Linda Arrigo: Experiencing Taiwan Social History

Linda Arrigo graciously consented to let me put this presentation on my blog as JPGs. These are photos and slides from a presentation on cemetaries around her university in Taipei. The photos were taken by someone who accompanied Linda, not me.

The trip follows the windy road in the center of the picture.

The gatehouse on the left reminds that during the early KMT era, mountain areas were restricted, even the hills around Taipei.

As they went up the road, they saw this historic site.

Here, apparently, lies the tomb of Dr. Chiang Wei-shui, an early Taiwan autonomy activist who died in 1931 at the tender age of 40. According to George Kerr's book on the interwar home rule movement in Taiwan, during the 1920s Taiwanese in Tokyo organized the Home Rule Association,AKA the League for Local Autonomy, but the Japanese did not permit it to operate on Taiwan. As a result, Dr. Chiang (Japanese: Sho I-so), a medical doctor, established the Taiwan Bunka Kai, the Taiwan Culture Society, which preserved itself by calling for harmonious Japanese-Formosan relations, and acted as the local front for the Home Rule movement. In 1926 the movement was suppressed and broken up, with thousands of individuals dragooned into police stations and interrogated. Chiang called on young Formosans to leave Formosa, and many did. Some members of the Home Rule movement went to China and Russia and became Communist, like the famous Snow Red, Hsieh Hsueh-hung, who went to Moscow and studied there in 1926-27.

Chiang then led a group of moderates under the guidance of Lin Hsien-tang to establish the Peoples Party. They rewrote the platform until it met police approval, and called for peaceful change. Even that was too much,and the police broke up the first meeting. Chiang went on to organize labor unions and in 1928 brought them together to form the Taiwan Labor Federation. Strikes at Japanese factories began, countered by police state tactics. Chiang also made gestures to win KMT support for the cause, sending representatives to the placing of Sun Yat-sen's body in his mausoleum in 1929. Tragically, his career was cut short in 1931 by cancer. 10,000 people attended his hearse.

Chiang's tomb.

Chiang and his wife.

Those of you who live in this area might want to visit these fascinating tombs further up the road. They are graves of the island's Muslim community, almost all of whom are buried here, Linda told me.

Another interesting spot on the road is this small cemetery. Here lie the graves of some 100 individuals executed by the KMT. Among them is this grave, of the artist....

...who drew these famous woodcuts of 2-28. He was murdered by the government in 1952.

My Flickr account has all the slides up. Enjoy.

[Taiwan]

Legislative election fun

Just a few days ago over on Forumosa a bunch of us were speculating as to why Ma Ying-jeou seems to appear in the news more often than Frank Hsieh. Today the Taipei Times published on indicative little tale on that. Seems there have been complaints that Hsieh hasn't been visible enough to give a boost in the legislative elections.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) camp yesterday dismissed complaints that he has not been campaigning aggressively enough for his party's legislative candidates.

Former DPP chairman Yu Shyi-kun, who heads the DPP electoral campaign, said on Wednesday some pro-independence groups had told him that the party's internal relations between the legislative elections next week and the presidential poll in March should be like that between a hen and its chicks.

However, they told Yu, the hen -- referring to Hsieh -- was too busy, so they didn't have much choice but to ask the rooster -- President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) -- to take care of the matter.

Hsieh spokesman Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said Yu's comment had been a "friendly reminder," but was blown out of proportion by "certain media."

"It proves the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] is anxious about the elections and came up with this kind of scheme to split the DPP," he said.

The legislative elections are highly likely to be a big win for the KMT, probably around 65-70 seats by the count of the redoubtable A-gu. Blogger Feiren (Rank, Taiwan Matters!) suggested that Hsieh is probably lying low hoping none of that egg sticks to him. The way I see it, when that debacle finally occurs, Chen Shui-bian may be forced to step down as Chairman of the DPP to "take responsibility" for the debacle (indeed, that may have been why Chen became Chair in the first place: because then none of the defeat will stick to anyone who still has a political future). This means that by default, either Hsieh or someone handpicked by him will have to take over, though I'm betting it will be Hsieh himself. This will be a tremendous psychological boost for the campaign, since everyone is completely sick of Chen Shui-bian now, as A-gu observed. It might even be the DPP plan.

