Monday, December 07, 2009

Daily Links, Dec 7, 2009


What's being served up on the blogs this week?
MEDIA: How insane is the KMT? It thinks the ROC owns the Senkaku (Diaoyutai) Islands because some writer saw them years ago. An excellent review of the effects of the Three Gorges Dam in JapanFocus. Taiwanese fishermen used to fish in waters the river fed. Not any more. AFP claims Ma might have to slow down his China policy as a result of the elections. Lots of quotes saying that Ma might accelerate it too (for example). The KMT doesn't care what locals think and will do whatever it wants, anyway, though the outcome of the election is being widely reported as a blow to the KMT. Taiwanese sailors held in Burma suffering lack of basic amenities. Daily Telegraph piece discussing Taiwan's elections, from Beijing reporter. Way cool: Taiwan plans massive growth in solar energy. Can we delete those coal-fired carbon nightmares now under construction in central Taiwan, please? Such moves are important because Taiwan's precipitation is changing due to global warming. NYTimes on the Next Media video of Tiger Woods and its application to the future of news. The government moves to support e-book tech here. Lai I-chung in the Jamestown Briefing on the changing of Taiwan relations with China in the east China sea. Ma's 2012 odds fall in prediction market. Already the high cost of housing is number one complaint, and government is looking for ways to provide cheaper housing. Just change the land-use laws that are so developer-friendly, folks. Taiwan's reliance on China market as export destination continues to rise. Government begins electrification of Hualien-Taitung railway line -- the day before the election. Spirit mediums swap experiences -- including dealing with ghosts.

VIDEO: DPP ECFA referendum add, w/English subtitles.

MEDIA WATCH: The zombie claim that Ma is a Harvard-educated lawyer lurches on in the Financial Times.
When Ma Ying-jeou gave his rival candidate a thrashing in May’s presidential election, the Harvard-educated lawyer proved he had the charisma to convince Taiwan’s 17m voters that his scandal-scarred Kuomintang party deserved to be in power.
Ma was never a lawyer. Can we stop with that crap, please? UPDATE: FT apparently substituted in [mainland] in front of "China" in DPP Chairman Tsai's remarks:
"The results show that the Ma government's policy to swiftly unite with [mainland] China is the source of much uneasiness among the voters," said Tsai Ing-wen, DPP chairwoman.
Totally unacceptable pro-China political alteration. Anyone got the original in Chinese?

EVENTS: Van Gogh exhibition in Taipei opens Dec 11. Voting has begun for the Taiwan blog awards. Jerome sends around the breakfast club meeting info:

To all,

We will have our Breakfast Club meeting at 10 am, this Saturday Dec. 12.
With the interim elections today, there will be plenty to talk about.

The speaker is Dr. Mark Harrison cf. below

Dr Mark Harrison is Senior Lecturer and Chinese program coordinator in the School of Asian Languages and Studies at the University of Tasmania. From 2002 to 2008, he was a research fellow and lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster in London, UK. He is author of “Legitimacy, Meaning and Knowledge in the Making of Taiwanese Identity” (Palgrave MacMillan, 2006), co- editor of The Margins of Becoming: Identity and Culture in Taiwan (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007), and author of a number of other chapters and articles on Taiwanese culture and identity. He is currently in Taiwan for a Ministry of Education funded research project entitled “Taipei as a global city: place-making between the screen and the everyday” in collaboration with NTNU and Yu Haiqing at UNSW.

The Breakfast Club talk will look at some of the epistemological questions around how Taiwan is known and is made known, and how this influences the experience of those who live here. Academic scholarship, journalism, tourism, commerce, government and other site of knowledge all contest over the truth about Taiwan, and it is this contestation that makes Taiwan compelling and meaningful for those committed to it.

The venue is the same as it has been for the past months. Time is 10 am.
The meeting location is the restaurant 婷婷翠玉 at 174 AnHe Road, Section Two. (rough translation of name is Tender, Pretty Green Jade.) You will be able to tell the restaurant by the lace curtains on the window--it was used in a TV commercial a while back. (We will have the downstairs room--breakfast cost will range between NT$100 and NT$150. Everyone buys their own) Phone if lost 2736-8510.

Restaurant is between Far Eastern Plaza Mall/Hotel and HePing East Road--about a half a block north of the corner of HePing East Road Sec. 3 and AnHe Road. or a half a block south of Far Eastern Plaza on the AnHe Road side.

Take the MRT Mucha Line to the Liuchangli Station exit there, and walk west on HePing East Road 3/4 of a block till you reach where AnHe Road dead-ends into it.Then go north on AnHe Road; it is a half a block up on the west side of that street.

Or take any bus down HePing East Road and get off at the first stop that is east of Tun Hua South Road. That will put you at the corner of HePing and AnHe.
You can also take a bus down Tun Hua South Road to the stop right across from Far Eastern Plaza and walk over to AnHe Road.

Or if you take the 235 bus east, it turns off of HePing onto AnHe Road and the first stop is right across from the restaurant.

To keep me abreast of headcount; please email me if you plan to attend.

_______________________
Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

3 comments:

Robert R. said...

Re: FT & Tsai's speech, it should, in theory, be found at the DPP web site. However, their own English translation doesn't mention China, and I don't find 中國 or 大陸 in the Chinese text. (not like I can read).

However, I did just notice that Google Translate gives "China" for 大陸 if you select Chinese as the language. If you use auto-detect, it selects Japanese and replies "Continental".
You can suggest a better translation on the page.

Michael Turton said...

I have a translation, but I don't know which remarks they were translating.

Don said...

Michael -- absolutely right to pick up that sinister bit of editorializing in the FT inserting "[mainland]" into Tsai's comments as if the presumed use of the word "China" alone is non-standard non-approved and non-comprehensible. Elsewhere in the article there's passing reference to something called "the motherland" as if the concept is an accepted given in English, without any indication that it's routine Xinhua fakery used to cover up the fact that a lot of what passes for China comprises territories and peoples conquered during the Qing dynasty. This is reporting worthy of the China Daily! I hope some senior bod at the FT's Asia Desk registers the fact that they are peddling CCP propaganda in the paper's name. Someone needs a slap!