Matsu, Goddess of Annexation

A religious procession in Tawu, Taitung.

Taichung city's tourist bureau is out to build the world's largest statue of Matsu, a sea goddess much reverenced in Taiwan and China. Taipei Times says:

Among the NT$1.2 billion (US$39.8 million) to be spent building the proposed Daan Matsu cultural park in Greater Taichung, around NT$600 million of the funds will go toward constructing a nearly 70m tall statue of Matsu, including the foundation and a path of reverence for the sea goddess. Greater Taichung’s Tourism and Travel Bureau Director General Chang Da-chun says, “This will definitely be the tallest Matsu statue in Southeast Asia.” There are already many official and private tour groups from China making queries, Chang says, adding that he is confident that, along with Jenn Lann Temple in Dajia, “It will create a huge tourist attraction.”

The Taichung city government has long complained that those busloads of Chinese tourist dollars leave Taichung port and head directly to Sun Moon Lake in Nantou without dropping a cent in the city. Determined to change that, the city government proposed a few years ago to build a penguin exhibit in the city, to which tourist flows would be diverted, presumably because everyone knows you go to Taiwan to see the native penguins. That idea was greeted with general derision, but this one is more interesting.

Interesting because Matsu worship has long been an important vector of pro-China, pro-annexation propaganda and activities on both sides of the Strait. Remember when the emerald Matsu statue landed at Taichung harbor, there to be received by Taichung Mayor Jason Hu and the head of the Jenn Lann Temple in Dajia, pro-annexation politician/businessman/but not gangster, no siree Yen Ching-piao? Several years ago BBC noted this connection between Matsu and China's drive to annex Taiwan, in the context of visits by Chinese religious representatives to the famous Matsu procession:

But for China, sending its temple representatives here to join in the celebrations is not without its political motivations.

The Chinese government has placed great emphasis on reviving Mazu in China – seeing it as an important way to underscore its insistence that Taiwanese people and culture came from China – and that Taiwan is a part of China.

Beijing hopes to reunify with the island one day and has not renounced the use of force to do so.

"They’re doing this to show both sides believe in Mazu and have a similar heritage," said Tsai Ming-hsien, a volunteer Mazu celebrations organiser who has had many dealings with Chinese temple officials.

In 2009 Yen Ching-piao's right hand man Cheng Ming-kun, whose formal position is deputy Chair of the Jenn Lann Matsu Temple in Dajia, the center of Taiwan's Matsu worship, was in China discussing with Beijing how to use Matsu to help China annex Taiwan. In May of 2009 a boat carrying Cheng Ming-kun and a load of Mazu pilgrims was the first passenger ferry to cross the strait. Of course Ma Ying-jeou appointed Yen Ching-piao, who says he is not a gangster at all but merely a misunderstood businessman, his "local spokesman" for ECFA.

It may seem like a silly religious stunt, but building a giant Matsu statue in Taichung where it will face China across the Strait, is a stunt with serious pro-annexation political overtones.
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Two Trips, Two Taiwans

Hooray for the Central Weather Bureau! May it always be so wrong. I had originally planned to go to conferences and meetings all weekend since the CWB had assured us for a week that this weekend's weather would bring thunderstorms everywhere except, as it worked out towards the week's end, Saturday in Hualien. So Friday I proposed an impromptu trip to Hualien for my friend Jeff and I, since it would be enjoying fine weather, and me eager to be back out on a bike after more than a week with no biking.

Sunday, with the CWB 0 for 2 on forecasts, I took an easy ride out to Dajia, in deference to my sore butt and knee from the ride the day before. Here, near the famous Matsu temple, crowds grab a snack.

But the weather looked so good on Friday night that we decided to nix Hualien and just bike down the coast to Jiaoxi, have lunch, and then return, putting in a good 150 kms. I borrowed a mountain bike from Jeff's wife. Our ride to Jiaoxi and back was killed when, on our way out of town, the chain broke, forcing us to waste more than an hour waiting for shops to open so we could get it fixed. Here it sits, forlornly chainless.

On Sunday in Dachia the streets were packed.

Fortunately a car repair shop opened early on a Saturday and we were able to get it repaired for nothing, by an English-speaking car repair man, no less. Here he is hard at work.

A small engine repair shop fronts a major intersection in Dajia.

Off we went down the coast.

I left Dajia and headed for my favorite part of this ride, seven or eight kilometers of empty rice fields along the Dajia River.

I love the NW coast road, though it is crowded with trucks and weekend day trippers on Saturdays.

The irrigation ditches here are all covered. To keep birds out?

Outside Keelung, a betel nut girl abandons her stall for a chat on the phone.

An old farmstead cut off by the road.

Caution! Bats crossing.

A local on a motorcycle crosses in front of me.

It was trucks all day long. In the narrow confines of the tunnels along the coast the boom and clang of trucks terrifies me.

Still serene emptiness of rice fields and hillsides.

The flotsam and jetsam of work.

Somebody's backyard.

Through a tunnel.

Along a dike.

The wild cliffs.

Highway 3 vanishes into the distance.

In many places people were drying seaweed.

Here and there farmers were out spraying pesticides

Processing.

Barbecuing.

Squeezing into the traffic in a small town.

Under highway 3, the government has made a playground.

When we got to Fulong we hit the trails, but nowhere does it say that the suspension bridge is closed, meaning you can't get to Fulong along the bike trails.

After Highway 3 I got on the dike, since the road ahead appeared blocked by construction.

So we headed through a little village back to the coast highway.

Excellent views on this detour.

At Fulong we turned back -- there was no way I could continue further with the pain in my rear and knee -- and because the sky looked ominous. Anyone know why the smokestack/cooling tower at the nuke plant there needs a gantry? Is it some secret Taiwan space launch program?

