Supreme Pain for the Tyrants

Our work is not done.

This coming Saturday, 12/17, is Taichung Pride, and once again we need to beat the numbers of anti-equality protesters who gathered in that city (I think 40,000). As much as I'm not a fan of Taichung and its near impossible transportation, I would go if I didn't have work in Tainan that day.

The day after Christmas (12/26 just in case I have to make that clear) is the date of...well, I'll let Taiwan Law Blog explain it (from their comment on my previous post):

December 26 is a committee meeting where they will decide whether to refer the bill(s) to the entire Legislative Yuan. The plenary session that includes all 113 members will be the second reading, which won't take place until February at the earliest because that's when the next legislative session starts. Also, all three bills in the committee amend the Civil Code, though Yu Mei-nu's doesn't not change the language throughout (are you referring to hers when you said 'append to it'?). There are no civil partnership bills on the table now. Some DPP legislators may introduce one before December 26, but the KMT has said it will not.

There will be protests.

There will be rallies.

I hope many of you will consider going to one or both of these events, lending your bodies once again to provide physical proof that the Taiwanese want marriage equality.

The anti-equality advocates are as organized as ever, and they're not going to stop. It doesn't seem to matter to them that they are in the minority, nor that a huge number of them want to inflict Christian-doctrine inspired law on a country where less than 5% of the population are Christians. Nor does it matter to them that, even if Taiwan were a majority Christian nation, that it is not right for one religion's doctrine to be the deciding factor in laws governing a pluralistic society. The idea that one cannot legislate one's religion, or that one is not entitled to insist that their culture is a certain way (that is, conservative, traditional) when the clear numbers show that it's not, is also lost on them.

Their leaders are acting like tyrants, trying to push beliefs that the majority of Taiwanese have rejected onto the nation simply to satisfy their own dogmatism and prejudice. They are causing real pain to many LGBT Taiwanese who simply want legal recognition of what is already true: legal recognition of relationships that will exist regardless of the law.

Some of them can be talked to, perhaps a few can be convinced. A large number, I suspect, are ensconced in their roles as mini-tyrants, trying to dictate culture to, and inflict unwanted religious dogma on, a populace that doesn't agree with them. All we can do is show the government that they are in the minority and we not only have the numbers, but progress and moral right on our side. If we cannot sway them with compassion, we have to let them feel the pain of losing.

We scored a major victory this past Saturday, 250,000 coming out (pun intended even though I'm straight) to stand for marriage equality, decisively crushing by the numbers those opposed to equality. It's all the more satisfying because the media, in a rare turn of accuracy, reported the more correct crowd estimates for this past Saturday, rightly ignoring the clearly skewed police estimate of 75,000.

The lower estimate given by police, compared to the "200,000" number bandied about for the anti-equality protest, is not an accident. It is deliberate misinformation. It is the essence of fake news. They did the same thing to the Sunflowers, if you remember.

From here

We not only have to bring down the culture war tyrants, but fight back against attempts to minimize the proof that the Taiwanese know what they want, and that that's equality.

We have to keep beating them at the media game, and keep beating them by the numbers. We have to call them out, and we have to refuse to listen to their obfuscatory tactics masquerading as logic. When they quote a debunked study, or post links to a website with an agenda as "proof" of the correctness of their views, or claim falsely that they are the "silent majority", or speak in dogmatic, generalities and deliberately confused and jejune metaphors (for example: "children need an apple and an orange for complete nutrition, not two apples or two oranges"), we must refuse to listen.

When they say this is a Western import, and not intrinsic to Taiwanese culture, we must again refuse to listen. Nobody (except possibly the voice of reason) died and made them emperors of what is and is not Taiwanese culture. If this idea were being forced on Taiwan by Western countries, 250,000 Taiwanese wouldn't have shown up last weekend to insist otherwise. They are the minority and they are the voice of reactionary bigotry, and it's time they felt like it.

As J. Michael Cole put it, this isn't just about marriage equality (link in Chinese) - it's also about what the Taiwanese want their country to be. It's about the process of national identity. Does Taiwan want to be a country of inclusiveness and tolerance, or does it want to deny equal rights to 10% of its citizens because a few people are uncomfortable with it?

This is not a foreign issue. It is not a foreign import. 99.9% (or so) of the attendees on Saturday were Taiwanese - young Taiwanese, but Taiwanese nonetheless. This is a Taiwanese issue, facing a society that, at its core, is accepting, tolerant and progressive by Asian standards.

Taiwan has a beautiful name, and the truly touching show of support last Saturday showed it also has beautiful ideals. We're not done yet, though. We need your bodies again, in the 17th and the 26th, to turn those ideals into legal reality.

