Book review: "The Butcher's Wife" is a brutal read

Content note: this book is about sexual assault and domestic violence. I don't know what else to say. Don't read this book (or this post) if you aren't in a place where you can engage with such topics. 


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Years ago in a used bookstore in downtown Singapore, I came across a lonely copy of The Butcher's Wife, by Li Ang. 

Li cemented herself as one of my favorite Taiwanese authors with The Lost Garden, only recently available in English translation despite not being a new novel. The Butcher's Wife, however, is probably her most famous work. You're unlikely to find the translated edition in a library or bookshop, but Amazon seems to offer it. 

To be honest, it's barely a novel. I'd call it a novella. A very long short story. It's straightforward, and brutal. 

The brevity of the story renders it highly engaging. Longer works of Taiwanese fiction tend toward narrative structures that can be a little hard to follow. Stories branch out or coil around in a spiral, glancing at the main plot -- perhaps sideswiping it now and again -- until zeroing in at the last moment. (The Lost Garden certainly did this). The Butcher's Wife, in contrast, opens with an arresting scene. I mean that literally: Lin Shi spies her mother having sex with (or rather, being haved sex with) a soldier, whom we later learn has promised the malnourished woman two rice balls in exchange. 

It's not consensual, as even "willing" sex work in desperate circumstances -- when you wouldn't have agreed if you didn't need the money, food or housing -- generally isn't. But, according to the family members who hog-tie her to a pillar in the ancestral hall, that's not good enough: she didn't put up a fight, her dress was still intact and freshly pressed, so the act of a hungry woman is considered adultery, not desperation. 

This sets the story in motion, leading Lin Shi herself to be banished from her family and married off to a pig butcher. 

It's also the first time the story shows us that the status of women in Taiwanese society, or any patriarchal society (which is to say, just about all of them), isn't due to some sort of natural difference between the sexes or any notion of fairness. It's a horrific triad of economics, violent misogyny, and silence. 

Later on, Lin Shi herself remarks that she is not entirely unhappy married to "Pig Butcher Chen". She has food and shelter, which isn't exactly nothing in 1950s rural Taiwan, for a woman with a so-called questionable past. Chen Jiangshui, the butcher, spends his mornings slaughtering pigs, comes home and rapes Lin Shi almost daily, and then gambles and drinks for the rest of the day. Lin Shi almost begins to endure it, thinking her life isn't terrible. 

In short, she's starting to come around to the idea that men are terrible, but it's possible to grit your teeth through their abuse if the rest of your life is going well enough. 

But then we learn that Chen specifically enjoys the screaming of a trapped woman. Before marriage, he paid prostitutes generously to scream like a stuck pig; it's implied that he enjoys butchery for the same reason. His butcher's knife is implicitly compared to his penis, and the squeals of pigs trapped in the "V-shaped" butcher's table (hm) contrasted with the screams of his abused wife. 

This could be read narrowly as the story of one sadistic man who gets off on violence. But Lin Shi was put in this position because all of society seems to enjoy watching women suffer. If they didn't, why would they have created abusive structures like the ones Lin Shi and her mother are both forced to endure? 

I'm not an expert in the symbolism of nomenclature in Mandarin-language literature, but it seems significant to me that Lin Shi's name (林市) means "forest and city" -- so, everywhere, really. Chen Jiangshui's name (陳江水) means "river water", implying an ever-flowing river. Chen lives, of course, in Chencuo (陳厝), which is a village name for an ancestral clan who dominates the area. In other words, violence against women is everywhere. It never stops. It's not one shitty guy, it's every shitty person who lets it happen and patriarchy throughout history that has rendered it acceptable. 

You'd think my least favorite character in The Butcher's Wife would be Chen, but it's actually elderly neighbor Auntie Ah-wang. She's the elderly archetype of every gossipy bint I've ever known or read about, and I've known a few real-life versions of her. She's endured violence at the hands of patriarchy as well; her feet had at one point been bound, which has disabled her for life. However, they were unbound early (we aren't told why, but my educated guess is that the family couldn't afford to keep her sedentary at home; perhaps they needed her to work). She gets into an argument with her daughter-in-law, who attempts to stand up to her. Through drastic means, she wins. 