I sure hope so. At the moment things are not looking bright for the DPP -- Hsieh's presence is muted, the legislative elections are sure to be a defeat, and Chen Shui-bian is a liability. But in 2000 and 2004 they said we had no chance either.....

[Taiwan] [KMT] [DPP]

Highway 11 Roll Out

Ryan St. Onge announces the official roll out of the new website for the East Coast's number 1 expat magazine, Highway 11. Stop by, download an ad and print it out, peruse the articles, and enjoy a very fine effort.

[Taiwan]

Ass't Prof, EFL, Kaohsiung Medical University

A reader passed me this advert, closing date is Jan 15, 2008. Please note that is a general education position at a medical university.

++++++++++++++++

Assistant Professor in English as Foreign Language

The General Education Center of Kaohsiung Medical University invites applications for TWO posts in EFL teaching at the level of assistant professor. We are looking for applicants with a specialization in English (Literature, Linguistics / English native speaker, Humanities) related field to support the English teaching and curriculum planning as well as contribute to the academic environment through research and personal commitment. The teaching obligations will be within the field of General EFL and English for Specific Purposes. The successful candidate will be expected to take up appointment by Aug 1, 2008 subject to mutual agreement.

Applicants should have the minimum qualification of PhD or Assistant Professorship, a fair amount of publications, and a teaching record in EFL at university level is preferable.

A complete application should include the following:

1. A CV, including details of teaching and administrative experience
2. List of publications (including theses and
dissertations)
3. Samples of academic publications (one to three items)
4. List of awards and other achievements.
5. Photocopies of transcripts / degree scrolls
6. Details of course taught, if available
7. Names and addresses (including email) of three
academic referees

A copy of the application, complete in all seven categories (as listed above) should be sent by post to the following by Jan 15, 2008

You can email (recruiting@... or www.ESL99.com ) us your Resume including Degree (or Diploma) copy, and a photo of yourself.

Please also let us know where you are currently living and your nationality and date of birth.

Way Cool Taiwan 1930s Image Collection

Photographer extraordinaire Craig Ferguson flipped me this link to the Gerald Warner Taiwan Image Collection at Lafayette College. The collection consists of images of Taiwan taken between 1937 and 1941.

Totaling 340 photographs and postcards gathered by Warner between August 26, 1937 and March 8, 1941, these images provide a snapshot of Taiwan's hybrid culture of Chinese, Taiwanese, Austronesian, and Japanese influences. The subjects represented are wide-ranging, including clothing, arboriculture, urban structures, agriculture, religious rituals, topography, highways, parks, and more. These digitized images have been researched and annotated to serve as a web-based encyclopedia of colonial Taiwan's material culture.

[Taiwan]

Income inequality and Taiwanese

AmCham has a couple of good articles in their latest Topics magazine, including an important article on income inequality by well-known commentator Ting-yi Tsai:

Economists attribute the rise [in income inequality] to three main factors: soaring real estate prices beginning in 1986 that created a new upper class overnight; the breakdown of larger households into groups of smaller households, skewing how income appears to be distributed; and the creation of a group of highly paid specialists in knowledge-intensive jobs who command incomes far beyond their peers in traditional industries.

Others have blamed the growing income inequality on the import of foreign laborers since 1992, and on the exodus of small and medium enterprises in the 1990s in search of cheaper labor overseas, particularly China. These two trends have led to higher unemployment and to salaries that fell below those earned by workers at similar levels in South Korea.

