A historical note from my mother:
“I remember when Charles Lindbergh flew into Dodge City. Everybody was out where he was going to land and we mistook the first star for his plane, until it was obvious it was a star. The landing field ― no airport ― was a pasture and people lit it with their cars' headlights. We waited and waited and finally, he got there, got out, and was tall and lanky, greeted by the mayor, etc. ― he went away with them after being introduced to & greeted by the crowd and then we all went home, thrilled and exalted.”
That would have been sometime in the late 1920s.
Friday, April 02, 2004
I wrote this about two years ago, about another election.
Yagi Hakaw
Were I running for local office and found my candidacy endorsed by my good friend Yagi Hakaw, I would rush with glistening forehead to thrust gobs of large denomination bills into his stubby hands, beseeching him to root for my rivals. Yagi's support is the kiss of death for a local candidate, a staggering blow, barely to be survived, for a candidate in a larger election.
On the one hand, Yagi has an uncanny ability to pick losers. You want to know who's going to lose the next election, ask Yagi who he's voting for. You want to find out how many votes his candidate got in the last election, look at the bottom of the election results, the very last place.
On the other hand, Yagi's means of showing support practically guarantees opposite results. During the years he was driving a Wulai-Taipei bus, he won votes for all the other parties along the entire 25 kilometer line by his continued, vociferous, forceful support of the Democratic Progressive Party.
Yagi is a wonderful friend, but simply cannot handle a position of the slightest authority. I attribute this to his first job. Freshly graduated from junior high, he was, as were so many Aborigine boys, taken off to sea. This was the first time he had ever left his village in the mountains of Taiwan. He worked a fishing boat for six years, six years on a boat far from the Tribe, far from the mountains, far out at sea on a boat the size of a bus. He isn't sure where his boat was, somewhere in the Pacific, probably stopping in South American ports, because he speaks some Spanish. He was bilked six years of hard labor. He was fed, but every penny of his pay was swindled by various dodges. He escaped wage slavery only by being drafted.
My theory is that the main authority figure, the captain, imprinted on Yagi's soul during these formative years. He handles every position of authority as a tyrannical fishing boat captain, far from shore, would deal with potentially mutinous Aborigines. If ever some passenger, wittingly or not, might drop one coin short in the cash box, Yagi would stop the bus and demand, long and loud, that this thief not try to take advantage of an Aborigine and bilk the bus company, and pay in full. Taiwan may be modern and commercial, but this is still China, and such direct confrontation is frowned upon.
As luck would have it, Yagi's route goes by a government old folks’ home. The old folks, retired civil servants and soldiers, love to ride the bus to the city to buy a head of lettuce, pester doctors, pick up medicine, get a breath of city air, and see the sights. Let some old codger clamber into the bus with less than gymnastic alacrity, and Yagi would immediately begin blistering the paint: “Can't you hurry!? You're going to drive me insane, I don't have a schedule? How long do you want me to wait for you?”
The bus company concocted an excuse to fire him. Perhaps the boss, a DPP backer, also wanted to save some votes for his party.
Loyalties on the edge of tribal and city life are confused. A couple years ago, the government passed legislation requiring all motorcycle riders to wear crash helmets. In Wulai this was taken to imply, 'unless we are riding around the village.' Then one day the Provincial Chief of Police paid a visit to Wulai. He hit the ceiling when he saw a girl driving a motorcycle without a crash helmet. Of course nobody told him that she was a Wulai police officer's little daughter, at nine years old already half way to legal age to get a motorcycle license. To enforce the law, an officer was chosen, an outsider fresh out of police academy. Soon people opened their mail boxes to find fines attached to photos of themselves, from the back, showing license plates and no helmets. Fury! A compromise was reached. The hapless officer was posted far away, but people were asked to remember their helmets, sometimes, and for god's sakes, when the high mucky-mucks come, don't let the grade-schoolers drive motorcycles.
The bus company requires that expired passes be confiscated. The police sent word to the drivers: Yayut lives in the city where her husband works, and she has about thirty rides left on last year's pass, so let it slide. This request provoked several injured responses: I have never punched her ticket before, why would I start with this year's? She is, after all, a Tayal, one of the Tribe, if our boss wants her ticket punched, let him come punch it himself.
Like many Aborigines, Yagi's first loyalty is to Tribe, not Party. Two old men (Han Chinese, flat-landers, not Aborigines)
got on his bus one time before an election, loudly proclaiming in the Minnan dialect that the DPP was sure to win and then the Taiwanese people would stand up, yes sir! Yagi drove silently for about ten minutes, and suddenly bellowed, “Then you 'Taiwanese' can all go back to your goddamned home in the Chinese mainland and leave us Aborigines in peace!!” The old timers slipped off the bus at the next stop.
The unfortunate fact is that Yagi actually has a very sweet side, no matter what people along the route believe. A friend has only to ask, and his help is unstinting. Somebody started peddling an old Aborigine dish, bamboo rice: an instant hit with the tourists who flock to Wulai to enjoy the mountains, the waterfall, and the hot springs. Business boomed. Yagi opened up a stand with his mother and wife, adding banana rice. They produced the best bamboo rice in the Tribe, hands down, no doubt. His rice was so delicious that he was getting all the business. The neighbors complained: you're making all the money, nobody's coming to our stands any more. The accommodating Yagi voluntarily closed down his stand in order not to reduce his neighbors' income.
Now his cousin is running for office. For his election headquarters, the cousin has taken over Yagi's house, downhill from me. This strategic choice shows Yagi's craftsmanship, because we are out on the edge of the village, far enough away that everybody can beg off dropping by the headquarters with the excuse that I wasn't going that way. For his election fight song, he has chosen Naluwan (the word is the Taiwan Aborigine equivalent of Aloha). It consists mostly of a piercing female voice singing one monotonous line over and over
My home is at Naluwaaaaaaaaan~
A song of very high irritation quotient, especially when you hear it repeated all afternoon. He has cranked up the speaker so the people in the village can hear it. They can probably hear it on the moon. Things do not bode well for Yagi's cousin.