Auntie Ah-wang hides behind a nearby wall listening to Chen rape and abuse Lin Shi. She knows it is rape, because at first she offers the young bride a soothing ointment. Later, she tells all the women of the village that Lin's cries are of sexual ecstasy and that the girl is a slut just like her mother. }

This is where society is complicit in Chen's treatment of Lin: he wouldn't be able to treat her as he does if her neighbors objected. Not only do they condone his behavior, but praise him -- and his upholding of patriarchal structures, which include some respect for much older women -- while victim-blaming Lin Shi. Even in attempting to create some small measure of economic freedom when her husband stops bringing her food, she's mocked by other women and further abused by him.

It's not just men. It's certainly not just a few violent men. It's all of society, women included, and the economic structures that uphold patriarchy. Which, to be clear, are just about all economic structures. (Yes, even communism. Sorry tankies.) 

This sets the characters on a path to annihilation. The Butcher's Wife was written in the 1980s so it's hardly a spoiler, but I won't divulge the ending here in case you're unaware. 

The Butcher's Wife was difficult and disturbing to read. The characters reminded me so much of patriarchal violence I've seen and heard about in real life, from shades of Auntie Ah-wang in the pink-vested women who would hand out anti-gay literature during the referendum to the stories of domestic abuse and societal complicity that I heard about living in China. One woman I know married the only make foreigner in town, even though he too was pretty awful, because the entire town blamed her for divorcing her husband. "A man never beats a good wife, so she must have done something to deserve it," they apparently said. 

I am sadly reminded of a friend who took her life. Her boyfriend was not abusive, but her father kicked her out of the family, her mental health problems prevented her from holding down a job, her former boss was petty and vindictive, suing her for something I am quite certain he knew she never did, and she didn't receive nearly enough social support. Her friends tried to help, but ultimately we failed. I'll never fully forgive myself for this, and I'll always struggle more than I otherwise would to read stories like this of society failing women. I suspect most women have experienced a trauma that affects them in some way, as well. 

Lin Shi doesn't even get that much acknowledgement. She takes her fate into her own hands, and for it, she is condemned by the village for being the only one at fault. Leading the pack, of course, is Auntie Ah-Wang. 

I have one final observation to make. It's a fairly obvious one. Sometimes I come across foreigners in Taiwan who think this is a gentle society of school-obsessed nerds who, I dunno, study engineering and drink tea in fine porcelain cups and never do crime. This is simply not true. Taiwan has higher domestic violence statistics than you might think, though they are lower than in Australia, which has a comparable population. Cases have been rising, not falling. Spousal abuse was only outlawed in 1998 (!), meaning it was still legal when The Butcher's Wife was written. Marital rape was outlawed at roughly the same time. There was no law against stalking until 2021, which is terrifying.

When I first moved here I felt like Taiwan was a crime-free society! Of course this is ridiculous, but just the ability to safely walk around alone at all hours of the night was astounding to me. I've been sexually harassed and assaulted in India, nearly mugged twice in Washington DC, followed and catcalled in countless other cities. 

But no, patriarchy is everywhere. Even seemingly 'safe' Taiwan. The Butcher's Wife may have been written in the 1980s, about what I presume was the 1950s (given the presence of the soldier in the beginning of the story). But it tells a tale as old as time: it's not just men who are beasts. It's all of us. 

On sexual harassment, the KMT remains unaccountable for their own actions

I don't have a good photo, even a metaphorical one, so please enjoy a Tainan street scene.

My second job in Taiwan was arguably the worst job I've ever had. It was worse than my "they say we're teachers but it's actually kind of like working at the Gap" job at one of the big chain cram schools, if you can imagine such a thing. I won't name them because they're litigious, and I also tend not to tell the full story -- it involves treating my husband in an unacceptable way -- without a drink in hand.

