Page 20 - An Overview of Penghu

III Customs

Penghu's residents consist of about 2,400 mainland people and around
61,000 Taiwanese, who were mostly ethnic Minnan.

In general, the people of Penghu live in deprivation due to a lack of water
resources, which results in infertile lands, ferocious winter seasonal winds that
last for half a year, and a shortage of other natural resources on the land.
Provisions on the Island could only sustain the people for half a year. Moreover,
one-third of the population moved to Taiwan temporarily during winter for jobs
because Penghu Island is too populous, and that trend was growing every year.
However, due to a stagnant economy and lame businesses, it was still difficult to
land a job in Taiwan, making it hard to raise the cultural level and life standard
of the Penghu people.

As more people are advocating learning, attention is also shifting toward
education, industries, and transportation, while people's intellectual level is
rising bit by bit. However, when it comes to entrenching concepts concerning
autonomy and a strong motivation to learn, there is still room for improvement,
which takes a long time and much effort to achieve. People generally remain
innocent due to a lack of transportation infrastructure, which prevents them
from being contaminated by adverse external factors and perverse thinking.
Taiwanese and mainland people get along well, interacting with harmony that
cannot be seen elsewhere. On the other hand, those who headed to Taiwan
seeking jobs unconsciously built bad habits after coming into contact with evil
people on the Island. Some of them commit crimes on the Island, while others
go back to Penghu and wreak havoc, causing instability among the people of
Penghu. These people even refuse to work in the fields during busy periods and
live indulgent lives.

In traditional fishing villages, men are usually responsible for catching
fish, while women are in charge of working in the fields. However, here in
Penghu Prefecture, the number of farmers exceeds that of fishermen because
men have to find jobs off the Island; women thus take full responsibility for
agriculture. While men return home during busy times in summer, most of them
are unwilling to work in the fields, and women also consider it shameful for
men to engage in farming. These two factors contribute to men's indulgence and
laziness, which then results in lamentable losses in the labor force and the
economy, both domestically and locally.

Hence, the government should guide men to get rid of their bad habits and
cultivate diligence. To achieve this goal, the government should constantly see
to it that those men get mental guidance and receive extra help.

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