On 'free markets' (and other things), the Taipei city government is worse than useless

Here are some cops harassing Free Market participants for absolutely no good reason. I don't want to focus too much on the cops themselves, but I'm annoyed at a city government that things free markets are a bad thing. 

Most months, I try to participate in the free market in Da'an Park. It's often cancelled due to bad weather or wet ground, but when it happens, it's one of the great things about living in Taipei. Taiwan generally, too, as I'm sure they take place in other cities.

It builds community: the attendees are friendly and look out for each other -- among other things, letting newbies know about smart rules to put in place so re-sellers don't swarm your set-up and clean out everything before anyone else can have a look. It's good for students and those on a budget, as handy, gently-used household goods are frequently set out. It's good for the environment, as items not quite good enough to sell or give away online still have a chance at a second life rather than going straight into the trash. 

As far as I'm aware, it's also completely legal (if I'm wrong about this, please let me know). It's not commercial, which is prohibited in public parks for obvious reasons. It's a three-hour giveaway, a community activity focused on eco-friendliness and reducing consumerism. Similar activities take place at 228 Park, up in northern Taipei, and occasionally at the weekend farmer's market in Gongguan. 

At worst, I suspect there's no specific law against free markets, as laws regarding commercial activity arguably don't apply, and I've never heard of cops giving them trouble -- until today. 

I showed up at about 2:30 with a large IKEA bag full of items to give away. As I started setting up, some participants came over and gestured to the cops in another section of the market area. Everyone who'd laid down blankets for their items was told to pack up, and those who didn't comply were being ticketed. 

The fellow market-goers told me to just set my bag down and take out items one by one -- people would come over to claim them. So that's what I did, and as promised, a small group of people formed around me as I pulled out everything from a bag of unwanted Christmas decorations to various storage bins and baskets to a pot lid that doesn't fit anything to a shoulder bag Brendan no longer uses. 

I got the distinct impression the cops were avoiding me specifically, which I suppose is a kind of white privilege -- it's sometimes a curse, but I look like someone who doesn't speak Mandarin, and I didn't really want law enforcement to find out otherwise. And I'm not even particularly scared of Taiwanese police! I just thought it'd be a bit silly to be chastised for doing absolutely nothing wrong. 

So why were the cops there? Gossip among market regulars was that Mayor Chiang Wan-an, the useless marionette who "governs" Taipei, visited Da'an Park today, and the police didn't want the appearance of buying and selling in the park. It did not seem to matter that this wasn't buying or selling, and would have been a fantastic event for Mayor Chiang to not only see, but endorse as good for Taipei and its residents. 

Obviously, that's not what happened. I daresay it's because Chiang and his people don't actually care to consider what's good for the city. 

Chiang himself most likely didn't give the order, but someone who worked for him did, and it was the wrong one. Let's break up a free market because it 'looks like' commerce? Is the mayor too stupid or arrogant to listen to an explanation of what the free market actually is? What does it say about his leadership that his underlings thought this was the right move?

I don't know where the free market goes from here. Most likely, it just keeps meeting and tries to stay under the radar. Maybe if Mayor Marionette Chiang isn't visiting the park that day, the cops will leave it alone.

I suspect official complaints would only cause more problems. If there's no specific law against free markets, but they may technically be broken up under laws regulating commercial activity, there are really only three possible outcomes: the Taipei city government and their nepo-baby "I love my fascist maybe-granddaddy" mayor might decide to tell the cops to leave them alone. But Chiang doesn't actually care about the vibrancy of Taipei civic life, so they're more likely to respond with a "yeah...nah". Then the issue can either be litigated, or free markets stop. 

If you organize a free market just because you think it's a good idea, you probably don't have the money to hire a lawyer and take it to the courts, so I doubt the organizers will indeed complain. 

Now it's time for me to just rant semi-incoherently about how much Chiang Wan-an sucks.

While we're on that subject, I want to first put out a question: has he done anything at all for Taipei since assuming the mayorship? In what way has Taipei tangibly improved? If you can name even a single tangible thing that his administration specifically has spearheaded, please leave it in the comments. 

I've asked local friends the same question, and nobody's given me a single affirmative response. We're talking about die-hard Ko Wen-je haters who would nonetheless point out that Ko's first term was not that bad, by Taipei mayoral standards (that's not hard when the timeliest comparison is Hau Lung-bin, who also did nothing). So, these are people willing to see good works in a politician they otherwise dislike.