It wasn't always a nightmare; the first few years were solidly okay, perhaps even enjoyable. Then they changed office managers and I started noticing a pattern I couldn't quite elucidate then, but understand better now: the inability of anyone in the office to be accountable for the most minor of mistakes, let alone apologize or do anything proactively to address the error.

Scheduled for three weeks straight -- including weekends -- despite specifically requesting that not happen? Let's not point fingers, can you just do us this favor? A teacher was not informed of a class cancellation? I don't recall. Random errors appearing in teaching materials, to the point of occasional incomprehensibility? No, you don't understand, that's just a different variety of English. 

There was also a rumor that another teacher was accused of acting inappropriately toward female (adult) students and admitted as much to management. I say "rumor" because I didn't witness it, but I was told by the person accused. He showed no outward guilt, and seemed pleased that there were no repercussions. I knew then that I would leave as soon as possible (there were other reasons, but this was a major catalyst). 

We all make mistakes, and I started out apologizing for mine, however minor. I soon realized that an apology was considered a deep admission of guilt: you'd get a long talking-to in a meeting they were frequently late for (forcing you to wait twenty minutes to an hour for a lecture you didn't need as you'd already acknowledged fault).

Rarely was anyone fired, but if you took accountability rather than making excuses and refusing to admit fault, you felt like you were on constant probation.

My purpose here isn't to make them look bad (which is part of why I won't name them), but to tell a small slice of my story while making a larger point about small-scale cultures where accountability and apology aren't the first steps to reconciliation and rectification, but an opening to heap shame on the person admitting fault.

I'd let these memories sink into the morass of things best not fixated on, only to have them come roaring back as I watch the various political parties rush to address their past mistakes in dealing with sexual harassment. I thought this was just the memory of that one guy who seemed proud that he was making female students feel uncomfortable, but my subconscious made the connection before I did. It wasn't that one incident, it was the whole culture of refusing to acknowledge mistakes, let alone admit them or, heaven forfend, apologize. 

It shows strength of character to admit error, take accountability, apologize, rectify the situation if possible and take action to ensure it doesn't happen again. I  learned this in my twenties -- later than I should have -- and it's everyone's duty as adults to do the same. 

That's why it bothers me that as this Not-Really-#MeToo movement unfolds, I mostly feel dismay. 

On the DPP side, people rightfully lost their jobs. Their mistakes can never be fully rectified, but at least there were eventual consequences to their actions. Lin Fei-fan, the former Sunflower leader accused by the media of knowing about the cover-up of the Women's Department case, has ended his candidacy for the legislature. There have been some serious shake-ups at the DPP -- not serious enough, but it's a start.

It's unclear why exactly he quit the race. Perhaps the party decided it was best to shelve him for a future race, perhaps he was a sacrificial lamb, or perhaps he himself decided it was the best course of action in terms of being accountable, or his future political prospects (or both). The DPP absolved him of responsibility, so I suspect the decision was ultimately his own. 

Although it's not for me to say whether it's the right or wrong decision, I admit I'm sad to see Lin drop out. Not following up on the case in question was indeed a mistake, but crucially, to me, he's one of the only people embroiled in this incident to have acknowledged as much and apologized. I don't think his actions are in line with someone who committed a cover-up.

Lin acted like an adult: he was the supervisor at the time, so he decided the buck stopped with him and that he should be held, in his words, to a higher standard. Accountability is hard and it takes guts to apologize, but it's the right thing to do. It's what I want to see in Taiwan's elected leaders.

This is not to absolve the entire DPP. To put it colloquially, they fucked up real bad. he only way out of that is to figure out what went wrong and fix broken mechanisms so it doesn't happen again. Lin himself has said as much repeatedly.

The KMT, on the other hand, has been posturing quite a lot on their commitment to gender equality and a harassment-free culture, but I've yet to see much in the way of real consequences for the many, many cases that have occurred within the party.

