Sean Lien continues to spout nonsense, to the great amusement of all. Among many lowlights of his campaign include a proposal to solve the stray dog problem by dumping the city's stray dogs down in Chiayi -- a very revealing moment showing how the KMT ruling core views Taiwan outside of Taipei -- it is simply a place to dump their waste, the funeral home fiasco, and the claim that he had visited all 600 precincts of Taipei, when the city only has 400 or so. Local netizens have been mourning the Nov 29 arrival of the election, saying that it is too soon. They want more time so as to enjoy Lien's flow of silliness to its fullest.
Lien's latest eye-roller was his suggestion to rename Shifu Road, City Hall Road, after former President Chiang Ching-kuo, made the other day at a rally. The city government's household registration office quickly came out to point out just how silly that was: there's a process for renaming roads, which Lien appears not to have considered. Imagine that.... Apple Daily posted a Liberty Times report:
今日出版的《自由時報》報導，北市民政局戶籍行政科長洪進達表示，市府路上有門牌1號的台北市政府及45號的101大樓，總共14戶。若要改動路名需先由5分之1住戶向戶政事務所提案，進行問卷調查，取得4分之3住戶同意後提報市府，市府審議通過再送市議會，獲得過半數議員同意，才能改路名，不是說改就改。（方翊倩／綜合報導）The statement says that Shifu Road runs from #1 (City Hall) to #45 (Taipei 101!!), for a total of 14 registered addresses. According to the statement, a fifth of the households along the road have to apply for the change (change comes from within, in fine Buddhist fashion). Then a survey has to be performed, and 3/4 of the households must agree. The name change must then be submitted to the City Council for majority approval.
It almost looks as if the ghost of Chen Shui-bian is haunting the KMT again, for Ketagalan Blvd in front of the Presidential Palace was named Chieh-shou Road (=Long Live Chiang Kai-shek) before Chen changed it. Seems some KMTers want to get in some retaliation...
On a more serious note, this process is why the local city governments run by the DPP have never changed the colonialist road names in their cities: few households and businesses would want to go through the trouble of changing their addresses, getting new namecards and IDs, and so on, so name changes are difficult.
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4 comments:
Sean Lien has his father's knack for electioneering. I guess some things are genetic. I wonder how many people got fired/demoted for pushing back against the idea of him running.
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"...a very revealing moment showing how the KMT ruling core views Taiwan outside of Taipei -- it is simply a place to dump their waste..."
To me, that's very ironic.
Why?
Because IMO the most interesting and beautiful places in Taiwan are completely outside of Taipei. Taipei is one of the ugliest big cities in Asia.
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The Taipei Times wrote that Lien wants to rename Shifu Road as "'Chin Kuo road (經國路)' after former president Chiang Chin-kuo (蔣經國)."
Perhaps the absurd pro-Tongyong Pinyin policy at the Times has left those at the paper unable to spell just about anything correctly. That's Chiang Ching-kuo, guys. And when Lien was campaigning about this he had aids behind him holding up large mock-up street signs for "Jingguo Rd." not "Chin Kuo road".
Oh well. At least in his recent bit of chest-thumping Lien didn't use InTerCaPiTaLiZaTion.
Michael, links to anything you've written on the change in Taichung to "Taiwan Boulevard" would be welcome.
The netters had a field trip on this naming issues. They suggest:
Rename => to
中華民國 (ROC) => 蔣經國
蘭嶼 (an island) => 連方嶼
京站 (Q Square in Taipei) => 連站
and a lot more
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