Of course not all of Yagi's candidates lose. He backed the winner by default in the last presidential election, Chen Shuibian of the DPP. Yagi celebrated Inauguration Day with the rest of the Tribe's tiny DPP contingent by formally quitting the Party. Then he got roaring drunk. I could hear him howling and crying late into the night.
Postscript: The day after the election, I was shooting the breeze with Abus. To nobody's surprise, Yagi's cousin polled 40 votes out of the thousand votes in Wulai, landing solidly in last place, even behind the Lukai tribesman who for some reason thought he might win some votes. Are you kidding? Running for office in Tayal tribal land all dressed up in a Lukai outfit for your campaign photo?
I laughed that even the Lukai got more votes than Yagi's candidate. Abus, who takes things literally, bristled. “Me? If I ran for office, and Yagi showed up to support me, I'd get my head-hunting knife and chop him up!”
Great minds think alike.
Yagi Hakaw
Were I running for local office and found my candidacy endorsed by my good friend Yagi Hakaw, I would rush with glistening forehead to thrust gobs of large denomination bills into his stubby hands, beseeching him to root for my rivals. Yagi's support is the kiss of death for a local candidate, a staggering blow, barely to be survived, for a candidate in a larger election.
On the one hand, Yagi has an uncanny ability to pick losers. You want to know who's going to lose the next election, ask Yagi who he's voting for. You want to find out how many votes his candidate got in the last election, look at the bottom of the election results, the very last place.
On the other hand, Yagi's means of showing support practically guarantees opposite results. During the years he was driving a Wulai-Taipei bus, he won votes for all the other parties along the entire 25 kilometer line by his continued, vociferous, forceful support of the Democratic Progressive Party.
Yagi is a wonderful friend, but simply cannot handle a position of the slightest authority. I attribute this to his first job. Freshly graduated from junior high, he was, as were so many Aborigine boys, taken off to sea. This was the first time he had ever left his village in the mountains of Taiwan. He worked a fishing boat for six years, six years on a boat far from the Tribe, far from the mountains, far out at sea on a boat the size of a bus. He isn't sure where his boat was, somewhere in the Pacific, probably stopping in South American ports, because he speaks some Spanish. He was bilked six years of hard labor. He was fed, but every penny of his pay was swindled by various dodges. He escaped wage slavery only by being drafted.
My theory is that the main authority figure, the captain, imprinted on Yagi's soul during these formative years. He handles every position of authority as a tyrannical fishing boat captain, far from shore, would deal with potentially mutinous Aborigines. If ever some passenger, wittingly or not, might drop one coin short in the cash box, Yagi would stop the bus and demand, long and loud, that this thief not try to take advantage of an Aborigine and bilk the bus company, and pay in full. Taiwan may be modern and commercial, but this is still China, and such direct confrontation is frowned upon.
As luck would have it, Yagi's route goes by a government old folks’ home. The old folks, retired civil servants and soldiers, love to ride the bus to the city to buy a head of lettuce, pester doctors, pick up medicine, get a breath of city air, and see the sights. Let some old codger clamber into the bus with less than gymnastic alacrity, and Yagi would immediately begin blistering the paint: “Can't you hurry!? You're going to drive me insane, I don't have a schedule? How long do you want me to wait for you?”
The bus company concocted an excuse to fire him. Perhaps the boss, a DPP backer, also wanted to save some votes for his party.
Loyalties on the edge of tribal and city life are confused. A couple years ago, the government passed legislation requiring all motorcycle riders to wear crash helmets. In Wulai this was taken to imply, 'unless we are riding around the village.' Then one day the Provincial Chief of Police paid a visit to Wulai. He hit the ceiling when he saw a girl driving a motorcycle without a crash helmet. Of course nobody told him that she was a Wulai police officer's little daughter, at nine years old already half way to legal age to get a motorcycle license. To enforce the law, an officer was chosen, an outsider fresh out of police academy. Soon people opened their mail boxes to find fines attached to photos of themselves, from the back, showing license plates and no helmets. Fury! A compromise was reached. The hapless officer was posted far away, but people were asked to remember their helmets, sometimes, and for god's sakes, when the high mucky-mucks come, don't let the grade-schoolers drive motorcycles.
The bus company requires that expired passes be confiscated. The police sent word to the drivers: Yayut lives in the city where her husband works, and she has about thirty rides left on last year's pass, so let it slide. This request provoked several injured responses: I have never punched her ticket before, why would I start with this year's? She is, after all, a Tayal, one of the Tribe, if our boss wants her ticket punched, let him come punch it himself.
Like many Aborigines, Yagi's first loyalty is to Tribe, not Party. Two old men (Han Chinese, flat-landers, not Aborigines)
got on his bus one time before an election, loudly proclaiming in the Minnan dialect that the DPP was sure to win and then the Taiwanese people would stand up, yes sir! Yagi drove silently for about ten minutes, and suddenly bellowed, “Then you 'Taiwanese' can all go back to your goddamned home in the Chinese mainland and leave us Aborigines in peace!!” The old timers slipped off the bus at the next stop.
The unfortunate fact is that Yagi actually has a very sweet side, no matter what people along the route believe. A friend has only to ask, and his help is unstinting. Somebody started peddling an old Aborigine dish, bamboo rice: an instant hit with the tourists who flock to Wulai to enjoy the mountains, the waterfall, and the hot springs. Business boomed. Yagi opened up a stand with his mother and wife, adding banana rice. They produced the best bamboo rice in the Tribe, hands down, no doubt. His rice was so delicious that he was getting all the business. The neighbors complained: you're making all the money, nobody's coming to our stands any more. The accommodating Yagi voluntarily closed down his stand in order not to reduce his neighbors' income.