New Taipei mayor and presidential candidate Hou You-yi was in charge when a city employee committed suicide over sexual harassment in the city's health bureau. Although the supervisory committee said the bureau handled the case incorrectly, Hou stated that the bureau acted "with humility", but has not apologized or accepted any sort of accountability for the goings-on in his administration, and is accused of trying to bury the news.

Hou, of course, is still the KMT presidential candidate. He's spent a lot of time criticizing the DPP, which the DPP has called hypocritical (Presidential candidate Lai Ching-te called Hou the "last one who can criticize"). 

If Lin had stayed in the race, he would have faced off against current KMT legislator Wang Hong-wei, who narrowly beat Enoch Wu for the seat. The DPP clearly thinks this district is winnable, seeing as they keep throwing star power at it. Wang, as you might have guessed, called on Lin to withdraw from the race. Then she mocked his apology and withdrawal statement as being for the "social disturbance" the incident has caused rather than his own actions (Lin has expressed regret for his actions multiple times), as well as calling her out for "double standards and political manipulation". 

Apparently, Wang didn't think this was fair. Is she right? Did Lin err in calling her duplicitous rather than focusing all of the shame on himself? To determine that, let's look at Wang's actions more broadly.

KMT legislator and former Lienchiang (Matsu) county magistrate Chen Huseh-sheng was found guilty of sexually harassing DPP legislator Fan Yun and ordered to pay NT$80,000. Fan expressed unhappiness with the verdict; it's a small fine well within Chen's means to pay, and he remains in the legislature where Fan has said she feels "disgusted" to have to see him. 

Wang has said asking Chen to resign would be "inappropriate", backing that up with a whole truckload of nonsense. She said there are "many forms of sexual harassment, and some of them are despicable...such as abuse of power", which this was not, and that Chen's case is "worthy of vigilance" but did not merit asking for his resignation. 

In other words, an actual sexual harasser found guilty in a court of law should not have to resign because "sexual harassment takes many forms" and this one was not "despicable" enough, but Lin -- who has never been accused of sexual harassment -- should drop out of the race because he didn't follow up on a case that was reported to him as resolved?

Yep, that's a double standard.

The other high-profile case in the KMT revolves around Hualien legislator, convicted criminal and all-around asshat Fu Kun-chi, who was accused of sexual harassment by a media personality while he was serving as Hualien county magistrate. The comment section of the initial post included several people pointing out that he was a known serial offender.

While the KMT has said they will investigate the issue, Fu's office refuses to make any meaningful comment, and former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-pin, whom the victim named as a witness, has said he "doesn't have a clear memory" of what happened. 

Wang Hong-wei, after spending so much time attacking Lin Fei-fan, apparently has no energy left to say a single goddamn thing about Fu Kun-chi. 

I'd certainly call that a double standard too, and I'm not the only one saying so. Wang and other KMT members sure talk a lot about not tolerating sexual harassment, but when sexual harassment in their own party comes to light, they seem pretty tolerant to me. I guess it's easy to tolerate anything if you "don't have a clear memory". 

You know who else in the KMT nobody seems to have a thing to say about? Taipei deputy mayor Lin Yihua. Her former office director, Lin Tinglin, was found guilty of rape in 2021. The court decided that although Mr. Lin had resigned before the incident took place, he was still Lin Yihua's employee as he continued to volunteer at her office and wear a campaign vest bearing her name. Lin Yihua was found jointly responsible for Mr. Lin's conduct and forced to pay part of the settlement.

Not only did Mr. Lin deny the allegations, appeal the ruling, call himself the victim and say the relationship was "consensual", but Lin Yihua herself tried to argue that she was not responsible as the perpetrator had technically already resigned.

Does Wang Hong-wei or anyone at all in the KMT care to ask Lin Yihua to step down for failing to be accountable for the actions of her office staff? No. She remains a rising political star in the KMT.

