Coming Home ain't all its cracked up to be

A Taiwanese-American friend, longtime Taiwan activist, entrepreneur, and one of the coolest people I know, has this to say about "coming home" on Facebook...

I've been meaning to one day write a detailed essay and openly about how difficult it is to build closer relations between Taiwanese diaspora and local Taiwanese or even first generation Taiwanese diaspora. But if I write with specific examples, then it'll be calling people out which I'm not wishing to do at the moment so I'll just generalize.

In addition are my gripes about a new class of diaspora that have come back to try to dump on the whole thing for their own advantage. There's a lot of stereotypes that makes it so difficult in the first place to get along, that we really don't need more people to actively throw a wrench in it even though there are people that try so hard just to seem cool or to win quick brownie points. Its bad enough that Taiwanese diaspora do face racism in the new host nations, and with locals when they return, and now also Taiwanese diaspora that want to win quick points with locals by bashing Taiwanese diaspora.

For example, most locals just outright immediately assume I'm visiting, that I love to party, that I somehow avoided the draft instead of actually dealing with it, or that I must not care about Taiwanese politics or am unaware or inactive (in fact I'm far more active than the vast majority of people and even locals for good reason). There's also this assumption that I must be rich or whatever instead of having grown up in poverty. This on top of a failure to care to understand why we think the way we do that happens to be backed with good reasons and decades of experience. So you can imagine how terrible it is to have this small new class of Taiwanese diaspora that come back to Taiwan and can't wait to shit on themselves behind the scenes without any care about the damage they are doing just so they can be with their buddies more.

Not to mention, Taiwanese diaspora are easy targets for Taiwanese. After all we left while they had to deal with the issues, but no consideration that some of us were forced to leave and how difficult that is. No consideration that being unable to return brings its own set of challenges and suffering. No consideration that trying to be successful in a foreign nation is very tough. Very little time is spent on understanding.

A small example: I can't even get on a taxi without the driver asking how my vacation is going or whether or not I'm a foreigner. Because I ride the taxi very often, I've been forced into this conversation multiple times a week for years.

The constant Othering by locals, who are not even aware they are Othering you. It's draining sometimes.
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Those Controversial Taiwan Businessmen...

Remember the Dems and their Chinese money scandal? It's back again, this time with the McCain campaign. The Chicago Tribune via the LA Times...a teaser:

A Taiwanese firm with a nearly identical name as Hao's new California company, Asian American Entertainment Ltd., is also headed by a Shi Sheng Hao. That firm has been embroiled in a lengthy legal battle in Las Vegas over a soured partnership in an application for a casino license in Macau, the former Portuguese colony now part of the People's Republic of China.

A court filing in that case described Hao's firm as a business affiliate of the China Industrial Development Bank, a finance arm of the Taiwanese government. Hao is listed as a resident of Taiwan in corporate papers filed in the case.

It's unclear whether the Shi Sheng Hao in the lawsuit and the California ventures is the same Shi Sheng Hao using the Roselle address. But public records point to numerous coincidences, including corporations with similar names and an overlap of investors. Some political donations from the Roselle address also refer to Hao by a nickname, Marshall, the same nickname given for Hao in the Las Vegas court action.

Federal records indicate a pattern of large and coordinated donations from Hao, relatives and associates. Collectively, eight of them gave a total of $130,000 to the RNC in late September and early October of 2007.

Enjoy those mysterious Taiwanese businessmen...

[Taiwan]

Politicizing the Olympics in the Diaspora

The intense three-sided competition between Taiwanese and diaspora Chinese (PRC + KMT) in the US was on display in San Francisco in the Christian Science Monitor this week:

Betty Yuan left Taiwan for San Francisco in 1981, when mainland China was just beginning to open its economy.

Now, a booming China is hosting the 2008 Olympics and is sending the Olympic torch to San Francisco. To celebrate, Ms Yuan will be helping deploy costumed performers, tai chi practitioners, and children's artwork along Wednesday's torch route.

But she is upset about the demonstrations planned by thousands of Tibetans, Burmese, Falun Gong believers, and others to protest China's human rights record.

"We are disappointed that some politicians and interest groups are threatening to stage protests and ruin the Games, for the sake of bad-mouthing and insulting China," she said in a statement in Chinese she released as head of the Northern California Chinese Culture-Athletic Federation.

For decades, the Chinese community in San Francisco has been broadly divided between mainlanders and the numerically smaller but more prosperous and influential Taiwanese, who are traditionally critical of the Communist regime in Beijing. Yet, many Chinese-Americans including Taiwanese like Yuan support the Games and denounce the human rights protests reflects the power of ethnic pride over politics – but also a shift in the diaspora's attitude toward Beijing in recent years.

It is easy to see that the writers have confused pro-KMT organizations with Taiwanese organizations, a common error. What the article really shows is how the pro-China Return to Zion theology of the KMT entails an inevitable drift towards Beijing over time on the part of KMT organizations as Taiwan democratizes. As any perusal of the websites of overseas Taiwan organizations like FAPA would show, the Taiwanese organizations support the Tibetans. It's a shame the piece is so confused on this topic, and did not include any of those voices.

It's also hilarious -- but also ominous -- to see US-based organizations, whatever their ethnic bent, reproducing the bombastic, illogical, and anti-democratic rhetoric of Beijing. If they are treated as 'Bots for Beijing, they have only themselves to blame.

Finally, complaints from Chinese about foreigners "politicizing the Olympics" are laughable hypocrisy. China has heavily politicized the Torch and demanded that pro-democracy politics, public protests, and other political activities abate during the Olympics, and used the Olympics as a lever to gain political ground in overseas Chinese communities, as this article shows. Further, those of us who have followed Taiwan's participation in international sporting events over the years can recall numerous instances of Chinese demanding the removal or alteration of flags, physical attacks on spectators and athletes, obnoxious protests, insistence on downgrading or eliminating Taiwan's participation in events, denials of visas, and so on. When it comes to the depoliticization of international sports, China has no ethical leg to stand on. Perhaps there is some standpoint from which people can plead that the Olympics not be "politicized," but until such talk includes withering criticism of China's constant politicization of international sports in general, and the Olympics in particular, it will be little more than special pleading on Beijing's behalf.

UPDATE: As Thomas reminds me below, China boycotted the 1980 Olympics.

[Taiwan]