Issues that highlight Taiwan's lack of international space galvanize locals. In a culture obsessed with rank and scores, nonexistence is the unkindest cut of all. Taiwanese crave recognition. Cursed as I am, I can't help observing, though, that this flag affair shows how thoroughly the KMT has gotten locals to incorporate its symbols into their hearts. Perhaps someday it will also show how locals have reconfigured the meanings of such symbols and made them their own: everyone says its Taiwan's flag.
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12 comments:
There's a petition on change.org to replace the more offensive of the two flags with the slightly-less-offensive one (note they they unfortunately call it "Taiwan's 'True' Flag"), in case anyone's interested in signing it and maybe adding a comment.
Tim Maddog
Even some of my greenest friends call it Taiwan's flag. They would happily undo all the vestiges of the ROC except that one. I find it strange, but ultimately it isn't one of the really important things.
The irony is the majority of the people who defend the ROC flag are Taiwan centric people. After all flying the ROC flag is better than havin PROC flags flying in Taiwan. It just puzzles me that while so many Taiwanese are trying to matain their own life style and identity many of the pro-unification, sorry pro-annexation, people (KMTers) KMTers are trying so hard to get rid of the flag that they created and have imposed on Taiwanese.
There has been such a deep rooted program of iconalization and ritualization around these ROC/KMT images, they have become a major part of the Taiwanese experience. All of the ritual involved in school flag ceremonies, Sun Yat-sen worship etal, has made these symbols resonate among Taiwanese as a part of their experience, but with possibly vastly different meanings than originally intended as they have been remained in a Taiwanese context.
There has been such a deep rooted program of iconalization and ritualization around these ROC/KMT images, they have become a major part of the Taiwanese experience. All of the ritual involved in school flag ceremonies, Sun Yat-sen worship etal, has made these symbols resonate among Taiwanese as a part of their experience, but with possibly vastly different meanings than originally intended as they have been remained in a Taiwanese context.
Yes, that's what we're seeing here. The Taiwanese have remade the flag of the ROC as their own. It's cool to watch the consequences of this. Great comment, thanks.
The German national anthem ("Deutschlandlied", i.e. "The song of Germany"; AKA "The song of the Germans) was originally written for the Austrian emperor Francis II (Franz-Josef II) and was the national anthem of the Austrian empire until its end in 1918.
Four years later (1922), Germany made it their national anthem; until today (with evolving changes to the lyrics.)
So, if the ROC flag were to be made Taiwan's national flag, it'd not be "that unusual".
Symbols do not have static meaning. If majority of people consider it a flag of Taiwan, it is flag of Taiwan. Most of all, it is pragmatic approach too. Do you really think passerby on Regent Street knows all the complexity about Taiwanese political/identity debates? However, they may know this flag is flag of Taiwan...they usually dont know Taiwan is officially ROC, no one uses that because it just adds to overall confusion.
Day will come, and people will be able to change the flag if they wish to. I would not be surprised if they keep current one, really! It is no longer KMT symbol...they denounced it when they did their utmost to hide all the flags from Chen Yun-lin in 2008.
Yes, i think you are right, Michal.
Seriously, between ROC flag and Chinese Taipei flag, I would much rather have the Chinese Taipei flag, since ROC flag was what flown over dead bodies of Taiwanese people who died in 228 and white terror, not the Chinese Taipei flag. Taiwanese embracing ROC flag is like Jews embracing Nazi flag, not gonna sit well with me. Right now, I only use the WTC flag to represent Taiwan. It is no national flag, but before we have our own independent state of Taiwan, this will do~
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Flag_of_WTC.svg
Such a complex symbol, I wonder if there was another such symbol with so much conflicts and confusion behind it in human history. At the same time it represents Taiwan, ROC, Taiwan indepedence and KMT tyrany...Orz.
BBC web site has bowed to the red China. As of 7/30:
http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aSOC&ID=201207290020
Today (7/31):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/2012/countries/chinese-taipei
The Washington Post (7/31), we will see how long that flag will stand:
http://stats.washingtonpost.com/olympics/medals.asp
Leave comments re. BBC website content:
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