I do try to regularly read local news, and can also say I see...well, nothing about tangible efforts by the Chiang administration to improve Taipei. Just to double-check my assumptions, I glossed the city government's own announcements through 2023, which is where I got bored (they're not very interesting). There just doesn't seem to be much at all -- most of them read like this one, which is about Chiang visiting a trendy EasyCard machine in the Department of Youth. Yay. 

So either Chiang doesn't do anything, or the Taipei City government is terrible at hyping their guy. 

Just to double-check if I'd missed anything, I asked ChatGPT what policy accomplishments Chiang has had since assuming office. It gave me a bunch of boilerplate about international engagement, especially "cross-strait" dialogue. I asked it again about specific or tangible policies that have helped improve the lives of Taipei residents. ChatGPT will give you a list of its sources, so I figured at the very least I could check those. 

Here's what it said: 



I don't take ChatGPT very seriously, but...LOL. Even AI doesn't have much to say about the mayor.

I'm no fan of Ko, but under Chiang, I think Taipei has actually gotten a little worse. The only notable exception I can think of is air pollution, but that's improved a bit nationwide in the last few years. 

It's hard to find definitive traffic information, but anecdotally I've noticed that both traffic congestion and the number of accidents seem to be on the rise. There are elevated numbers for both the number of registered vehicles and overall accidents as of 2023 in these PDFs, but the rise was not large and might be explained by a return to some pre-pandemic behavior. Chiang would have recently assumed the mayorship in 2023, so there's not much insight to be gleaned from how he's handling this issue now.

However, if you asked me if he has done anything to improve, say, traffic, road safety and pollution, my answer would be no. 

This leads me to my final two complaints.

First, I don't know how much power the Taipei City government has over this, but I've found both the AI-rendered English translations of bus stops and the underground taxi ranks at transit hubs have become noticeably worse. 

The weird AI-voice English for bus stops doesn't affect me much as I understand the Mandarin, but it murders my poor ears to hear, very much against my will, that we are at "Chung-huh-seeaow Fuck-Sing", "Min-kwan West Road Station" or "Nanjing" (with a flat A) and "Jango" Road Intersection. 

That's probably a bus company problem, but could the city government not step in and ask them to fix this Saw-level assault on the eardrums? They don't even have to stop using AI, even though it's stupid and the stops as they were read by a real human voice were just fine as they were. They just need to fix it. It's so wrong that it's not even helpful for people who don't speak Mandarin!

Finally, have you tried in the past few years to get a taxi from the underground taxi stands at Taipei Main, the Taoyuan Airport MRT or Songshan Station? Do taxis even use them anymore? At Taipei Main, I learned my lesson after spending longer in line for a taxi than I did on the HSR back from Hsinchu -- twice. That one's not the biggest issue, as there's a well-serviced above-ground rank off the east exit, and the MRT is a reasonably easy transfer if you know where to go. 

Songshan, too, has easy access to the green line, and taxis are plentiful above-ground. 

Just don't follow any of the signs that actually say "taxi". You will be disappointed. There are no taxis.

But the airport MRT? The walk to the red and blue lines is far too long, and the green line is only a little bit closer. It's not fun to do if you have luggage, and impossible if you arrive at an odd hour when the MRT is closed. It's not even fun to do if you've been, say, on your feet for a few hours working in Linkou and just want to get home.

The B1-level taxi rank gets so hot in the summer that the 45-minute wait (as per the last time I tried to use it) is a literal health hazard. It takes longer to get a taxi than it does to take the train from the airport! 

And of course, there's no convenient place outside to grab one. 

It's annoying for me, and makes Taiwan look really bad for incoming tourists who thought airport train to taxi rank to hotel would be easy. Nah, instead you get heat exhaustion in a line that never moves, or you can walk 10-20 minutes to the nearest MRT.

In comparison, I was telling a student about my short trip to Japan in late 2023. We stayed in Osaka, but were able to catch a train to Koyasan, which isn't all that close by. You could even by a Koyasan Tourist Pack that came with a local bus pass and discount admissions to various sites. The train goes to a funicular, which waits for the train (and will even wait for you to use the bathroom). The funicular goes to waiting buses which will take you into town. Everything is timed beautifully, and everything works. I speak approximately six words of Japanese, but everything was clear. 

I don't expect Taipei to be like Osaka. It's always going to be smaller, a little funkier, a little more eccentric, a little more chaotic, a little more Taiwanese. That's fine. 

But I expect the free markets to be encouraged rather than raided by cops, the city government to actually care about things like traffic congestion and accidents, the buses to not murder the names of stops in their own language (it's not like "Min-kwan", "Fuck-Sing" and "Jango" are English), and taxi ranks to have taxis in them.

