Survey
We constructed the foundation of our project through the utilization of both interviews and examination of related literature in the field of social studies. Our main focus was on speaking with a crucial group related to our project. During the interviews, we obtained primary sources and used them along with the collected documents to fill in any gaps in our project information.
To gain a more precise understanding of our target audience and their familiarity with the subject matter of our research project, we employed the use of a questionnaire in the form of social quantitative research. This involved asking participants to fill out an online questionnaire over a period of 6 weeks, which resulted in approximately 200 responses. We analyzed these responses to reinforce and review the results from our previous social quantitative research, allowing us to produce more objective and comprehensive results for our project.
The questionnaire, although useful, was slightly insufficient which limited the scope of our research. This resulted in limited analysis of the collected samples. However, the questionnaire still provided valuable assistance in our research by giving us an understanding of the community's general awareness of the topic. It also helped us to understand our qualitative research, examine phenomena that cannot be explained through literature analysis, and identify any deficiencies in our research.
Chi Po-Lin Foundation
According to this pie chart, we can see that 47.2% of our respondents have heard of the Chi Po-lin Foundation, whilst the other 52.8% of our respondents do not. Our respondents are mostly students, and this shows that about half of this age range know about the Chi Po-lin Foundation.
There is no absolute answer to this question, but the options ‘Establish an environmental school’ and ‘Culture and creative design’ are definitely wrong. From the responses, we can see that most people know what the correct answers are. 72.6% of our respondents chose the option ‘Preserve Producer Chi Po-Lin's records’, 79.8% chose the option ‘Environmental initiative’, 15.5% chose the option ‘Establish an environmental school’, 61.9% chose the option ‘Environmental studies’, 20.2% chose the option ‘Culture and creative design’, and 17.9% chose the option ‘Change government policy’.
This question doesn’t have an absolute answer, these are all possible answers and a lot of our respondents chose all of the options. 80.7% chose the option ‘Draw people’s attention to environment and image recording through education of the environment’, 88.6% chose the option ‘Draw people’s attention to the action and belief in Taiwan’s land restoration’, 61.4% chose the option ‘Cultivate more environmental recorders’, 75% chose the option ‘Preserve the records of Taiwan’s environment for education, research, and collaboration purposes’, and 70.5% chose the option ‘Convey the significance of land preservation through records’.
Chi Po-Lin’s Work
According to 159 respondents, the pie chart presents that there are 77.4% of respondents have seen Director Chi’s work, showing how Director Chi remains popular and iconic within Taiwan. Since most of our respondents are Taiwanese and students or teachers, the survey results demonstrate that over ¾ of Taiwanese population recognize the significance of Director Chi’s work. Only ¼ of respondents have not seen any of Director Chi’s work.
According to 125 respondents, the bar graph reveals that the film with the highest exposure, 96.8%, is the 2013 film, “Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above”, indicate the high popularity of Director Chi’s work in Taiwan. As mentioned above and on the website page “ChiPolin,” “Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above” raises tremendous awareness and attention of environmental issues and the beautiful sides of Taiwan landscape. The second high film is “Taiwan from Above,” 36.8%, which does not receive as much attention as “Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above, ” but remains popular within Taiwanese as it is the last work of Director Chi in 2006.
What did you learn about Taiwan from Chi Po-Lin’s work?
- I found that Taiwan is a very beautiful land, but due to natural disasters and man-made disasters, the natural environment has gradually been destroyed, which makes me feel very sorry. There are many invisible disasters in Taiwan's environment, whether they are man-made or natural disasters, they are all doing harm to the land of Taiwan. Not only can you see many aspects of Taiwan that you can't usually see, but you can also see how the beautiful land of Taiwan is slowly being destroyed!
- I can see how beautiful and different the country I am in, and let me understand my country better. Our country needs enough people to pay attention to environmental protection issues, and more people to continue to record the beauty of Taiwan. Raise awareness to protect the natural environment.
- Although Taiwan has countless stunning scenery, many factories have illegally discharged waste water and many terrains have caused the dark side of Taiwan's environment.
