Chu Campaign's latest

Eric Chu's latest ad. The color scheme is interesting -- there's almost no bright green, the color associated with Taiwaneseness, and few rich KMT reds. Instead, blue, aqua, and orangish tones predominate. After viewing this I finally noticed that the ONE TAIWAN rainbow contains... no bright greens.

A still from a few seconds in, showing the conventional four major cultural groups -- mainlanders, Hoklo (Minnan), Hakka, and Aborigines. The mainlanders are represented by a suit wearing male white collar worker, while the Minnan are farmers (not factory/shop owners). No prejudices there, of course. Females are used to represent Hakkas and Aborigines. Divisive ethnic appeals based on this four-group model have been a key component of KMT power in Taiwan.

Note that in the next frame the mainlanders speak "Guoyu" (Mandarin). One urgent need of KMT rule was creating a shared "Mainlander" identity out of the diverse ethnic groups which followed the KMT elites in their retreat to Taiwan. None of the mainlanders speaks Zhejiangese, Shanghaiese, or Cantonese. One of the many ironies of KMT rule is that the mainlander identity is an identity that is totally Taiwan in origin. The same thing happens to the Aborigines, who are said to speak Aboriginese, and not Amis, Atayal, Rukai, etc.

Further on in the ad come the classic KMT representations of Taiwan culture: food, religion, festivals, the Economic Miracle, democracy. These are compatible with the KMT construction of Chinese culture as local expressions of the common Chinese identity. Missing as a component of culture: local history, which the KMT has diligently worked to suppress. This political lecture is given in animation, because photography would evoke the landscape and thus, the local feeling of connection to it, obviating the effect of the ad.

In fact, if you look at the KMT ads on the One Campaign site, many of them show the candidate in a white background and/or using animation. The landscape of Taiwan is often completely omitted. The preposterous ad I linked to several posts below, which shows the man in his 50s complaining about how he built Taiwan and is ignored, shows real scenes but only interiors. This is not always true -- this ad has some lovely shots of the land and people -- but for the most part it appears to be.

Of course, all this Taiwan-centeredness is only for election time. After that, the KMT will return to China...

ADDED: A friend on Facebook observed that even the ROC flag at the end has the red changed to the puke pink color. Drew Kerslake noted that "Using the female to diminutize indigenous peoples is a well established meme for colonial powers."
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