Starting in the late 1980s, Taiwan faced a growing shortage of workers for the so-called “3D” jobs: those that were dirty, dangerous, or difficult. Responding to appeals from industry, the government lifted what had been a longstanding ban on blue-collar labor from abroad, opening the market first for construction and factory workers and later for domestic help and care givers. As of the middle of this year, the number of foreign laborers in Taiwan had reached 350,684 – up from fewer than 5,000 in 1992 and 294,967 in 1999.

Now enterprises are urging the government to remove restrictions on the number of foreign workers they can import and to lower the minimum wage, which rose to NT$17,028 (about US$528) per month in July 2007 after having stayed at NT$15,840 (about US$487) for the previous decade.

Some labor experts have argued that the 350,000 low-paid foreign workers in Taiwan have diminished the willingness of local employers to raise the salaries of local workers, but others contend that employees should reflect on their failure to retrain themselves for higher-paying positions rather than fight for the labor-intensive jobs currently taken by foreign workers.

Ah, economists. As if unskilled labor can retrain to be knowledge workers.....just another example of blaming the victim....

...the article leaves out a number of factors. For example, Taiwan's weak or non-existent unions are not mentioned at all in the article. Another factor not often discussed is the increasing formalization of the economy -- in the 1980s huge swathes of the economy were off the books, aiding household perceptions that they had plenty of money. As SMEs have fled to China and large retail and manufacturing firms expanded their share of the economy, the off-the-books economy has receded and the service economy expanded. Service economies may provide jobs, but few of them are good jobs. Further, I can't prove it, but I suspect widening public debt is also a mechanism for wealth transfer to the upper 1% or so.

Taiwan's income inequality shows how the sparring over the economy between Greens and Blues is in reality an empty political game. As long as economic growth is the object of discussion, then no re-arrangement of the current social order need be threatened and the System that hands out wealth and power can be preserved. Both sides can talk about "the problem of economic growth" in full knowledge that such conversation threatens no one. But a frank discussion of income inequality might lead to changes in the ordering of society that threaten the interests of the rich and powerful.

SPECIAL: Don't miss this brilliant and insightful piece by Steve Crook on traveling with children here, which cites the always-sensible veteran Taiwan expat Jeff Miller, Taichung's own Cheryl Robbins, and a certain pudgy, balding blogger.

[Taiwan] [KMT] [DPP]

Weekend at Sun Moon Lake

This weekend the university took the Applied Foreign Language teachers on a retreat to the Youth Activities Center at Sun Moon Lake. The university was also kind enough to arrange a number of visits to local attractions, including a boat ride on the lake.

Out first stop was this educational farm outside Puli. The farm offered beautiful flower gardens as well as areas with plants from the tropics, deserts, and other biomes.

Here we explore the tropics.

Everyone's favorite Taiwan vacation activity: having your picture taken there.

In addition to the beautiful plants, a number of local products were on sale.

The grounds were quite pleasant.

And the surrounding farms, against mountain backdrops, stirring.

We were also served lunch with a number of different kind of flower dishes.

The grounds.

The Youth Activity Center on the shores of Sun Moon Lake were our next destination. The center is run by the China Youth Corps, the former propaganda wing of the KMT aimed at teenagers (in Chinese it is called the Save The Nation Association), now officially severed from the KMT, though naturally a close relationship remains. Our school's president had come up through the CYC.

A wall mural depicts Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, and probably the more revered of the two men here in Taiwan.

The hostel.

Dinner at the center closed an exhausting afternoon of meetings. This was followed by competitive drinking in the best Taiwanese style. I lost.

On Sunday it was down to De Hwa village for a boat ride on the lake.

A couple of dozen tour boats awaited passengers.

Enjoying the boat ride.

The day started out sunny, but quickly misted over.

Fish farming on the lake.

The sunday morning excursionists were out in force.

A net for catching fish, an act generally performed only at night.