In other words, Mayor Nepobaby sucks. Maybe he should fix some actual problems and leave Da'an Park and its monthly free market alone.

Chiang Wan-an, Chiang Ching-kuo and 228

Let me be upfront: this is an off-the-cuff post that I honestly need to research more. When I have the time, I'll try to update it accordingly. Please understand, I have a huge writing assignment coming due and have just been diagnosed with diabetes resulting from post-COVID complications, so I'm not as focused as I should be. 

With that said, I want to talk about Taipei Mayor Wayne Wan-an Chiang, his grandfather Chiang Ching-kuo, and the 228 Massacre. While speaking at a 228 memorial event today, Chiang was heckled by protesters waving white banners and demanding he "kneel and apologize" for the crimes of his ancestors. Other protesters -- legislators Lin Liang-chun, Wu Pei-yi and Miao Po-ya -- held signs in the audience saying "Stop Idolizing Dictators", "Return Records to the State" and "Remove Authoritarian Symbols" (my translation). 

Miao, on point as usual, said that authoritarian symbols (such as Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall) have no place in a democracy, that Mayor Chiang's speech was full of well-worded rhetoric but "beautiful words don't matter as much as what the words actually do", that many families were not participating in commemorative activities due to deep sadness, and that truth, justice and reconciliation in that order are vital for transitional justice. 

One might say that it's unfair to demand that Chiang, grandson of one dictator and great-grandson of another, apologize for the crimes of his ancestors. He is not the same person as his ancestors, and he was on stage acknowledging the fact of the 228 Massacre.

No, not the 228 "Incident". Massacre.

There is an alternate universe somewhere in which I agree with this: it's the one where Chiang is still surnamed Chang despite legal agreement that he is the grandson of Chiang Ching-kuo, but chose not to change his name because he understood the implications. It's the one where he ran for mayor without tying his legacy to the memory of Chiang Ching-kuo who was, again, a dictator. It's the one where he acknowledged the crimes against humanity committed by both of his legally-recognized ancestors, and promised that truth, justice and reconciliation without idolizing one of them or attempting to draw on his name.

That's not the universe we live in. We live in the one where he puts Mass Murder Grandpa on his campaign flags.

Still, you might say, the Chiang whose reputation he called upon to bolster his own campaign wasn't the perpetrator of 228. Chiang Ching-kuo wasn't the same as his father.

That, I must say, is a distinction without a difference. First of all, although it's true that even Mayor Chiang understands that Chiang Kai-shek's image should not be on his campaign flags, he absolutely stands for the continued existence of his great-grandfather's memorial hall with its statue in situ -- a memorial hall built to make him seem like a great man, not the butcher he was. That is, a memorial hall that continues to enshrine the worst of the KMT dictatorship and obscure, not confront, the worst of its horrors. 

That should be enough, but wait -- there's more! Chiang Ching-kuo, the ancestor that Chiang Wan-an idolized so much that he put the guy on his campaign flags, might not have been the chief perpetrator of 228, but it's wrong to say he wasn't involved at all. 

After the slaughter had begun, he arrived in Taiwan on March 17, 1947: 

By the 17th, the Army were declaring victory. Defense Minister Bai Chongxi (白崇禧) arrived in Taiwan with the generalissimo's son, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), and wired a message to Chiang Kai-shek that "order is mostly restored, and we are in pursuit of the last remaining rebels that joined forces with armed thugs.”

It's more likely than not that Chiang agreed with this depiction of events -- one in which the victims ("thugs" and "rebels") were at fault and the government was "restoring order". 

NewTalk describes his work around March 17th as "telegraphing the arrest list", after which further crackdowns were carried out. Is NewTalk the definitive source on this? Not necessarily, but Chiang was with Bai and others in Taiwan to deal with 228. The arrests and executions -- both organized against dissidents and indiscriminate -- continued. Chiang's hands are not clean.

After their arrival, Bai and Chiang toured the island, visiting Keelung, Chiayi and Kaohsiung among other places. I mention these cities specifically because they're known for being places where the KMT committed especially egregious massacres. Chiang and Bai visited Chiayi the midst of mass executions taking place in that city. Did he personally order the executions? Probably not, as some occurred before his arrival. Many, however, occurred after, including the execution of 70 individuals in Chiayi. 

Did he know about them and approve? Surely.

