COVID-19. Of course I want to talk about transparency. I want to talk about smart cities, smart citizens, many things ...
That means if you’re right, and I’m not going to tell you now, we might have another coffee in five minutes or so?
Very flexible. Anywhere between 24 and 25 minutes, and so like the whole 60 seconds of flexibility.
It’s actually…
[laughs] 24?
Why 25 minutes? I know many people, they say like 45 minutes, an hour, or something?
Sorry, your time structure is, basically you work 25 minutes, then 5 minutes break, 25 minutes?
Do you have a more or less fixed time slot?
Only?
How much time do you spend on social media every day?
Very practical for me, and I can more easily listen to you. You speak very quickly, lots of ideas coming out.
That’s cool. That’s very practical.