Please come.

The Voices That Matter

I love the smell of civil disobedience in the morning!

I wrote two posts ago that there seems to have been a little-noticed sea change in public discourse regarding Taiwan as a result of the student movement currently occupying the legislature (currently? I haven't heard that they've been kicked out yet anyway), and I think it bears repeating. In fact, I think it deserves its own post. So here ya go.

There's a lot of talk in the English language media about Taiwanese politics, the future of Taiwan, cross-strait relations etc., but it seems to be mostly foreigners - some knowledgeable, some dilettantes like me, some who are basically morons (you know, like any civic discourse) - talking about a country they are not from. Some may live there, some may be long-term, some may even be citizens. Many have probably just visited, and a few have never been here at all. I'll be the first to admit that I also do this: I enjoy pontificating from my little blog that pretty much nobody reads.

Then there's healthy public debate going on among Taiwanese, mostly in Chinese (because duh), on local BBSs (BBS = bulletin board system), forums, blogs and Facebook groups. Due to both cultural and linguistic barriers (cultural meaning, I bet we all know expats in Taiwan who don't even have one Taiwanese friend. I've met 'em), foreigners have little or no access to these avenues of discourse, and to some extent, the converse is also true. Many Taiwanese lack access, due to language barriers, of international English-language media - even though English is widely spoken and often spoken quite well, plenty of people speak English but still find the language in those news and media outlets to be far above their comprehension level: "news talk" can be like that.

So discussion about Taiwan, so far, has been ghetto-ized, with foreigners in one corner talking to each other and Taiwanese in another talking to each other. I'm in many discussion groups on Taiwanese issues on LinkedIn and elsewhere, and all of them are populated with other foreigners. Articles about Taiwan written by foreign experts (some quite thoughtful and incisive, some blithering idiots, you know, like all news commentary) have comments by foreigners, discussions on LinkedIn groups are populated by foreigners. If you like a Taiwanese activist Facebook page or log into a BBS, however, you are likely to be the only foreigner there.

Side note: with the BBSs, that's not just a cultural or linguistic barrier - BBSs are kind of an outdated technology that most foreigners wouldn't even think to access, nor do they have the programs capable of doing so.

This isn't healthy - more for the foreign commentariat than the Taiwanese. When your voice goes out and the only voices that come back are other people like you - other non-Taiwanese interested in Taiwanese affairs, generally (but not always) from affluent Western countries - rather than the voices of the people you are talking about, then you can't get a full understanding. It puts you in a bubble. It may cause you to think that your voice is as important, if not more so, than the public discourse of the citizens of this country. It may cause you to think the public is generally on your side - or not - and that the commentariat have reached a consensus when, in fact, the Taiwanese engaged in public discourse may deeply disagree.

It also feels like it has something of a racial component to it. Educated white guy writing from his nice apartment in a big city? You get to be in the New York Times! The Washington Post! The Guardian! The Whatever Whoozit Times Post! Educated Taiwanese dissident with equally valid views but imperfect English? Shoosh. It sucks. It's a whole new arena for white privilege, full of white people who don't even realize they're privileged. (To be fair, some of these educated white guys are pretty thoughtful, and I do at times enjoy reading the better-thought-out pieces. I don't mean this as an attack on some fantastic voices like Frozen Garlic and J. Michael Cole among others).

With these new protests, however, this seems to be changing. Part of it is that the activists out there fighting for democracy and due process seem to have lost the old, stereotypical "shyness" about speaking out in English - yes, that's a thing, mostly out of fear of having one's grammar or vocabulary be wrong or embarrassing - and are blowing up Facebook, CNN iReport and various other media outlets with their views, in their voices. The Taiwan-based LinkedIn groups I subscribe to all seem to have more local commenters. Some of their voices are knowledgeable, some are in the middle, and some are idiots (again, normal public discourse).

And I love it. LOVE IT. When nobody wants to give you the international media spotlight, commandeering it through the million tiny lights of Facebook posts and online comments? AWESOME. Talking openly about your country and what you want for it, in a second language, on the international stage instead of arguing in a BBS? GREAT. This is what we need. These are voices that matter. Or at least, the voices that matter that until very recently, in the intermational media, hadn't been heard.

Here Is Some Sexist Bullshit For You

So I take a lot of taxis. Some of these taxis are nicer than others - on any given day, I might get Old Chen's taxi, which has one chair hanging at an odd angle on rusty hinges, has so many amulets and charms hanging off the rearview mirror that I'm surprised they don't all swing forward in one aggregate whoosh to crack the windshield when he stops too hard, his ID card photo was taken in the 70s and he's totally got Han Solo Hair, I can practice my Taiwanese listening skills by paying attention to some radio show where someone is yet again saying that Ma Ying-jiu sucks (I agree with these people, by the way, he does suck, it's just that that's all they ever talk about), and the whole taxi smells like the darkest recesses of Old Chen's armpit.