- Taiwan is so beautiful, let me think about how to care for the treasure island where we are from the perspective of "heart." Looking at Taiwan from a bird's-eye view, I can see the colorful and beautiful landforms, and also to see our home from an angle that you can't usually see.
- It is necessary to protect Taiwan's environmental landscape, strengthen the control of factory wastewater discharge, and strictly prohibit the restriction of mountain felling and planting. There are many beautiful pictures but also many real disaster scenes.
Most respondents replied that Director Chi’s work allows them to view Taiwan from a brand new perspective. However, about 10 replies mentioned that the film present several disaster scenes, which is uncommon in typical environmental film. Some even mentioned that thanks to Director Chi, they are able to see all the unseen sides or images of Taiwan, which make them realize how precious their homeland is. This also supports the last question, which is the 2013 film “Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above” that shows the beautiful landscape of Taiwan, but also include the tragedy of 921 earthquake, the August 8th typhoon. Most respondents draw a conclusion of “Our homeland is very beautiful, but it is also very fragile.”
According to 120 respondents, the bar graph demonstrates that the message of Director Chi’s work convey the necessary actions on environmental issues in Taiwan and the beauty of Taiwan. Most respondents recognize the message of environment protection, showing the significance of this meaningful film of Director Chi. This question displays the spirit and enthusiasm of Director Chi’s work and demonstrates how he wishes to protect Taiwan homeland.
According to 120 respondents, the bar graph indicates that about 92.5% of the audience of Director Chi’s film recognizes the beauty of Taiwan’s environment including mountains, rivers, forests, and farmlands. Moreover, 80.8% of respondents notice the destruction of Taiwan’s environment, seeing the unsttractive but real side of Taiwan’s landscape. As the introduction of Director Chi’s work, Director Chi aims to present the real image of Taiwan environment, whether beautiful or unpleasant.
According to 117 respondents, the bar graph indicates that 80.3% of the audience notes the issue of deforestation, which is one of the leading causes of environmental destruction in Taiwan. Director Chi’s work includes how urban city emerge within Taiwan, hurting the natural environment. The second issue that has been noted is landslide, which 63.2% of respondents recognize this natural disaster in Director Chi’s film. As Taiwan’s climate will rain a lot at certain seasons, landslide often occurred and destroyed homes of many. Furthermore, about 51.3% of audience believe groundwater overexploitation, land subsidence, and water pollution are common issues in Taiwan, causing environmental destruction.
Taiwan's Natural Environment and Geography
According to 159 response, the bar reveals that 20.8% of the respondents only vaguely notice Taiwan’s natural environment and geography, including forest, rivers, mountains, and farmland. Yet, only 1.3% of the respondent are absolutely familiar with Taiwan’s natural environment, indicating the urge need present the view of Taiwan environment through Director Chi’s works, raising the awareness of Taiwan environment and improve national identity.
According to 159 responses, 79.2% of respondents is informed about the climates in Taiwan, which is subtropical monsoon climate, indicating the qualified Taiwan natural environment education. Yet, only half (58.5%)of the respondent correctly choose the another climate in Taiwan which is tropical monsoon climate. Also, 50.9% of the respondents can not identified the correct Taiwan’s climate, demonstrating that even though people have fundamental knowledge, but the amount of environmental education they receive is sufficient when it comes to understand the varied Taiwan’s climate, which shows the important of promoting Director’s chi works.
1. The abundance of Taiwan’s climate creates varied ecosystem.
2. The subtropical monsoon climate and tropical monsoon climate leads to humid and wet environment in Taiwan, which is unpleasant for transportation and activities.
3. The warm whether triggers the rise of temperature, ocean acidification, sea ice retreat, rise of sea level, flooding, coastal erosion, increased storm surges and severe precipitation threaten our oceans and coasts.
4. When it comes to May or June, monsoon destroys crops, tree, house, and even cause great level of casualties. Furthermore, the monsoon may also destruct the soil, leading to landslides.
