Taiwan Celebrates...What Now?

Sign at the Fulong Sand Sculpture festival

Brendan's hawk eyes noticed this sign before I did.

So.

Ummm...excuse me? Leaving aside the horrible phrasing of "After a century, Taiwan celebrates its 100th year anniversary" (as opposed to celebrating what? What else do you celebrate after 100 years?)...

...I would dearly like to know what happened in 1911 in Taiwan that would cause Taiwan to celebrate its centennial. Something happened in China 100 years ago, for sure, and not one but two governments celebrate it. Nothing, however, happened in Taiwan. On October 10th, 1911, the Taiwanese and Japanese woke up and went about their day as usual. In a country on the other side of the Taiwan Strait a lot was going on, but that has nothing to do with Taiwan. The sentence makes it sound like Taiwan didn't exist before 1911 - as though the KMT, despite the fact that they didn't arrive for several decades more, founded the country in 1911, or discovered the island, or something.

The Republic of China, sure. And yes, the Republic of China is the name of the sovereign government of Taiwan (which I do think should be called the Republic of Taiwan, but that's a whole 'nother rant) now, but it wasn't then. The sign would be correct to say "The Republic of China celebrates its 100th anniversary".

Which it did.

In China.

I'm sure this was written as it was to appease some douchebag from the Chinese government, or the Chinese artists listed as having worked on the corresponding sculpture (which is this one - the side is of Taipei 101 and Spongebob from my previous post):

...or maybe some douchebag in the KMT. The latter actually makes the most sense, considering that the phrasing as it is makes no sense at all. Or it was some sort of compromise that made everyone roll their eyes.

Not only should the government not be giving in to such demands, whether they are internal or international, but they should lay ground rules for these events along the lines of "you respect the reasonable language we use to express our sovereignty, you respect us and our dignity, or don't bother coming to, sponsoring or participating in our festival."

More happily, though, we also saw this sign:

The "正" should be read in Taiwanese (I believe it sounds like biang with a falling tone, but I don't really speak Taiwanese) and I suppose means "really" or "very".

Hooray for dai gi popping up on signage!

Fulong Sand Sculpture Festival

We took a trip on an overcast but otherwise pleasant day to the sand sculpture festival at Fulong Beach. The sculptures were awesome, although some of them made me raise my eyebrows. The festival will apparently be going on until June (the sculptures are protected from the rain).

There are two beaches at Fulong, a slightly rocky public one that's free and popular with strolling people and folks with beach blankets reading, and a private one owned by the beachside hotel, which costs NT$100 to enter and is only accessible by a large bridge (something we found out the hard way).

In addition to the professional sculptures, which are made by teams of Taiwanese and international artists, there is a more "amateur" competitition with a clear "Taiwan" or "Taiwan tourism" theme. I'm not sure how some of them promoted Taiwan tourism, but they were still cool, if not as "polished" as the professional works. I liked this surreal one:

Some more of the pro sculptures below. They were divided into sections - one celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Republic of China, and around it were sculptures of Mazu, Guanyin etc.. Another focused on the art of ancient Babylon. One area had Arctic (and Antarctic, although maybe that was just due to poor research) themed works, and another was just odd (a rabbit smoking a hookah, among other things.

The "Arctic" themed works were especially popular. We wondered why they had this category - in Brendan's words: "to celebrate it before it all melts away?"

Just learning to windsurf - kudos for picking up a new hobby!

This sculpture celebrates the new Taiwan: Heart of Asia and ROC Centennial. I do not know why either of those necessitated a Spongebob.

This is a replica of a real sculpture - the damage to the eye is done on purpose.

Bwahaha, look at the silly foreigners trying to wade from the public beach to the private one because they took the wrong turn. Whose dumb idea was that?

...oh.

It was mine. Ahem.

Carry on.

Standing in the surf, looking contemplative

Err, I guess the Little Mermaid is all grown up?

Child on the side of the Guanyin sculpture (below)

Guanyin sculpture

Move over, fools. This be my town.

Grandma's lookin' a little buzzed at lunchtime.

All in all an enjoyable day trip, though tiring to walk over the sand with so many people and small dogs about, kicking the finer sand into the air to create a dusty pall over the beach. We recovered at Mr. Brown Coffee before grabbing a bus to Keelung and having dinner at Miaokou night market (pictures of that coming up).