On any other given day, I might get into Little Luo's taxi (Little Luo being six feet tall), which smells pleasantly of synthetic vanilla and has some stargazer lilies up front, and his taxi has a little TV embedded into the back passenger's seat. The passenger can then watch, at low volume, models skulking down catwalks wearing hideous outfits, a commercial for something having to do with penises (I don't know if it's health related or just phalloplasty, but it includes a pun on the Chinese word for "blue bird", which in Taiwanese means, well, "johnson". Package. Junior. Eggs&Sausage. It's definitely got to do with schlongs or something), repeated entreaties to touch a Happy Face, Neutral Face or Angry Face to thereby rate your driver, commercials for blenders that blend whole fish, commercials for fitness "exercise machines" that don't work (a hula hoop that you hold in place while you sway your body? And it looks totally dirty when you do, especially when the camera pans over women doing that motion? No thanks) and commercials for HTC that involve some pop star I've never heard of.

And then there's this one commercial that makes me want to go all OH NO HULK ANGRY HULK SMASH!!

I can't find a video online of the commercial in question (because I don't know the name of the product), nor have I had the chance to take a video of it myself, but I've got my camera at the ready now every time I hop into a taxi with one of those annoying TVs at the back.

But, basically, it goes like this.

Attractive woman has adorkable boyfriend. Woman is at work and has her head cradled in her hands. She then finishes work (while the sun is still up so you know it's not Taiwan) but having her head in her hands has - oh noes! - caused temporary reddish indentations in her face. Quel horreur! Adorkable Boyfriend looks at her and his expression changes from adoration to disgust. Ewwww, what's wrong with your skin? Rather than doing the sensible thing and punching him in the face, she looks ashamed for some reason.

Then she's at work again, or surfing the Internet (same thing, really, at least it was for me), and she's wearing a scarf or something. The scarf leaves more creases on her neck. Or maybe she's just Creaseface McWeirdo. I dunno. She's all excited for her sweet date with Adorkable Boyfriend! Yay! She can't wait!

So she goes out to meet him, and his big adorkable nose crinkles up. Ew! Your face again! What's wrong with you, having human skin that reacts when stuff touches it? Rather than doing the sensible thing and punching him in the taint, she looks like she's going to cry.

But then - oh good! - she gets some makeup! So she can cover her terrible imperfections and look perfect for her Adorkable Boyfriend, because of course how could he possibly love her when EW GROSS HER SKIN HAS TEMPORARY CREASES FROM TOUCHING FABRIC THAT WILL TOTALLY GO AWAY IN FIVE MINUTES? Even if her problem weren't so transient in nature - perhaps a weeklong zit, or - heaven forfend! - a birthmark - Adorkable Boyfriend simply cannot be physically attracted to a woman whose skin isn't rendered so flawless by makeup that it glitters slightly.

So ladies. I SAID LADIES. Your job is to be physically perfect in every way for your Adorkable Boyfriend (he can be imperfect, that's OK, the looks that matter are yours, he's probably got something else going for him, like he's smart or earns money or something) or HE WON'T LIKE YOU. This is your job, ladies. Take it seriously. And if he crinkles up his nose at you because you have a crease imprint on your skin? That's your fault and don't you forget it!

And now that you feel terrible about yourself and really insecure that your boyfriend won't like your human skin, spend your money on this makeup! Look! A concealing foundation so you can hide yourself!

This girl used it, and now her skin is perfect and glittery and Adorkable Boyfriend is gazing at her adoringly! BUY IT NOW.

Ugh.

Seriously.

I realize that makeup commercials are of a kind, and that a lot of advertising (especially advertising aimed at women) relies on making someone feel inferior or subpar before convincing them that their flaws can be healed if they buy this Shiny New Thing, but this particular commercial makes me so much angrier than the usual bullshit. At least other bullshit tries for a veneer of being about "empowering women (with makeup you can buy!)" or "maybe she's born with it" or "be a new sexy you with plumper eyelashes (because your current eyelashes are hideou - - I mean because you deserve to be sexy, it's all about what some guy thinks of yo - - I mean GIRL POWER!)".