5. The abundant rainfall lead to the varied fruits and vegetables that is grew in Taiwan
According to 159%, 69.8% to 95% of respondents correctly identify the main topographies in Taiwan, including mountain, hills, basin, mesa, and plain. The graph reveals a great sense of space among all Taiwanese. Yet, there is still 9.4% to 10.1 of respondents choose plateau and canyon as Taiwan’s main topograhies, which is not the correct answers. The team believes that Director’s Chi films and photography can reveal the true beauty and landscape in Taiwan, raising national identities among all.
Environmental Awareness
The correct answer for this question is all of the above. From this graph above, it can be seen that 85% of the respondents wrote the correct answer. This can indicate that people have the knowledge and know the definition of healthy land and sustainable environment. However, many only choose one or two of the choices, demonstrating that even though people have the knowledge, but the amount of education they receive is still not enough to understand the wide range of information regarding sustainable environment.
From a scale 1 to 10, 31% of the respondents believe that Taiwan’s promotion of environmental awareness only receives a scale of “5”. Most other’s choose the scale of 6 or 7, and several others choose scales below 5. This indicates that most Taiwanese think that the Taiwanese government did not put enough effort in promoting environmental awareness. Currently, even though there are many policies and regulations regarding environmental protection, but the resources and execution of the plans are not enough to make a change that is obviously enough to be acknowledged.
According to the above, why do you think so?
- Even though we keep advocating environmental protection, in the news and even in daily life, whether it is excessive land reclamation or sloppy garbage classification, people’s negligence of environmental protection can be seen everywhere. It can be seen that even if Taiwan promotes environmental awareness, there’s still not enough people who implement it.
- The government conducts many videos and publicity campaigns, and arranges schools for environmental protection education. There are also many environmental protection groups in Taiwan promoting initiatives and joint signatures.
- Moving away from plastic has been slow. No control of overdevelopment. A big "show" of recycling but apparently a lot of it gets dumped. No promotion of vegan, sustainable products, e.g. many places overseas you can find vegan and no animal testing makeup brands everywhere because consumers want it. There should have been specific recycling plans for covid products such as masks and tests. Hardly any second hand clothing stores. Etc.
- In terms of the referendum on algal reefs, the awareness of the group has not yet been established among the general public, and everyone has not fully understood the true purpose of the referendum. In addition, the government is caught in a dilemma and has not promoted it substantively, failing to make a good choice between "money (energy)" and "sustainable development environment".
From the graph, it can be indicated that the most common environmental protection action people do in daily life is garbage classification, reducing the use of plastic products, reducing the use of single-use products, and taking public transportations. Hence, we can understand that most Taiwanese people still care about the environment, and they are willing to act. However, there are still many ways of environmental protection that aren’t often executed due to inconveniency. Therefore, to actually convince people to act, the Taiwanese government are required to make the society more suitable to create a more environmentally friendly.
From the graph, it can be seen that recycling or donating second hand clothes, and reduce, reuse or recycle are the most common environmental protection activities. This is because these activities are more accessible to citizens who live in the city. In addition, these activities already establish a complete program that can be easily executed. Furthermore, ban or reduce the use of plastic straw and beach or river cleaning are also quite common. However, from these activities it can be shown that most people usually do activities that can be done easily in their daily life and they don’t require any money.
According to the graph, it can be inferred that more than half of the respondents participate in Taiwan’s environmental protection activities about 0~1 time each year. 28.3% participate in 2~3 activities each year, and about 12% of the respondents participate in more than 5 activities each year. From this data, we can conclude that Taiwanese people still participate in environmental protection activities often because most of the respondents for our survey are students, so it’s normal for them to have less opportunities to participate in social activities. Yet, almost half of respondents still participate in environmental protection activities, showing that the percentage in general is still massive, protecting the environment collaboratively.
According to the graph, it can be seen that most of the respondents believe their awareness of environmental protection is about 6~8 on a scale of 10. However, there are still some respondents that think their awareness is about 4~5 on a scale of 10. This shows that most Taiwanese still have a lot of general knowledge regarding environmental protection. In addition, as most of our respondents are students, this can infer that most students have knowledge about creating an eco-friendly environment, generating a brighter future for earth.