Now his cousin is running for office. For his election headquarters, the cousin has taken over Yagi's house, downhill from me. This strategic choice shows Yagi's craftsmanship, because we are out on the edge of the village, far enough away that everybody can beg off dropping by the headquarters with the excuse that I wasn't going that way. For his election fight song, he has chosen Naluwan (the word is the Taiwan Aborigine equivalent of Aloha). It consists mostly of a piercing female voice singing one monotonous line over and over
My home is at Naluwaaaaaaaaan~
A song of very high irritation quotient, especially when you hear it repeated all afternoon. He has cranked up the speaker so the people in the village can hear it. They can probably hear it on the moon. Things do not bode well for Yagi's cousin.
Of course not all of Yagi's candidates lose. He backed the winner by default in the last presidential election, Chen Shuibian of the DPP. Yagi celebrated Inauguration Day with the rest of the Tribe's tiny DPP contingent by formally quitting the Party. Then he got roaring drunk. I could hear him howling and crying late into the night.
Postscript: The day after the election, I was shooting the breeze with Abus. To nobody's surprise, Yagi's cousin polled 40 votes out of the thousand votes in Wulai, landing solidly in last place, even behind the Lukai tribesman who for some reason thought he might win some votes. Are you kidding? Running for office in Tayal tribal land all dressed up in a Lukai outfit for your campaign photo?
I laughed that even the Lukai got more votes than Yagi's candidate. Abus, who takes things literally, bristled. “Me? If I ran for office, and Yagi showed up to support me, I'd get my head-hunting knife and chop him up!”
Great minds think alike.
Saturday, March 27, 2004
Yesterday the protests escalated. The Election Committee was stormed and occupied. There was some violence, but nobody was injured. A big parade to protest the election was being held today. Nothing to do with me, I was going to the train station to meet a friend at 3.
On the way down to the bus stop, a neighbor gave me a ride, so I got an earlier bus in to the city, and arrived downtown before 2:30. I figured, I can walk the last two stops in 15 minutes normally, so rather than arrive early, I may as well go look at the parade, and sample the mood.
The mood was exuberant. Chungshan South Road was packed solid to East Gate. I made my way through the crowd pretty easily, although I was almost deafened by the freon horns people were blowing off. I was amused to hear that the crowd had appropriated the old DDP cheer, Stand up, People of Taiwan! and I was confused when I heard the cry, 徐信良萬歲! Long Life for Hsu Hsinliang! Huh? Hsu was one of the founders of the DDP, President Chen's party, the other guys. Later I found out that Hsu is so incensed by irregularities in this election that he has gone on a fast in protest, calling for a return to democracy.
People were in high spirits. Police were mingling among the crowd, very much at ease. (During the Street Movement when the DDP was building power, the police would never have dared to walk amongst the protestors.) An excellent sign in English: Don't make Democracy a deMOCKracy!
A man sang a beautiful, slow song in Minnanese. Another man gave a speech in English; I could recognize it was English because I discerned “of the” “and so” and a few other phrases. The rest was totally unintelligible to me. I wanted to go up and say, Hey, I offer courses in pronunciation, want to sign up? People cheered him anyway, but were palpably relieved when he switched into Chinese.
I made my way north with an eye on the time. A pretty solid mass of people at East Gate, but the lawn of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was pretty vacant, so I set out across it, partly because you don't usually get a chance to tromp there. I immediately found out why the lawn was pretty vacant: apparently so many other people took advantage of this opportunity to tromp across the lawn that the grass had all been trampled into sticky mud. A little mud never stopped a barbarian down from the mountains, so I set off bravely, but soon found that this was really extra-gluey gooey gooey glutinous mud. Halfway across, one of my flip-flops flopped, snapping its strap. I succeeded in making it the rest of the way across; by this time, the people in the immediate vicinity had stopped listening to the speaker to see if I would make it across without falling flat on my back. Fortunately, I managed to stay upright, but decided to just take off my flip-flops.
Three policemen were lounging against a van, chatting. I asked one if it would be possible to cross north. He suggested that if I was in a hurry, I should go back to the subway stop and take the subway to the train station. So I did, weaving through the crowd as quickly as I could, carrying the remains of my flip-flops.
I reached our meeting point at 3:10, and showed my friend my muddy, broken flip-flops: "I just want to show these to you to prove that when I left my home, I was NOT barefoot, I was shod. However, they snapped in the mud in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so before we go for tea, do you mind if we go around the corner and buy me a new pair?"
On the way down to the bus stop, a neighbor gave me a ride, so I got an earlier bus in to the city, and arrived downtown before 2:30. I figured, I can walk the last two stops in 15 minutes normally, so rather than arrive early, I may as well go look at the parade, and sample the mood.
The mood was exuberant. Chungshan South Road was packed solid to East Gate. I made my way through the crowd pretty easily, although I was almost deafened by the freon horns people were blowing off. I was amused to hear that the crowd had appropriated the old DDP cheer, Stand up, People of Taiwan! and I was confused when I heard the cry, 徐信良萬歲! Long Life for Hsu Hsinliang! Huh? Hsu was one of the founders of the DDP, President Chen's party, the other guys. Later I found out that Hsu is so incensed by irregularities in this election that he has gone on a fast in protest, calling for a return to democracy.
People were in high spirits. Police were mingling among the crowd, very much at ease. (During the Street Movement when the DDP was building power, the police would never have dared to walk amongst the protestors.) An excellent sign in English: Don't make Democracy a deMOCKracy!
A man sang a beautiful, slow song in Minnanese. Another man gave a speech in English; I could recognize it was English because I discerned “of the” “and so” and a few other phrases. The rest was totally unintelligible to me. I wanted to go up and say, Hey, I offer courses in pronunciation, want to sign up? People cheered him anyway, but were palpably relieved when he switched into Chinese.