Construction had destroyed the road. Hard to imagine what sort of permanent structure was being built here.

The weather held on the way back.

An egret pauses on a lovely summer afternoon.

Highlight of the day: the bride & groom being photo'd on the coast. As they walked by back to their car I said Gong xi! The groom gravely said "thank you" while the bride started giggling as they walked away: "He said gongxi! He said gongxi!"

"What are you looking at?" he asked me, not so much in challenge as in disbelief that anyone would come here for the view.

At the same time a tourist van stopped to disgorge a group of tourists, apparently from the Subcontinent. This lovely couple was obviously having a very good time.

There are never many people around, and it is very quiet, one reason I love this stretch of road so much.

Jeff nursed a flat for several kms until we hit a scooter repair place. Here he is adding air.

Need a rest?

In front of the old copper processing facility, note how eroded the concrete beach protectors have become in just a few years.

A vista of concrete pillars, the HSR falls away into the distance. One wonders how the HSR will hold up over time.

The copper processing facility and the hills behind it.

Not just rice: cabbages too.

Our day ended at Keelung harbor, endlessly photogenic.

Before I turned uphill to climb up to the escarpment, I stopped to chat with an old farmer bringing fertilizer down on his bicycle. Another satisfying ride under a warm Taiwan sun.

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A Yen for ECFA

The last couple of weeks have been crowded with stuff, but I couldn't let this gem of a story pass unnoticed. On Jan 5 local papers carried the tale that Yen Ching-piao, the longtime...er...politician from Taichung County, had been appointed the local spokesman for ECFA at the suggestion of KMT legislators. The China Post has the call:

Independent legislator Yen Ching-piao has agreed to help the government with its efforts to convince the public of the necessity of its planned signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China and outline the negative impact on Taiwan if the pact is not signed.

Yen agreed to take up the role as an ECFA spokesman following a meeting with Economic Affairs Minister Shih Yen-shiang, Bureau of Foreign Trade Director-General Huang Chih-peng and Industrial Development Bureau Director General Woody T.J. Duh yesterday.

Yen proclaimed that he accepted the job not for the sake of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) “but for Taiwan's future generations.”

Yen will appear in TV commercials designed to sell the proposed economic deal with China to the mass population in a bid to defuse the negative campaign mounted by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party that accuses the government of President Ma Ying-jeou of attempting to sell out Taiwan via the ECFA.

Yen will use straightforward language that will enable citizens to understand why the deal is so important to Taiwan, Huang said.

The China Post leaves out Yen's illustrious career as a hardened criminal, revolving between public office and a private cell. Yen, who came up through the KMT following the gravel firm owner to county councilor to legislator career path, eventually had to leave and join the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (NPSU), a sort of catch-all party for local faction politicians. He's independent of the KMT in the sense that the Byelorussian SSR was independent of the USSR. It boogles the imagination to understand what language Yen is expected to use that will suddenly swing everyone over to support of ECFA.

More important, though, is the role that the China Post briefly mentions at the end of the article:

But he also serves as chairman of the board of trustees of Chenlang-gong (Wave-Suppressing Palace) at Tajia, Taiwan's most popular temple dedicated to Matsu, the Goddess of the Seas.

It's Yen who presides over the annual Matsu pilgrimage, one of the largest religious processions in the world. The connections between local factions, religion, and cross-strait relations suddenly loom...readers may recall that Yen associate Cheng Ming-kun, head of the Taiwan Matsu Association, was in Beijing in July meeting Chen Yunlin, the PRC negotiator who then came to Taichung in December. Chen Yunlin returned the favor by visiting the Chenlan (Matsu) Temple in Dajia during his trip to Taiwan (my post). None of this interplay between the CCP and "local factions" made the international media (goes without saying!) but an obvious inference is that Yen's control of Matsu, a goddess venerated on both sides of the Strait, may well be used in promoting ECFA, and more generally, cross-strait closeness. Religion is deeply intertwined with politics in Taiwan....

...I'm sure the alert reader can work out who the likely beneficiaries of cross-strait closeness are, as far as organized crime is concerned. Sooner or later the dawning realization is going to sweep across Taiwan's local faction politicians that they are going to be muscled out of the shiny new China future by their big bad counterparts from across the Strait. Local KMT politicians are already publicly complaining that the new closeness to China isn't bringing their districts the money that was promised....KMT internal tensions can only grow over time.

The Taipei Times also identified another issue with Yen: the subtle class-based slam of Taiwanese as low class, betel-nut chewing goobers. To wit:

Yen, a convicted criminal with a large grassroots support base, is known for his affability, and there’s no doubt he would speak the language of the “ordinary person” while chewing betel nut and mingling with the public.

Underneath the praise heaped on him by government officials, however, is a disturbing message: If you support an ECFA, you will graduate from “local” to “high-class.”

It appears the government has continued with the illusion that people opposed to an ECFA are those with little education or low social status.

This disturbing attitude brings back the unpleasant memory of two comic strip characters that the ministry created last year that were both offensive and derogatory.

This government just never learns. Or could it be that it is so arrogant that it is unaware its actions fuel perceptions of social superiority?

Many will recall the furor over the comic strip introduced in July to promote an ECFA. The cartoon featured two stereotypical characters, Yi-ge (一哥), a middle-aged ethnic Taiwanese man who speaks “Taiwanese Mandarin” and opposes the ECFA, and Fa-sao (發嫂), a sharp-minded Hakka career woman with a dashing educational background who supports the deal.

As the Taipei Times notes in its editorial, the problem is not that the government hasn't communicated well with the public, but that no one knows what ECFA is. Without substance, communication is basically useless. Although I have to admit that the use of a convicted criminal as a spokesman for ECFA contains a deep, unintentional truth about the nature of the agreement....
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