I didn't do it because I like the KMT - you all know how much I hope they lose the upcoming election and how strongly I dislike them in general - but because it was quite literally right outside my apartment. Two days before an election if you look outside and see people joining an ever bigger cheering crowd backed by blasting music, if you're interested in politics you follow them. So I did.
Despite having no pictures I thought I'd recap here.
First, I couldn't help but giggle at the following things:
- Ma Ying-jiu, again trying and failing to speak Taiwanese. I may not be a speaker of Taiwanese but I've been exposed to it enough that know bad Taiwanese when I hear it.
- The giant bouncy castle - I don't know what else to call it - with "馬到成功" across the top. I have to admit that was quite clever - it means "instant success", and it's President Ma, and the rally was where we live in our apartment complex and I'm not sure I could have resisted that one either. But a bouncy castle? For serious? You're the president of a nation with a population that rivals Australia and you gave a speech under a freakin' bouncy castle? Pull that **** in the US and you might get elected hall monitor of your nursery school but that's about it.
- The sound kept cutting out. I hope it was the evil eye I was sending his way, mwahahahaha!
- Ma Ying-jiu being introduced and escorted offstage by the music from Star Wars. Wow. Just...wow. Dear President Ma: you didn't destroy the Death Star. You haven't even managed to get China off Taiwan's back. You are not a Jedi. The Taiwanese know that these are, in fact, the droids they are looking for. I sincerely hope the Force is not with you. You don't get to walk onstage to the music from Star Wars.
- I kept giving him and his KMT cronies dirty looks and sending bad "lose lose lose" vibes their way. Just as I started doing that, the sound started cutting out. Maybe the Force is with me! Maybe I just changed history with the power of my mind!* :)
- They did that rally call and response thing. It went something like this:
KMT Cronies: 馬英九
Crowd: 當選！**
Me, quietly:（下台）
KMT Cronies: 國民黨
Crowd: 加油!
Me, quietly: (幹你娘)
KMT Cronies: 馬總統
Crowd: 加油!
Me, quietly: (去死)
KMT Cronies: 馬到
Crowd: 成功!
Me, quietly: 口甲賽 (read that in Taiwanese)
KMT Cronies: 投給
Crowd: 二號
Me, quietly: (一號)
I couldn't really be loud about it, seeing as I live in the deepest of the deep blue parts of one of the deepest blue districts in Taipei. Those old veterans might've killed me. I'm not even sure if I'm using hyperbole.
*I am joking, but if you didn't realize that, the problem's with you, not me.
** I think this is what they said but it wasn't clear - the Star Wars music hadn't ended yet
7 comments:
Oh, your muttered asides are hilarious. I was walking back to my apartment tonight when a KMT "float" drove past with an extremely annoying -- and catchy -- themesong. And tomorrow I'm off to Hsinchu, definitely KMT heartland. Double *urgh*.
Translations, please.
KMT Cronies: President Ma
Crowd: 當選！**
Me, quietly:（Be deposed）
KMT Cronies: KMT
Crowd: Oh yeah!
Me, quietly: (go f*** yourself)
KMT Cronies: President Ma
Crowd: Oh yeah!
Me, quietly: (Go die)
KMT Cronies: Ma will
Crowd: Be successful!
Me, quietly: eat s**** (read that in Taiwanese)
KMT Cronies: Vote for
Crowd: #2 (#2 is the KMT's ballot number)
Me, quietly: (#1 - the DPP's ballot number)
That first response from the crowd should be "be elected"
Tsai's Taiwanese is not any better.
I haven't heard Tsai speak Taiwanese, so I can't comment.
Anyway, I am sad tonight.
I went to several of the big KMT rallies in Taipei, especially when they were camped out for weeks downtown with Shi Mingde after Chen's re-election. I was there out of curiosity, to snap photos, and just talk to folks. Some asked me what I thought about it all, and I kind of pretended to have no idea. They always gave me stuff to eat and drink!
I was at all of the huge pan-green rallies in Taipei from about 2002-2007. At one of them, a nice guy gave me an orange-brown TSU flag with Lee Denghui's face on it, so I stuck it on the outside of my knapsack.
Then I got a little too close to the KMT HQ, and one of the counter-demonstrators there spotted me and began shouting me down, absolutely hysterically enraged. So I just calmly snapped a photo of her... and got spit on!
I think seeing me there made her angrier than seeing the thousands of Taiwanese.
Don't recall ever seeing that kind of vitriol among any of the pan-green demonstrators.
Another interesting thing that's typical of Taiwan (but no place else I have lived) is how many elderly people attend the politcal rallies, and how few young people do.
At the big pan-green rallies, I have been happy to see many families, kids and grandprents, too. The nice thing is that they seemed to be enjoying expressing patriotism and support for democracy, seemed happy. Not angry and accusative, which seems to be the default mode of the KMT crowd.
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