I made my way north with an eye on the time. A pretty solid mass of people at East Gate, but the lawn of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was pretty vacant, so I set out across it, partly because you don't usually get a chance to tromp there. I immediately found out why the lawn was pretty vacant: apparently so many other people took advantage of this opportunity to tromp across the lawn that the grass had all been trampled into sticky mud. A little mud never stopped a barbarian down from the mountains, so I set off bravely, but soon found that this was really extra-gluey gooey gooey glutinous mud. Halfway across, one of my flip-flops flopped, snapping its strap. I succeeded in making it the rest of the way across; by this time, the people in the immediate vicinity had stopped listening to the speaker to see if I would make it across without falling flat on my back. Fortunately, I managed to stay upright, but decided to just take off my flip-flops.
Three policemen were lounging against a van, chatting. I asked one if it would be possible to cross north. He suggested that if I was in a hurry, I should go back to the subway stop and take the subway to the train station. So I did, weaving through the crowd as quickly as I could, carrying the remains of my flip-flops.
I reached our meeting point at 3:10, and showed my friend my muddy, broken flip-flops: "I just want to show these to you to prove that when I left my home, I was NOT barefoot, I was shod. However, they snapped in the mud in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so before we go for tea, do you mind if we go around the corner and buy me a new pair?"
Thursday, March 25, 2004
People ask me if I'm blue or green. Actually, I'm sort of pinkish brown, though come summer I'll be darker brown. (In college, people in my class called me an egg: white on the outside and yellow on the inside.) Oh, you mean political affiliation? I try to steer clear of politics. Chad and the Supreme Court give you Dubya? On quiet nights, you can hear Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Andy Jackson moaning. Here in Taiwan, everything is too political. I feel freedom loving liberals everywhere should give all politicians, regardless of nationality or party, their due: inattention bordering on contempt. Doesn't anybody remember the old slogan? Power to the People! Since when did democracy become, power to the sly, the lawyers, and the fat cats?
The presidential election was held last Saturday, but it is hardly over. There is a matter about who actually won the election, and how. There have been accusations about sore losers, if you can't lose, don't play.
Sore losers are hardly new in Taiwan's elections. I'm too lazy to look up the dates, but the first time such poor sportsmanship came to my attention was about fifteen years ago, when the losing candidate in the mayoral race down south in Tainan called out the truckers to barricade the freeway. All traffic north and south was totally cut due to this sore loser's tantrum. I forget how long it lasted, you can look it up in the papers, but finally somebody assuaged the candidate's ego enough that he told the trucks to leave and permitted traffic to continue its normal flow. Hardly good sportsmanship, what?
Since then we have seen many such examples of sore losers, mostly among the green (the DDP, now ruling): when they win an election, it is the triumph of democracy, and when they lose an election, it's only because the blues (KMT) have cheated, so they hit the streets. And I do mean hit.
The DDP came to power on the streets, so before this election, they had an advertising campaign that I personally found disingenuous: they drilled in the message, go cast your vote (for us) and stay off the streets!! Don't march, don't protest, just give us your vote, because democracy is in the polls, not on the streets. Hardly the tune they sang way back when.
So recently the blues have been out, protesting certain oddities about this election. For example, friends in the armed forces have told me that surprise, surprise, military commands were quietly changed not long ago, so that if an alert of a certain stage is called, a certain proportion of servicemen cannot leave their bases. Most servicemen prefer the blue, so the ruling greens called a pretty high alert for election day, sealing all those votes far from the ballot boxes.
In this election were an unprecedented number of invalid ballots, and people are asking why. There was a high greater proportion of invalid ballots than ever before; so high that the invalid ballots outnumbered Chen Shuibian's winning margin by ten times. All you have to do is have someone surreptitiously smudge a ballot with a pen and it's invalid.
When you're talking about a margin of 29,500 votes out of 13 million, these things add up, and call for explanation.
Also, people have great doubts about the “assassination attempt, if it was an assassination attempt.” A growing scandal about campaign donations was drawing votes away from president Chen Shuibian in the week before the election, and then the day before the election there was this miraculous shooting. Amazing magical bullets, that could turn and stop: after turning 90 degrees to lightly scratching his tummy, one ended up sitting demurely in the president's coat pocket, probably all tuckered out by its acrobatic exertions in bringing in the sympathy vote.
There are allegations that the hospital (private Chimei Hospital, strong green supporters) to which the president was sent was prepared for the emergency days before it actually happened; that the Chimei hospital was not listed in the protocol of hospitals to which the president should be taken in case of emergency; that in any event, the alleged assassination attempt took place a dozen kilometers from Chimei hospital, so people wonder why they didn't take the president to National ChengKung University Medical Hospital, only two kilometers away.
People are unhappy. Crowds are protesting in front of the President's Office, which is just around the corner from Merica, where I teach. Wednesday (the 24th), I got to town early, so I decided to get off the subway a stop early and take a look.
I lived down in that area during the era of street demonstrations (by which the DDP built power). The only demonstration I missed entirely was 5/20 (more on that later), because I happened to be abroad. All of the other demonstrations I saw and heard; not by choice, but because I lived in the neighborhood for almost twenty years, and passed the Legislature on my way to work.
Those demonstrations were not happy affairs. You passed by as quickly as you could, averting your eyes for your own protection. The protestors would usually yell and scream insults at people passing by. On occasion they attacked passersby.
Lines of police in riot gear tensely waited to get assaulted (Taiwan is probably the only place in the world where demonstrators beat up the police, rather than the other way around).
Demonstrators would turn over trash cans, smash phone booths, spray paint everything in sight, vandalize business’ signs, litter everywhere, push over parked motorcycles, sometimes even turn over parked cars. You wanted to stay away from them when they started throwing rocks. Taipei's streets are well maintained, so you do not just pick up a rock. If you have a rock to throw, you have brought it with you, 'with malice aforethought.' Later it became popular to throw eggs. In one way that's an improvement, but I always felt sorry for the hens.