But this commercial is really the worst - it just goes straight for the jugular of insecurity. It doesn't even put up a pretense of "this is for you, to look your best" or "our product is really high quality" - it dives right into "if your skin is imperfect in any way, your boyfriend will gasp in horror at the sight of you!" It's straight-up telling women that it's their job to hide imperfections and look perfect for men (not for themselves - you never see this girl crinkling up her own nose in the mirror - it's so male gazey it physically hurts to watch), not men's job to understand that women are real human people and sometimes look imperfect, and that they're just going to have to deal with that fact or be very, very lonely.

And it's struck a chord with me, and made me think about how I could complain about sexism in Taiwan after seeing this steaming heap of crap on taxi TV (seriously, bring back HTC pop singer guy or something, or the penis guy in his shiny blue suit whistling his bluebird song), but really, I can't.

I can only think that this is still a problem worldwide. Back in the USA I still see similar commercials. In any given country - including Taiwan, which is otherwise not a bad place in Asia to live if you're female, compared to the rest of Asia anyway - and any given culture, it's still seen as women's responsibility to look good, and those they're expected to look good for are the other half of the population, not themselves. I could imagine seeing such a commercial on TV in the USA. Even though I know that there is a greater pressure on women in Taiwan to take care of their appearance, or a greater feeling of responsibility for maintaining their looks.

Complaining about it - even directly to the sexist marketing folks who scripted this utter tripe - isn't going to do much. I can only hope that I'm not the only person annoyed by this fistful of garbage, and that prospective customers just don't buy the product in question.

Some Taipei Election Posters

Updated with more photos!

I've been collecting photos for this post for awhile, and after being deeply amused by David's roundup of Taizhong posters, I've finally decided to publish them.

Mine are mostly leaflets and other thingoes rather than street posters, but street posters are also represented.

I love the one above, which is hawking a candidate and yet made to look like a piece of traditional-style calligraphy for one's door.

I can't get enough of Wang Zhengde's avatar - a bobblehead cartoon Popeye. If you see the free notepads he's giving out, there's a woman (I don't know who) in the likeness of Olive Oyl. NO JOKE. What strikes me about this is how it would never go over well in the USA. It would be considered downright infantile.

I am ashamed to admit that I don't know who the older woman here is - the one that Wang Xinyi is bowing to like she's the reincarnated Confucius. Anyone?

I've already posted this but because it's THE MOST HILARIOUS THING EVER, I'm posting it again.

Photo by Brendan

Yeh Linzhuan has apparently disavowed his earlier slogan of "Take the love and send it out" (a pun on his name - 把愛傳出來). Apparently being the KMT Hippie wasn't working out for him.

His old posters really were something - not only did he use "Take the love and send it out" as a slogan, but they were generally covered with rainbows, a smiling Yeh looking off into the distance, and occasionally a butterfly or flower or two.

Underneath his poster is Chen Yumei, who is probably KMT considering the blue color of the poster, but it doesn't actually say. The pink and the feminine, demure pose with sweet smile are also things that wouldn't work very well in American politics.

I have to say I admire one thing about Taiwan in particular this election year: in the USA, when women run for prominent offices they get tarred and feathered by every sexist comment one could conceive of (see: Clinton, Hillary and Palin, Sarah - though the latter deserved what she got. Regardless of her gender, she's a dangerous lout). Hillary got called "fat", "ugly" and "a battleaxe", or "riding on the coattails of her husband" (which was, y'know, somewhat true though not so much anymore). She was attacked as a woman, as a candidate and as a mother. Sarah Palin got the MILF and "I'd hit that" jokes.

That doesn't happen here, at least not in any significant way - not in any way that makes it into the newspapers. Nobody cares if a candidate is male or female; people may not like Tsai Ying-wen but those who dislike her do so on the basis of her party and her positions, not her genitalia. There is no question that if a woman ran for president in Taiwan, she may or may not be elected but if she doesn't come up triumphant, it won't be because she's female.

Of course, tell that to the high profile female names in the Taiwanese business world - they get the sexist treatment aplenty (except, notably, in finance, which I plan to cover in a later post).

Li Dahua is running with the Qingmingdang (People First Party) and we received this in the mail from his campaign. We get a lot of election mail - clearly they don't realize or care that we can't vote.

Notable things about this are as follows:

1.) OMG adorable KITTY!

2.) The People First Party still exists? Wow. Does anyone actually vote for them?

3.) That kitty looks like my kitty, except my kitty is more corpulent by several orders of magnitude.

4.) So he's trying to win votes by posing with an adorable kitty. Really. What's funny is that in Taiwan, this may actually work. In the USA not so much.

...

5.) I'm ashamed to admit it but I kept this flier because the kitty is adorable.

(from XKCD)

Yeah, yeah.