Some of those executed were tortured as well. Thinking Taiwan describes the treatment of Dr. Pan Mu-chi, who had his nails pierced with iron and was doused in gasoline.

If the son of the dictator visits a city with the Defense Minister in the midst of mass executions, broadcasts a message following the wishes of his father, allegedly telegraphs an arrest list, and then that many people are executed if not heinously tortured, how can one possibly say that that dictator's son holds no culpability?

Let's move to Kaohsiung. Here's Chiang shoulder-to-shoulder with Peng Meng-chi, known as the "Butcher of Kaohsiung". I took it from Taiwan Gazette, but it's also available on Imgur: 

Best Buddies

Here's what Peng did: 

The narration describes Taiwan governor Chen Yi as the main culprit, along with Peng Meng-chi (彭孟緝), the garrison commander, who gave the order to the military to attack the train station, the Kaohsiung Middle School, the Kaohsiung Municipal Government and to shoot all the city councilors, who were in the process of negotiating a settlement for the 228 Massacre.

Here's more: 

In Kaohsiung, where protests had also broken out, fortress commander Peng Meng-chi (彭孟緝) was losing patience. On the 6th, Peng gave orders to move on protesters that had gathered at the train station, city hall and Kaohsiung Senior High school. Three of Kaohsiung’s most prominent community members were arrested and later executed, including Tu Kuang-ming (涂光明), Fan Tsang-jung (范滄榕) and Tseng Fengmin (曾豐明).

Peng's Kaohsiung massacre happened on March 6th, Chiang Ching-kuo arrived on the 17th, after it had taken place. They seem extremely friendly. What are the chances that Chiang either didn't know or didn't approve of Peng's actions?

Chiang would go on to become the head of secret police, helping his father carry out the White Terror. For decades before he was said to usher in democracy (an honor he does not deserve), he wrote consistently of his disdain for democratic elections and Taiwanese identity, calling them useless, tools of the "Communist bandits" and others who seek to divide the state. He stated that the opposition should never be allowed to form a political party, and that Taiwan independence activists were "reactionaries" supported by those same "Communist bandits" who "sought to turn small issues into big ones" (you know, such as recognition of the mass murder of their loved ones) with "insidious and vicious scheming". 

His bestie, The Butcher of Kaohsiung, would become the head of the Taiwan Garrison Command among other high-ranking or honorable political placements. 

These words and actions may not be directly related to 228, but they spring from the uncaring, trigger-happy attitude to Taiwan that both helped cause 228, and became that event's legacy for decades to come. There is no evidence that Chiang Ching-kuo was ever remorseful for what his government had done, or his role in it. That role may be dwarfed by the actions of Chiang Kai-shek or Chen Yi, but he did play a role, and that matters.

Where does that leave us with his grandson, the mayor? 

Well, when you take a man like Chiang Ching-kuo and make him one of the main thrusts of your campaign for political office, you best be willing to acknowledge and atone for his sins, as well. Some still hold residual goodwill towards Chiang Ching-kuo for his infrastructure projects, perceived role in the Taiwan Miracle and the notion that he helped usher in democratization (he did not). Chiang Wan-an very obviously wanted to capitalize on this, to stir nostalgia for the "good old days" in oldsters, at least the ones who never had a family member dragged off and shot.

Otherwise, as a friend put it, Wan-an wants all the advantages of being a Chiang, with none of the downsides. That's not how these things should work. It is ethically wrong to grasp for one while refusing to acknowledge the other. If he wants to connect his political career to his grandfather's legacy, that must include the entirety of said legacy; there's no ethical way to pick and choose.

If Chiang doesn't want to be held accountable for this, he should take his Mass Murder Grandpa's face off all his damn flags. If you want the face of the man to be one of the faces of your campaign, you should indeed "kneel and apologize" for all of the horrible things he did. If that sounds unappealing, well, there's a reason why.

Chiang Wan-an is not only not "clearing authoritarian symbols" as Miao Po-ya demanded and any reasonable person would want. He is quite literally using them to climb the political ladder. That is disgusting and Chiang should be ashamed of himself. Kneel and apologize. 

Until then, others should follow the Taiwan 228 Care Association's example and make him persona non grata at 228 events. I don't care if he's the mayor.

As that's not likely, just imagine there's a sign on his forehead that says "heckle me harder", because that's what Chiang Wan-an deserves.

Notes on that Big Kylo Energy in Taipei

I absolutely borrowed the idea for using this movie still from someone else, but my sentiments are exactly the same. Very little about yesterday was a surprise to me, but it still hurts when the city you call home decides that the least qualified candidate, who worships his Mass Murder Grandpa and Even Mass Murderier Great Grandpa, should be mayor. 