The one demonstration I missed was the May 20 (5/20) affair, when the greens rioted during the inauguration of Lee Tenghui. Sometime around 1990, I forget what year, look it up yourself. As I was not an eye-witness, allow me to cite one: hapless Eban was driving his bus by, doing his job, minding his own business, when the participants started throwing bricks at his bus. As if he had elected Lee Tenghui all by himself! Sore losers?
An experienced protest observer, I thought I would see how things were faring this week. The protest was totally unlike any of the earlier ones. They were confined to Katagalan Street between Park and Chungshan Streets. I approached from Chungshan South Road, which was lined with people waving flags and cheering the traffic on Chungshan. Police were directing traffic, which was flowing as well as could be expected. The police were dressed in their everyday uniforms, relaxed, and walking through the crowds unmolested. There were rows of tents for the people staying overnight, people passing out food and flags (I turned down both), rows and rows of people sitting and standing as they listened to the speakers.
A highly emotional young lady was giving a practically incoherent speech over the loudspeaker, but people cheered her anyway. She gave up after a few minutes, and a man came on: “We are here because we love Taiwan!” Cheers. “We are not here to make trouble.” Cheers. “We want democracy.” Cheers. “We will demonstrate peacefully, but we want our rights!” Cheers. And so forth. The crowd was very high spirited, but directed their energies into cheering and waving their flags. Overall, it was a very orderly crowd, and the general spirit was merry, not hateful.
My point in writing this is not to take sides or say who is right or who is wrong. I personally do not care that much which side wins: just stay out of my hair. What I would like to say, though, is that protests over election results are nothing new in Taiwan, and that this is the most genteel demonstration I have ever seen. May it continue in like manner.
Oh yes, and the name of that losing candidate years ago who, in his tantrum, had the freeway blocked? Chen Shuibian.
The presidential election was held last Saturday, but it is hardly over. There is a matter about who actually won the election, and how. There have been accusations about sore losers, if you can't lose, don't play.
Sore losers are hardly new in Taiwan's elections. I'm too lazy to look up the dates, but the first time such poor sportsmanship came to my attention was about fifteen years ago, when the losing candidate in the mayoral race down south in Tainan called out the truckers to barricade the freeway. All traffic north and south was totally cut due to this sore loser's tantrum. I forget how long it lasted, you can look it up in the papers, but finally somebody assuaged the candidate's ego enough that he told the trucks to leave and permitted traffic to continue its normal flow. Hardly good sportsmanship, what?
Since then we have seen many such examples of sore losers, mostly among the green (the DDP, now ruling): when they win an election, it is the triumph of democracy, and when they lose an election, it's only because the blues (KMT) have cheated, so they hit the streets. And I do mean hit.
The DDP came to power on the streets, so before this election, they had an advertising campaign that I personally found disingenuous: they drilled in the message, go cast your vote (for us) and stay off the streets!! Don't march, don't protest, just give us your vote, because democracy is in the polls, not on the streets. Hardly the tune they sang way back when.
So recently the blues have been out, protesting certain oddities about this election. For example, friends in the armed forces have told me that surprise, surprise, military commands were quietly changed not long ago, so that if an alert of a certain stage is called, a certain proportion of servicemen cannot leave their bases. Most servicemen prefer the blue, so the ruling greens called a pretty high alert for election day, sealing all those votes far from the ballot boxes.
In this election were an unprecedented number of invalid ballots, and people are asking why. There was a high greater proportion of invalid ballots than ever before; so high that the invalid ballots outnumbered Chen Shuibian's winning margin by ten times. All you have to do is have someone surreptitiously smudge a ballot with a pen and it's invalid.
When you're talking about a margin of 29,500 votes out of 13 million, these things add up, and call for explanation.
Also, people have great doubts about the “assassination attempt, if it was an assassination attempt.” A growing scandal about campaign donations was drawing votes away from president Chen Shuibian in the week before the election, and then the day before the election there was this miraculous shooting. Amazing magical bullets, that could turn and stop: after turning 90 degrees to lightly scratching his tummy, one ended up sitting demurely in the president's coat pocket, probably all tuckered out by its acrobatic exertions in bringing in the sympathy vote.
There are allegations that the hospital (private Chimei Hospital, strong green supporters) to which the president was sent was prepared for the emergency days before it actually happened; that the Chimei hospital was not listed in the protocol of hospitals to which the president should be taken in case of emergency; that in any event, the alleged assassination attempt took place a dozen kilometers from Chimei hospital, so people wonder why they didn't take the president to National ChengKung University Medical Hospital, only two kilometers away.
People are unhappy. Crowds are protesting in front of the President's Office, which is just around the corner from Merica, where I teach. Wednesday (the 24th), I got to town early, so I decided to get off the subway a stop early and take a look.
I lived down in that area during the era of street demonstrations (by which the DDP built power). The only demonstration I missed entirely was 5/20 (more on that later), because I happened to be abroad. All of the other demonstrations I saw and heard; not by choice, but because I lived in the neighborhood for almost twenty years, and passed the Legislature on my way to work.
Those demonstrations were not happy affairs. You passed by as quickly as you could, averting your eyes for your own protection. The protestors would usually yell and scream insults at people passing by. On occasion they attacked passersby.
Lines of police in riot gear tensely waited to get assaulted (Taiwan is probably the only place in the world where demonstrators beat up the police, rather than the other way around).
Demonstrators would turn over trash cans, smash phone booths, spray paint everything in sight, vandalize business’ signs, litter everywhere, push over parked motorcycles, sometimes even turn over parked cars. You wanted to stay away from them when they started throwing rocks. Taipei's streets are well maintained, so you do not just pick up a rock. If you have a rock to throw, you have brought it with you, 'with malice aforethought.' Later it became popular to throw eggs. In one way that's an improvement, but I always felt sorry for the hens.
The one demonstration I missed was the May 20 (5/20) affair, when the greens rioted during the inauguration of Lee Tenghui. Sometime around 1990, I forget what year, look it up yourself. As I was not an eye-witness, allow me to cite one: hapless Eban was driving his bus by, doing his job, minding his own business, when the participants started throwing bricks at his bus. As if he had elected Lee Tenghui all by himself! Sore losers?