Notable about this green candidate's poster (she's photoshopped here with Su Zhenchang and Tsai Ying-wen, but I am fairly sure she's Taiwan Solidarity Union) is the background of gentle peaches and pinks with peach blossoms. Again, in the USA, no female candidate would run something like this.

A Taiwan Solidarity Union (Tai Lian) paper flag with a giant-headed brown ant screaming about how they want to serve the people. I love how the Japanese children's cartoon (as opposed to Japanese cartoons that are definitely not for children) aesthetic is so prominent in Taiwanese politics, of all places. "Yeah, let's stick an adorable bobble-head ant on it. People will vote for us! We could use an adorable kitty, but Li Dahua's already doing that."

Zhou Ni'an (周倪安), below, is on the other side of this flag. Her slogan is "Zhu Ni An" - which is a pun meaning "Wish You Peace" (祝你安).

I'm sorry, Zhou Ni'an (周倪安), but you look like a character from South Park. Specifically, your expression reminds me of Butters.

Moving on to the poster below of Tsai Ying-wen:

This is another one I've already posted, with pink and hearts and a cutesey slogan and all that, which I rather respect about Taiwanese politics. They can come up with posters like this, which look like they got vomited on by an elementary school Valentine's Day card exchange, and still get elected.

Another poster for her in Xizhi shows a re-imagined map of the MRT Blue Line, with the last stop being Xizhi (in big letters), reiterating a campaign promise to extend the MRT to Xizhi. Which is not a bad idea, really.

And finally, another culprit in the Attack of the Bobbleheads. Hou Jingsheng is a DPP candidate (clearly) who has been giving out these nifty key fobs with pictures of his Bobblehead avatar that are powerful magnets, so you can stick your keys on your fridge, metal door or desk. I have one. It's pretty cool. A much more imaginative gimmick than a pad or pack of tissues (I never understood the tissues - so you can think of the candidate as you symbolically wipe your butt or blow gunk out of your nose?)

I don't have any photos yet, but Lee Denghui has been posing on posters for this guy as well as candidates in both the DPP and Taiwan Solidarity Union.

His headband says "Hot Blood" on it - even folks who lean blue will often readily admit that the DPP has cornered the market on passionate displays of political vitriol, and Hou is definitely playing up that side of his party's reputation.

Hee hee! He totally looks like he'd slap a few blue legislators in the Legislative Yuan.

So now we've seen some of the key features of Taiwanese election campaigning: 1.) Little cartoon avatars with impossibly large heads; 2.) fist pumping galore (don't have a strong platform? Make a fist and look determined!); 3.) clunky-cute puns on candidate's names and 4.) When none of that works, go for adorable animals and odd movie references.

Here are a few more bits and bobs I've come across recently:

Photo by Brendan

We keep seeing these tanks rolling around Taipei; I actually don't know what party they're from but I'd guess KMT. Err, given the KMT's history of military oppression, is this really the best symbol, the gimmick that says "elect me! I won't kidnap you in the night and shoot you down by Machangding and not tell your family what happened to you for decades, if ever!"? Really?

Gimmicks! This one, from a DPP candidate, says "We listen to what's in Taipei's heart" and indicates that he's campaigning in Da'an and Wenshan districts. It's a children's school folder - yet another useful gewgaw for me (KMT gewgaws are much less imaginative, and anyway I don't like the KMT). There's a flier for the candidate inside.

See? Now you can give your kid one of these and Little Johnny can take it to school and show his friends, who will go home and tell their parents to vote for this guy. Smart!

Keeping in the "cute animals" theme: Zhang Honglin is campaigning in the Green Party - 綠黨 - not to be confused with the "Green" faction led by the DPP and usually consisting of other small parties with similar ideologies, like Tai Lian. (The Green Party, like the Qingmingdang - the Green Party still exists? Wow).

It seems all the underdog parties have been employing adorable animals to try to get votes. Since Li Dahua got the ADORABLE KITTY, Ah-Hong clearly gets the OMG HAO KE AI FLUFFY DOG! The dog's name is Apple, and Apple says, basically, "Hi, I'm Apple. Cast a ballot for me!"

I wonder if Taiwan would be much different if we elected a Fluffy Dog to a representative office?

And finally, this grainy iPod Touch photo (sorry, the camera quality really is crap) of an awesome procession of drummers, reminiscent of Taiwan temple fairs...actually, I am pretty sure that's exactly where they got the drummers - by calling up one of the organizations that trains drummers for temple festivals and hiring them out for political work.

If you saw the Taipei Times photo of a ba jia jiang (the guys at temple fairs in face paint and costume who do martial arts demonstrations as symbolic guardians of the gods) selling goods at Carrefour a few years ago, you'd know that this is totally fine and cool.