Halfway through the boat ride we tied up at a former Japanese era temple on the shore of the lake. There was a serious traffic jam as boats emerged out of the mist to jockey for spots at the wharf.

The Zen temple.

The crowds were appalling.

So was the mist.

The next stop was a floating hotel.

The hotel.

We took a walk around the village to take in the tourist atmosphere.

Where there were plenty of authentic local foods, like pork wrapped in tortillas.

The crowds were amazing.

But they didn't stop this old fellow.

Preparing the betel nut for sale.

We stopped by a local restaurant to enjoy the displays of aboriginal dancing.

Then it was on to Puli and the obscenely crowded monopoly bureau winery, now a tourist mall.

The bus ride offered this final surreal moment: our bus played the Bollywood epic Krrish, starring the incomparable Priyanka Chopra -- she was enough to make me want to start a new religion -- as the love interest of a man with super powers given to him by visiting space aliens. Swinging from the snows of the Himal to the skyscrapers of Singapore, this reality-free fantasy proved of immense interest as an artifact of modernity and globalization -- sitting on a bus in Nantou in Taiwan with the foreign language department watching an Indian film in Hindi and English with Chinese subtitles that took place in the Indian diaspora in Singapore with plenty of space aliens, Malays, and diaspora Chinese littering the backgrounds, starring a male lead named after a Hindu deity. One sad thing to me about these films is how talented these actors and actresses are -- the dance scenes are astounding displays of coordination and physicality -- yet it is all wasted on stories whose depth and believability make You've Got Mail seem like a philosophical tract. Fortunately, with rising Hollywood interest in Bollywood we're going to see a lot more of these faces, and some interesting and valuable cross-fertilization of the two cinematic worlds.

[Taiwan]

Pan-Blue Poll La-la land

The international media frequently report that KMT Presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou is the 'frontrunner' with a huge lead in all the polls -- though they never report that "the polls" are actually polls from pro-Blue papers. Today ESWN posted a poll that is very indicative of how stupid the pro-Blue polling is here. ESWN writes:

[Permalink] Taiwan By The Numbers (01/01/2008) (UDN, CDNews, HanReporter) (Common Weath magazine; 1,090 persons age 18 or over interviewed by telephone from December 19 to 23)

Q. If the presidential election were held tomorrow, whom would you vote for?
46.2%: Ma Ying-jeou
12.4%: Frank Hsieh
22.6%: Undecided
12.0%: Will not vote
1.5%: Will cast null ballot
5.3%: Don't know/refused to answer

In 2000, the total pro-Blue vote was 61% to Chen's 39%. In 2004 the two sides split evenly at 50%. Yet this poll has Ma with nearly a fourfold dominance over Hsieh among declared voters -- even if all the 22% undecided broke for Hsieh, Ma would still win by a huge margin -- like the margin that Frank Hsieh was defeated at in the pro-Blue stronghold of Taipei, 55-40 -- yet the rest of the nation is not a pro-Blue stronghold! Clearly this poll makes no sense at all in light of previous election numbers or known voter behavior. Its purpose, like that of similarly nutcase pro-Blue polls, is to influence, not inform, international discourse on the elections.

[Taiwan]

Referendums in the news

Happy New Year to all! Use the day off to peruse the newly uploaded back issues of Taiwan Communique from 1982 and 1983, or stand outside in this polar weather (current death toll: 22) to watch the Quandrantid meteor shower this week, peaking on Friday, but good viewing pre-dawn on 4th or 5th. Or you can watch Taiwan's favorite spectator sport, referendum flogging....

...this week the KMT said it would boycott the Jan 12 referendum on party assets.

"Referendums, as a sacred [democratic tool], have been twisted and kidnapped [by the DPP] and have become a tool to provoke conflict. Therefore, we sadly decided today to urge voters to boycott the [two] referendums [on Jan. 12]," KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) told a press conference.

"This is a very painful decision for us," he said.