An experienced protest observer, I thought I would see how things were faring this week. The protest was totally unlike any of the earlier ones. They were confined to Katagalan Street between Park and Chungshan Streets. I approached from Chungshan South Road, which was lined with people waving flags and cheering the traffic on Chungshan. Police were directing traffic, which was flowing as well as could be expected. The police were dressed in their everyday uniforms, relaxed, and walking through the crowds unmolested. There were rows of tents for the people staying overnight, people passing out food and flags (I turned down both), rows and rows of people sitting and standing as they listened to the speakers.
A highly emotional young lady was giving a practically incoherent speech over the loudspeaker, but people cheered her anyway. She gave up after a few minutes, and a man came on: “We are here because we love Taiwan!” Cheers. “We are not here to make trouble.” Cheers. “We want democracy.” Cheers. “We will demonstrate peacefully, but we want our rights!” Cheers. And so forth. The crowd was very high spirited, but directed their energies into cheering and waving their flags. Overall, it was a very orderly crowd, and the general spirit was merry, not hateful.
My point in writing this is not to take sides or say who is right or who is wrong. I personally do not care that much which side wins: just stay out of my hair. What I would like to say, though, is that protests over election results are nothing new in Taiwan, and that this is the most genteel demonstration I have ever seen. May it continue in like manner.
Oh yes, and the name of that losing candidate years ago who, in his tantrum, had the freeway blocked? Chen Shuibian.
Monday, March 22, 2004
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Saturday, March 20, 2004
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Monday, March 08, 2004
SERENDIPITY
One of the seminal events of my life was watching Mifune Toshiro 三船敏郎play 宮本武藏Miyamoto Musashi in Samurai. I was in the eighth grade, a beginner in the martial arts, learning Kenpo under Ed Parker. My mother was game, and took me down to the Toho La Brea (at the time, one of LA's two Japanese movie theaters) to watch all three movies in the series. We were the only two roundeyes in the place, probably the only two members of the audience who had to rely on the subtitles. I was enthralled by the power of the story, the strength of Mifune's performance, the sheer authority of Japanese aesthetics. At a time when Japan was largely ignored, or at most regarded as a defeated enemy flooding the American market with junk, I was swept by the surging images of the movies. The scenes were beautiful and memorable in a totally new mode, the language and music strange to my ears, the pace and plot were novel, and the costumes and customs portrayed opened a new world to me. I could never get the Orient out of my blood after seeing Miyamoto Musashi.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw an amazon.com ad for some DVD, and just happened to think, Gawd, wouldn't it be great if I could find Samurai on DVD or VCD? Yeah, good luck, forget it. That was years ago, and in another country, and besides, Mifune is dead.
On the way to class Saturday, on the spur of the moment I decided to eat lunch in the cafeteria on Wuchang Street instead of the one on Hsinsheng. When I got out of the subway, the exit I wanted to leave by was blocked off because the museum was damaged in the March 31 earthquake, and they're having trouble restoring the structure. From the signs and fences, seems like the whole building may keel over at any moment, so stay away! Okay, no sweat, I can go around the long way, and while we're at it, I decided to go the even longer way since I hadn't been up that section of bookstore street for so long. Sure enough, a new bookstore opened, selling lots of cut-rate books, probably nothing to interest me, but since I was early anyway, I strolled in, and practically the first thing to meet my eye was a DVD of the first episode of Samurai, starring Mifune Toshiro as Miyamoto Musashi. I got the whole set for NT$200 (less than six bucks).
One of the seminal events of my life was watching Mifune Toshiro 三船敏郎play 宮本武藏Miyamoto Musashi in Samurai. I was in the eighth grade, a beginner in the martial arts, learning Kenpo under Ed Parker. My mother was game, and took me down to the Toho La Brea (at the time, one of LA's two Japanese movie theaters) to watch all three movies in the series. We were the only two roundeyes in the place, probably the only two members of the audience who had to rely on the subtitles. I was enthralled by the power of the story, the strength of Mifune's performance, the sheer authority of Japanese aesthetics. At a time when Japan was largely ignored, or at most regarded as a defeated enemy flooding the American market with junk, I was swept by the surging images of the movies. The scenes were beautiful and memorable in a totally new mode, the language and music strange to my ears, the pace and plot were novel, and the costumes and customs portrayed opened a new world to me. I could never get the Orient out of my blood after seeing Miyamoto Musashi.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw an amazon.com ad for some DVD, and just happened to think, Gawd, wouldn't it be great if I could find Samurai on DVD or VCD? Yeah, good luck, forget it. That was years ago, and in another country, and besides, Mifune is dead.
On the way to class Saturday, on the spur of the moment I decided to eat lunch in the cafeteria on Wuchang Street instead of the one on Hsinsheng. When I got out of the subway, the exit I wanted to leave by was blocked off because the museum was damaged in the March 31 earthquake, and they're having trouble restoring the structure. From the signs and fences, seems like the whole building may keel over at any moment, so stay away! Okay, no sweat, I can go around the long way, and while we're at it, I decided to go the even longer way since I hadn't been up that section of bookstore street for so long. Sure enough, a new bookstore opened, selling lots of cut-rate books, probably nothing to interest me, but since I was early anyway, I strolled in, and practically the first thing to meet my eye was a DVD of the first episode of Samurai, starring Mifune Toshiro as Miyamoto Musashi. I got the whole set for NT$200 (less than six bucks).
Sunday, February 29, 2004
Saturday, February 21, 2004
I need your advice. A friend who wishes to improve his English (not his native language) has asked me to look over his compositions. Do you think I should tell him the difference between S and E in this passage?
At present, individuals attend universities to acquire new experience and face challenges. The liberal learning environment, enlightening concepts, abundance of faculty and equipment, and aptly designed teats are all most alluring.
Please enlighten me.