I respect the democratic process and all, the people have spoken. I happen to disagree with their choice -- I'm really not a fan of Mass Murder Grandpa -- but hey, that's democracy. The losers lost with grace, lowering the voting age should have passed but didn't, and I'm not feeling great about it today.

You won't get any super original takes here: I don't comment as much on elections anymore because there are people out there (like Courtney Donovan Smith and Nathan Batto) who do a better job. All I have are some notes.

First, more people voted to lower the voting age than voted against it, but it still didn't have enough overall "yes" votes to pass. I happen to think that this isn't just the KMT perfunctorily 'agreeing' with the DPP to take the wind out of their electoral issue sails. It's very difficult to change things when voting is already skewed in favor of older people, and those older people very much have an unjustified "kids these days!" view. Plus, they know perfectly well that those "kids" mostly won't vote for the conservative hucksters they want in office. Progressives have shown they can sweep individual elections, but systemic change is far more difficult to implement. 

On the reasons why the vote broke down as it did, the best take I've found is Wen-ti Sung's on Twitter. Here's a long snippet, organized into paragraphs:

DPP main progressive agenda this electoral cycle is lowering voting age to 18, hoping to use it to paint rival KMT as conservative boomers.

But this got neutralized politically, 'coz this time KMT actually agrees, ('coz KMT didn't want to make it a political cleavage issue & lose young voters for nothing). DPP then defaults back to its TW nationalism card. But it faces diminishing utility, as it's been DPP's main weapon in 2014, 2016, and 2020. Fourth time is not the charm. DPP then tries intense negative campaigning against the opposition (to be sure KMT does a lot of negative campaigning, too). This includes DPP's repeat questioning of 2 opposition mayor candidates' past records, e.g. alleged misuse of government research grants, misappropriation of parliamentary assistants' overtime pay, etc.

The logic is simple: If you can't win on your own merits, then try to disqualify/discredit your opponents, so you win by default. That playbook backfired -- it's never a good look to see ruling party (Establishment) to play the tired mudslinging game.

It heightens voter fatigue. For weeks on end that's all the voters hear about. That dilutes DPP's  agenda, and it became unclear what the DPP stands for beyond non-stop dirt, day in and day out, and a chaotic status quo of petty politics.

Again, DPP and KMT are both at fault for non-stop negative campaigning this year. But voters rightfully judge the ruling party DPP by higher standards, because of what Spiderman said: "with greater power comes greater responsibility."

Frustrated voters are not going to be pro status-quo, pro-incumbent voters. This means low voter turnout on DPP's side, whereas the hungry KMT voters, after 6 years in the wilderness, couldn't wait to show up on voting day to win one back.

Election results in many cities suggest KMT votes turn out in slightly above average levels, while DPP significantly underperforms its baseline in many cities. (still awaiting final official data of course)

This is not about China, however. If it's about Chinese economic coercion, then since 1) a lot of it is targeted at Taiwanese agricultural produce, and 2) Southern Taiwan is the agricultural hub, one would expect the South to swing the hardest against the DPP, no? But that is not the case. Southern Taiwan is the DPP's only stronghold left this weekend. So DPP's crushing defeat is not about China, but about DPP's own failure to set a positive agenda and maintain party unity.  Self-inflicted wound.

Just a little side-note before we continue: solid, rational thinking like this from a Taiwanese and Taiwan-based expert should be more prevalent in international media. Perhaps y'all can stop interviewing just the same three white folks and start including voices like these? The ideas are more original, analysis better, and it's a fully-informed Taiwanese perspective. All those US-based folks seem to get issues like Taiwan/China exactly backwards, constantly, without taking into account, let alone respecting, the choices Taiwan is making for itself with the same information about China.

More people like Sung and less...whomever, please.

What disappoints me the most isn't that popular incumbents won re-election (Hou in New Taipei and Lu in Taichung). We knew that would happen. I'm not sure how good of a job Lu's done, but she doesn't seem to have performed terribly, either. Hou is extremely popular in New Taipei, and Lin Chia-long isn't even that popular within the DPP (I'm not a huge fan -- he's not the worst, but he's not the best). But I do wonder exactly what Hou has done for New Taipei, because I leave Taipei proper often and haven't really seen any improvements in the big donut. Am I wrong here, or is he mostly popular as a personality? Because I don't see that he's a particularly good mayor. 