Wu said the party did not rule out the possibility of boycotting the two UN-membership referendums -- one by the DPP to join the UN using the name "Taiwan" and the other by the KMT to "return" to the UN using the nation's official title "Republic of China" -- scheduled to be held with the presidential election on March 22.

It's always ironic to read the pious remarks of KMT bigwigs on democracy, since so many of them got to high places due to the KMT's own longtime opposition to it. In fact Wu Po-hsiung's uncle was murdered by the KMT, as I recall.

The March 22 referendum on UN entry, which the KMT is also considering boycotting, has been under a steady barrage of fire in the world media and from foreign governments, the latest pronunciamento coming from Japan. Today the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here produced a corrected version of the Japanese statement:

Japan has recently explained that it "does not oppose" the plan to hold a referendum on its bid for a seat in the UN under the name Taiwan, but hopes the referendum will not raise tension in the Taiwan Strait, a senior Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official said yesterday.

Japan told the ministry that it will not support the planned referendum "if it leads [Taiwan] to take unilateral action to change the `status quo,'" said Huang Ju-hou (黃諸侯), chief executive officer of the MOFA Committee on Japanese Affairs.

Huang made the remarks in an interview in response to questions about Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's comment on the UN-bid referendum during a visit he made to China last week.

The comment drew international attention and speculation, with Fukuda reported to be opposed to the holding of the referendum along with the March 22 presidential election.

In addition to the use of referendums and boycotts, more and more this election is picking up themes from previous elections -- like allegations of corruption against leading candidates. In his article on the Ma decision, Max Hirsch of Kyodo had this set of misleading set of statements from Shelly Rigger, often quoted in the international media, on the Ma exoneration:

''Part of Ma's appeal has always been the widespread belief that he is personally clean, no matter what the rest of his party is doing,'' said Shelley Rigger, a Taiwan expert at North Carolina's Davidson College.

''A lot of his fans are saying, 'We told you he was innocent, and now the courts say so, too,''' Rigger said.

Although Hsieh ''has dodged a bullet with the special allowances indictments,'' numerous other cases continue to ''swirl around him,'' while Ma appears to be in the clear, she said. Prosecutors continue to investigate Hsieh's campaign finances and other graft allegations, according to local media.

A last-minute indictment of the DPP frontrunner could torpedo his campaign in light of Ma's legal victory, all but ensuring a Nationalist Party victory at the presidential polls next year.

''Overall, the lesson...is, using the judiciary to rough up your political opponents is risky, risky, risky,'' Rigger added.

Rigger apparently is unaware that corruption cases also swirl around Ma, with more still to come. But they are unnecessary. What we're doing here is flashing back to 2000, when Lee Teng-hui released the news that then frontrunner James Soong had allegedly skimmed millions and transferred them to the US. Soong would not be convicted -- no one is ever convicted -- but his image took a hit, and he eventually lost the election by 3% of the vote. Similarly, only the totally uninformed ever thought Ma would be convicted, and now only True Believers can imagine that Ma is not corrupt, for crucially, he admitted downloading the funds and using them for private use. Rigger appears to have missed the political import of that.

Further, Rigger's claim that using the judiciary to rough up your opponents is "risky" must be laughed at -- it cost the KMT nothing to hack on Soong in 2000, the attacks on Chen Shui-bian and his family over the last two years were very successful in damaging the administration and cost the pan-Blues nothing, and now, at no cost to the DPP, Ma has been shown to be just like everyone else (that was indeed his defense: everyone does it) and it is now a matter of public record. One also remembers more minor victims of apparent prosecutorial put up jobs, like Dr. Hsieh of the Tainan Science park sound damping system case. That too cost the pan-Blues nothing.....it is pure pro-KMT spin to see the Ma Exoneration as a DPP defeat.

Corruption revelations... boycotts of the referendum... referendums to bring out the voters... more formula from previous campaigns still to come.

[Taiwan]