At present, individuals attend universities to acquire new experience and face challenges. The liberal learning environment, enlightening concepts, abundance of faculty and equipment, and aptly designed teats are all most alluring.
Please enlighten me.
Friday, February 20, 2004
Monday, February 16, 2004
Friday, February 13, 2004
If you had a digital camera ten years ago, in 1994, please raise your right hand… just as I expected, still firmly on the mouse. Ten years ago, who even knew what a digital camera was? And now, in 2004, Kodak has stopped producing film, driven out of that business by digital cameras.
You probably remember the sensation created a few years ago when photo shops started offering to develop your film in only an hour. An hour? Nowadays, who is going to wait an hour to see a photo? We want to see it immediately, on the camera's LCD. If a computer is handy, within moments the photo can be sent all over the world. Who foresaw that twenty years ago?
For that matter, twenty years ago, a mouse was something you tried to keep out of the kitchen. Twenty years ago: 1984. Few now remember the dread connotations of the name of that year, 1984. If somebody from the 1980s read that sentence about your hand being firmly on the mouse, they would not have been able to make heads or tails out of it.
If the past is a foreign country, how much more so the future. We can visit the past, but it will never come again. We cannot visit the future, but it will surely roll in on us.
There's a Jewish saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”
You probably remember the sensation created a few years ago when photo shops started offering to develop your film in only an hour. An hour? Nowadays, who is going to wait an hour to see a photo? We want to see it immediately, on the camera's LCD. If a computer is handy, within moments the photo can be sent all over the world. Who foresaw that twenty years ago?
For that matter, twenty years ago, a mouse was something you tried to keep out of the kitchen. Twenty years ago: 1984. Few now remember the dread connotations of the name of that year, 1984. If somebody from the 1980s read that sentence about your hand being firmly on the mouse, they would not have been able to make heads or tails out of it.
If the past is a foreign country, how much more so the future. We can visit the past, but it will never come again. We cannot visit the future, but it will surely roll in on us.
There's a Jewish saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Monday, February 09, 2004
Raining Umbrellas
Toan wanted to take the noon bus from Rahaw to Wulai, so we went out to see if it was coming. As we waited by the road, admiring the view of the mountains in the rain, a noise downhill attracted my attention. I saw Tobut walking out to his car. 'Now this is fine,' I thought, 'I can rush over to ask Tobut to take Toan to the city, for that is surely where he is going. That will be better than standing here in the rain waiting for a bus that may not come.' Just then, Mrs Tobut appeared on the scene and forcefully hurled a black umbrella at Tobut. Hmmm. She stepped back inside for a moment, and flung a yellow umbrella at him. I realized that the noise which had attracted my attention had been Mrs Tobut shouting at him. She stepped inside again, and threw a green umbrella at Tobut. Tobut stood behind the car, so Mrs Tobut threw the red umbrella at the car. This was followed by another black umbrella, a plaid umbrella, a light blue umbrella, a dark blue umbrella, another green umbrella, and a nice red and yellow umbrella. Tobut stood behind the car. It rains a lot in Wulai, so people accumulate umbrellas. I imagined Tobut counting umbrellas, sort of like Indians used to count how many bullets the cowboys had left. A few moments later, a blue and white umbrella bounced off the hood of the car. I came to a decision: apparently the chimes of marital bliss were not pealing in the Tobut household, so it might not be politic to rush over and ask Tobut to drive Toan to the city, assuming, of course, that Mrs Tobut ever ran out of ammunition. A green umbrella with red flowers crashed into the back door. Tobut stood behind the car. The bus finally came, so I shepherded Toan onto the bus and waved goodbye. As I moved homeward, I heard more metallic crunches from the direction of the Tobut house. People in Wulai have a lot of umbrellas.
Toan wanted to take the noon bus from Rahaw to Wulai, so we went out to see if it was coming. As we waited by the road, admiring the view of the mountains in the rain, a noise downhill attracted my attention. I saw Tobut walking out to his car. 'Now this is fine,' I thought, 'I can rush over to ask Tobut to take Toan to the city, for that is surely where he is going. That will be better than standing here in the rain waiting for a bus that may not come.' Just then, Mrs Tobut appeared on the scene and forcefully hurled a black umbrella at Tobut. Hmmm. She stepped back inside for a moment, and flung a yellow umbrella at him. I realized that the noise which had attracted my attention had been Mrs Tobut shouting at him. She stepped inside again, and threw a green umbrella at Tobut. Tobut stood behind the car, so Mrs Tobut threw the red umbrella at the car. This was followed by another black umbrella, a plaid umbrella, a light blue umbrella, a dark blue umbrella, another green umbrella, and a nice red and yellow umbrella. Tobut stood behind the car. It rains a lot in Wulai, so people accumulate umbrellas. I imagined Tobut counting umbrellas, sort of like Indians used to count how many bullets the cowboys had left. A few moments later, a blue and white umbrella bounced off the hood of the car. I came to a decision: apparently the chimes of marital bliss were not pealing in the Tobut household, so it might not be politic to rush over and ask Tobut to drive Toan to the city, assuming, of course, that Mrs Tobut ever ran out of ammunition. A green umbrella with red flowers crashed into the back door. Tobut stood behind the car. The bus finally came, so I shepherded Toan onto the bus and waved goodbye. As I moved homeward, I heard more metallic crunches from the direction of the Tobut house. People in Wulai have a lot of umbrellas.
Monday, February 02, 2004
I began work on this scholarly paper last March. Unfortunately, this is as far as I got, and now I forget what point I was aiming at. Maybe you can tell me.
On the Evolution of Oral Traditions:
A Scholarly Examination
In days of yore, when men were men, women were women, rabbits was rabbits, pigs was pigs, and a dollar a day was not a white man's pay because the United States, land of the almighty aforesaid, had not been invented yet, very few in the global economy were receiving monetary compensation for their labors, and besides, globally, the whites have always been a minority, this seems to have become such a run-on sentence that even I have forgotten where I was headed.