Pan-greens like to talk about Hou as the guy responsible for the death of Nylon Deng. And I do indeed think he has some culpability: he was "just following orders", sure, but he had the capacity even then to know right from wrong, surely he had the ability to know that Deng was a 'you'll never take me alive' type of person, and he chose to do the wrong thing. I don't think he should be expelled from society or anything like that, but I also don't think he should be mayor of a major city. 

I also agree with Sung -- this is about not just local issues but the DPP's poor campaigning, and definitively not about China  -- because the DPP incumbent who came closest to losing was Tainan's Huang, and he's not everyone's favorite within the DPP. Re-electing him on a slim margin (for Tainan) is much more likely to be dissatisfaction with the DPP generally, because if there is any city in Taiwan that doesn't f***k with the KMT or pro-China rhetoric, it's Tainan.

I'd like to move there, actually. Or Kaohsiung. I get along well with southerners, and am not looking forward to four years of whatever the Chiang machine is bringing to Taipei.

That brings me back to the newly-elected Kylo Re---I mean Chiang Wan-an. People say voting, especially in mid-terms, is based more on identity and family tradition than whether the candidate is actually good. (In national elections this also plays a role but I think young people sick of Grandpa's bullshit opinions might be a bit more serious about not voting for the Appease China party).

I know more than one person who received multiple messages from their deep blue family about how they must vote KMT. Because they're my friends and I happen to get along with people who lean green well (again, not a fan of Mass Murder Grandpa, but very much a fan of Taiwan), I know they didn't necessarily listen. But surely, some adult offspring did.

And Donovan (linked above) is correct that Chiang had a much bigger get-out-the-vote machine. I heard rumors among local friends that the DPP had "sacrificed" Chen when it became clear he was unlikely to win. I'm not sure about that, but certainly all the noise trucks and hype men annoying me across Taipei were KMT. The DPP left me blissfully in peace. You'd think that would count for something -- Mayor No-Trucks seems like a fantastic pick, and that's not sarcasm -- but apparently not. 

What truly, deeply bothers me, however, is that none of this seems to have much at all to do with competence or qualifications. I don't think Hou is the worst mayor, but he's not the best. Chiang has legislative experience, but he's easily the least qualified candidate. Or as Nathan Batto put it: 

Chen did briefly make an argument that I think he should have hammered more throughout the campaign. Chiang Wan-an, he said, looks new, shiny, and different, but the people behind him are the same old KMT party hacks who have disappointed you again and again.

When I switched over to Chiang’s rally, he was enthusiastically making Chen’s point. The lineup of speakers included former mayor Hau Lung-pin, former deputy mayor Ou Chin-teh, former New Taipei and Kaohsiung deputy mayor Lee Si-chuan, former Taipei Education Bureau chief (and current legislator) Lin I-hua, the head of the KMT legislative caucus Tseng Ming-tsung, Chiang himself, Chiang’s wife, and KMT party chair Eric Chu. That’s a whole slew of old KMT warhorses who don’t exactly exude new ideas.

I know that I can't say much about what the people chose. I don't even get to vote! But I can't help but think they chose something that seemed like a statement, seemed like something new, a young, fresh guy. What they really chose is same-old-same-old, with the same (literally) old hacks informing the same-old "good for the Boss Class" ideas. Plus, an idolized Mass Murder Grandpa. The KMT tends to win not just because they might have a real edge in local elections, but because they've never truly been held accountable in Taiwan for the horrors they perpetrated. And that's in part because again, voting is skewed in favor of old folks, and some of those old folks either weren't affected by those horrors, purposely ignored them, or are actively culpable for decades of oppression.

And again, changing that requires systemic shifts, which are difficult to pull off because it's not one party campaigning for and the other against, but a whole system of people who don't want the "wrong" guy elected -- and who want to control their grandkids and are increasingly pushing against their own irrelevance. 

Some grandkids push against this, some don't, but ultimately the system is skewed and it fights to remain so.

Let's end on a hopeful note. I'll soon be writing about one other thing I noticed this year: multiple friends who have no Taiwanese ancestry but became Taiwanese, who voted, mostly for the first time, in this election. The number of people I know personally who've managed this is fewer than ten, but this is the first year that it's not zero, or perhaps one. 

That's a tiny change. Miniscule. Makes no difference to the current environment. But I'm choosing to see a single rivulet as evidence of a coming shift. Not "foreigners en masse becoming Taiwanese and voting", but the Taiwanese electorate continuing to move away from the past and toward a more open and more diverse future. 

It's not much, but it's all I've got and I will cling to it.