Oh say can you see...

...by the dawn's early light...

...hundreds of expats, hungover from last night.

So I work in Taipei 101 twice a week. In between classes I tend to hang out at the Starbucks in the lobby if I'm not hungry enough to go to the mall and eat. This gives me a killer vantage point from which to observe the comings-and-goings of Taiwan expats who work in business.

What did I see late this morning?

1.) A line at Starbucks, and for once the majority of customers weren't Taiwanese office folks gearing up for yet another 12 hour workday. Peppered between them were slack-faced yet smiling foreigners with stars in their eyes and dark circles under them.

2.) Other expats - the older ones - looking somewhat downtrodden, probably because their man had been cast aside like an old lion (thanks, Christopher Hitchens) about to be retired from slashing gladiators.

3.) Taiwanese office workers sitting in said Starbucks talking about foreigners ("How strange," one young girl in a purple suit and eye glitter with the telltale ID tag dangling from her neck, "they elect a black man and then they all go get drunk. Nobody's doing any work today! Foreigners! I just don't get it.")

4.) More expats, the happy ones, wandering around like sleep-deprived zombies, occasionally shuffling down to Watson's for more Panadol, silently commiserating about their massive collective hangover.

I was one of the hungover ones. Still am, at 10pm the next night. At least it's a good hangover; the Belgian beer kind, not the nasty Chinese chemical beer kind. We stayed at Red House pub in Shida until it closed, talking, laughing, hoping, drinking and singing the national anthem. Red House was otherwise quiet - we wanted a gathering of friends, not a liberal, libertine throng. The party was going on much louder at Jr. Cafe, Carnegie's and The Brass Monkey, but the only one of those places I actually like is Jr. Cafe and still didn't really feel like dealing with it.

I like my Presidents...

...well, the fine folks (folk, I guess) down at Octopus Pie said it far better than I could.

Totally worth the hangover. And when will I learn that just because we're celebrating (what I hope is) a new era, that doesn't mean four Belgian beers are somehow less potent. Ow.

It's good to be a citizen of a country in which we now take it for granted that anyone, from any background, can rise to the rank of President of the United States. Good on us for not being assholes, for once.

The Youth Vote, Not I

Since I've moved to Taiwan, nobody but the Arlington Democrats has sent me any campaign literature or made any attempt to court my vote. So all I ever got in the mail was an absentee ballot and a stodgy envelope full of pictures of old guys (there were a few women in there, too, but not many...not enough) telling me to vote for Jim Moran, Mark Warner and Barack Obama, as well as two or three other people I've never heard of because I'm so distanced from local politics.

Then I read this Washington Post article on getting out the youth vote and the realization hits me.

I'm no longer "the youth vote".

I get thick mailings from stuffed suits, not messages on Facebook. I get campaign news from The Washington Post, not from text messages and blogs.

Damn. Not even 30 and I feel ancient.

More on "Red Asia, Blue Europe"

...or was it Blue Europe, Red Asia?

Whatever.

This Global Electoral College poll from the Economist proves my earlier point...there is no Red Asia. Governments might lean towards McCain, but the people do not.

It's not a very scientific poll...it can really only be taken by people who cared enough go read The Economist online. But it does indicate...well...something.

Notice that Taiwan is specifically a "country" in the selection. Go Economist! Jia you, baby.

The world - be it Europe, Asia, or anywhere else, does not want a McCain presidency. That's kind of funny (and unfortunate for McCain) given his deep knowledge of foreign policy. I deeply dislike the man's platforms, but you can't deny that on world affairs he knows his shiznit.

I am surprised that so much of Africa is "red". I realize that Obama is specifically Kenyan and specifically of the Kenyan Luo people, but you'd think there would be some solidarity. Most African Americans are of West African, not Kenyan or eastern, descent and yet are still mostly pro-Obama.

Oh well. Goes to show that you never know, and I am admittedly quite uneducated about African affairs.

"Blue Europe, Red Asia"? Methinks not.

This stunning piece of tripe appeared in the Taipei Times today:

Blue Europe, Red Asia

...and I am agog with...well, not just with surprise at the inaccuracy, but with the generality of it, the lack of attention to detail in the overall assessment, and with then supporting those generalizations (when dealing with entire continents one has to be general, fair enough) with precious little evidence.

Anecdotally, it's pretty clear to me that Asians do not, in fact, generally support McCain. Looking at Taiwan, despite the fact that there is a line of argument saying that McCain would be better for Taiwan (something I disagree with, but hey, I covered that in a previous post) the general public consensus is that Obama is the better candidate.

At least when the author discusses China, she uses the term "may very likely" - as in she may very likely not have enough research and is basing that assertion on conjecture. The Chinese people hated Bush - this was all too evident during my time in China, and not just anecdotally. Many now seem to see McCain as an extension of Bush. Whether he is or is not is not worth getting into just now (I think he is, but that's a personal opinion).

I've spent quite a bit of time in India and keep in touch with plenty of people there. This is again anecdotal, but so far the questions I've asked my desi friends about the general consensus of the Indian populace - if there can ever be such a thing - is that Obama is far and away the better candidate.

Of course, surveys awhile back on the Indonesian opinion of Obama held him in favorable regard, and that does not seem to have changed.

So where are these "Red Asians" who lean towards McCain for all of the reasons listed in the article (a preference for traditional security measures, traditional US involvement, and being able to snatch the "mantle of hope" from the USA should McCain be elected)? I certainly don't know any of them. I'm sure they're out there - Asia's big, in case you haven't noticed - but the generalities expressed in this article seem questionable at best, blatantly false at worst....rather like the assertion that McCain will be better for Taiwan just because the party platform language contains more wording about Taiwan. Very shaky indeed.

I won't address Japan - I know precious little on Japanese foreign policy and public consensus so have nothing to add there.

Moisi may have a point that there are governments out there who favor McCain. I could see the Chinese government doing so, though I don't know for sure (I'm not sure anyone really knows for sure; can one really trust anything the Chinese government says about its policies, actions, alliances or...frankly, anything at all?)...I'm less convinced about India. I could go into detail as to why, but this is a blog on Taiwan so I would rather not devote the space to it here.

But the people? Sorry honey...but no. It doesn't seem as though Dominique Moisi has even been to Asia, or she'd have a much better general idea about how people feel here. Even then, it would only be very, very general.

This, however, is brilliant. Very wordy and dense article on alternatives that Asian institutions have at saving their financial markets in lieu of the bank bailouts currently in vogue in G7 countries. Quite intelligent and I have nothing to add lest I sound like an uneducated boor. [name drop] Plus I know the guy who wrote it, and he's a smart fella. [/name drop]