Oh yes, the days of yore.
In the days of yore, I suppose people actually did say 'yore,' but it's not one of those words that really draws you in. Take 'rambunctious,' for example. Take 'aspirin' for another example, and phone me in the morning if you're not better yet. But 'rambunctious' is one of those words that you can say over and over. 'Yore' may sound intriguing the first couple of times you say it, and then you sound like a donkey with the hiccups. But 'rambunctious' is one of those words you say over and over again, and it gets more and more absorbing. The syllables flow out like a limpid mountain stream murmuring melodiously in a gradual crescendo as it bounces past sun-lit boulders dappled with spray, and you start thinking, 'my dog, this is really exciting!' but then you start thinking, 'But how come the sound "rambunctious" means "rambunctious"?' And before you know it, you have forsaken all your worldly possessions to spend a significant lifetime with your legs tied into knots as you sit contemplating dapples of spray on sun-lit boulders as a limpid mountain stream blah blah blah. Come on, give it a try, loud and clear: Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Admit it. Tell the world proudly just how you feel. "I feel like a total fool for standing here saying this stupid word five times just because some idiot duped me into it." We are in touch with our feelings. That's what so great about the post-modern world.
That is the post-modern world, not days of yore. In the days of yore, they didn't understand these things, they didn't GROCK these things. One of the reasons they led such insipid lives was that they did not have the benefit of prolonged multisensory experiences. In other words, they didn't have television to tell them every night, in the privacy of their own living rooms, about sex in the city and other topics vital to human happiness.
Every night, they sat around talking to the same people: "Two summers before you were born, a raccoon took four of our turkeys in one night. I have never seen such a greedy raccoon. It came in the night and ate four turkeys. We woke up in the morning and found that four of our turkeys were gone. We saw raccoon tracks on the ground. There were four turkeys gone. That was two summers before you were born. It happened at night. It was dark. A raccoon took four turkeys, four of our turkeys, all in one night, that was some greedy raccoon. I remember, I woke up in the morning and found that four of the turkeys were gone. I saw raccoon tracks on the ground. I went inside and woke up your mother. 'Mother of my children,' I said, 'During the night, a raccoon took four of our turkeys.' 'How do you know that, father of my children?' your mother asked. 'Because, mother of my children, when I woke up this morning, I discovered that four of our turkeys are missing, and there are raccoon tracks on the ground' and your mother said, 'Father of my children, yes, perhaps a raccoon did take four of our turkeys" and they go on and on and ON about those dumb turkeys, night after night, year after year, and you understand why the human race traveled across vast deserts and soaring mountains to inhabit new lands: to get away from the old codgers at home going on for the zillionth time about the time the raccoon took four turkeys in one night.
This was definitely a significant motivation in human migrations.
On the Evolution of Oral Traditions:
A Scholarly Examination
In days of yore, when men were men, women were women, rabbits was rabbits, pigs was pigs, and a dollar a day was not a white man's pay because the United States, land of the almighty aforesaid, had not been invented yet, very few in the global economy were receiving monetary compensation for their labors, and besides, globally, the whites have always been a minority, this seems to have become such a run-on sentence that even I have forgotten where I was headed.
Oh yes, the days of yore.
In the days of yore, I suppose people actually did say 'yore,' but it's not one of those words that really draws you in. Take 'rambunctious,' for example. Take 'aspirin' for another example, and phone me in the morning if you're not better yet. But 'rambunctious' is one of those words that you can say over and over. 'Yore' may sound intriguing the first couple of times you say it, and then you sound like a donkey with the hiccups. But 'rambunctious' is one of those words you say over and over again, and it gets more and more absorbing. The syllables flow out like a limpid mountain stream murmuring melodiously in a gradual crescendo as it bounces past sun-lit boulders dappled with spray, and you start thinking, 'my dog, this is really exciting!' but then you start thinking, 'But how come the sound "rambunctious" means "rambunctious"?' And before you know it, you have forsaken all your worldly possessions to spend a significant lifetime with your legs tied into knots as you sit contemplating dapples of spray on sun-lit boulders as a limpid mountain stream blah blah blah. Come on, give it a try, loud and clear: Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Admit it. Tell the world proudly just how you feel. "I feel like a total fool for standing here saying this stupid word five times just because some idiot duped me into it." We are in touch with our feelings. That's what so great about the post-modern world.
That is the post-modern world, not days of yore. In the days of yore, they didn't understand these things, they didn't GROCK these things. One of the reasons they led such insipid lives was that they did not have the benefit of prolonged multisensory experiences. In other words, they didn't have television to tell them every night, in the privacy of their own living rooms, about sex in the city and other topics vital to human happiness.
Every night, they sat around talking to the same people: "Two summers before you were born, a raccoon took four of our turkeys in one night. I have never seen such a greedy raccoon. It came in the night and ate four turkeys. We woke up in the morning and found that four of our turkeys were gone. We saw raccoon tracks on the ground. There were four turkeys gone. That was two summers before you were born. It happened at night. It was dark. A raccoon took four turkeys, four of our turkeys, all in one night, that was some greedy raccoon. I remember, I woke up in the morning and found that four of the turkeys were gone. I saw raccoon tracks on the ground. I went inside and woke up your mother. 'Mother of my children,' I said, 'During the night, a raccoon took four of our turkeys.' 'How do you know that, father of my children?' your mother asked. 'Because, mother of my children, when I woke up this morning, I discovered that four of our turkeys are missing, and there are raccoon tracks on the ground' and your mother said, 'Father of my children, yes, perhaps a raccoon did take four of our turkeys" and they go on and on and ON about those dumb turkeys, night after night, year after year, and you understand why the human race traveled across vast deserts and soaring mountains to inhabit new lands: to get away from the old codgers at home going on for the zillionth time about the time the raccoon took four turkeys in one night.
This was definitely a significant motivation in human migrations.
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