I will freely admit my bias against the KMT -- I just can't get over that whole White Terror thing, not to mention their current pro-China leanings -- and it's true that they've launched an investigation into the handling of sexual assault allegations, promising the issue will be handled "satisfactorily". They've even put a few token women on the committee, while refusing to divulge anything about their background! 

Maybe I'm being unfair. I can't say for certain that the KMT's new bureaucratic this-n-that won't fix whatever is broken. Given their track record, however, their assurances plus NT$10 will buy a tea egg at 7-11. 

But I can say that the DPP has actually fired people over this, and pretty quickly too. Everything's still ticking along just like it always was at over at the KMT. When high-profile people actually get canned and those who helped cover for perpetrators step down from office, I'll believe that it means something.

The DPP is far from perfect, and I won't sit here like a brainless pine cone and insist they've done nothing wrong, or that there isn't something very broken in their own male-dominated party culture. But Lin Fei-fan apologized, reflected, stood up and took the hit like an adult. When Chen Hsueh-sheng and Fu Kun-chi are made to step down and Hou You-yi and Lin Yi-hua face similar accountability, maybe I'll believe that the KMT might turn a corner, too. 

Women Making Waves

This is a long ramble, so strap in. I have no intention of editing it to be shorter, though I might make some structural, proofreading or content edits.

Back when I finished DPP: The TV Show Wave Makers, I had all these high-minded ideas about how I would write about my perspective and impressions of the show as a medium of expression. I wanted to point out all the little things I noticed, such as the son of one of the main characters being named Yang-yang in a lovely nod to Edward Yang's Yi-Yi (A One and a Two). Wave Makers has more of a dramatic arc than Yang's last film, but the tone has a similar observational quality. Although the chief villain from the ruling party wasn't based on a certain former president per se, I noticed how Leon Dai's portrayal of a smarmy vice presidential nominee looked a hell of a lot like him; in one scene, the character is even seated in front of a Chinese painting of galloping horses. Horses! 

That former president has never been accused of sleeping with his assistants, but certain other figures in the KMT are fairly well-known for their alleged awful treatment of women. It's not hard to see what the character was based on.

Of course,  would also entail discussion of the central drama of the show: not the fictional election that takes place across the eight episodes, but the show's feminist core in which women grapple with the ways that politics and society both target and fail them. I too have voiced concerns over the treatment of women in social and political movements -- for instance, while not nearly as bad as the right, the left has a misogynist streak that isn't talked about enough, and as a pro-Taiwan foreign woman I am sick to death of other Taiwan advocates supporting overt woman-haters, accused rapists, anti-abortionists and (mostly hypocritical) anti-LGBT tradwife-stanning all-around shitsacks. 

In other words, it is very hard sometimes to support Taiwan as a woman, when your fellow advocates think it's acceptable ("for Taiwan!") for someone who was found guilty of sexual assault and openly treats women like objects of either desire or mockery to be the president of the country where you vote. Although as a straight, cis white woman I deal with far less discrimination and violence than most other women, I too am infuriated by the active oppression of women being deemed acceptable as long as some other goal is considered more important. 

The show grapples with what it means to make compromises and sacrifices in the name of some higher ideal, which resonated with me. It's tiring, feeling some pressure to pretend women's issues don't matter (and therefore Republicans in office in the US are acceptable because they're better "Taiwan allies", even though this seems to no longer be true). I'm losing my patience for it, if that patience ever existed. If we don't all care for each other, and do our best not to sacrifice one group's wellbeing and then pretend there's nothing wrong with that, then what is the point of fighting authoritarianism at all? 

Anyway.

While Wave Makers was a fundamentally DPP-sympathetic show, anyone paying attention noticed that the creator was nevertheless trying to draw attention to the fact that sexual harassment, tolerance of anti-LGBT hate (including physical assault of gay people) and the resulting hypocrisy regarding what a progressive party claims to stand for are, if we're being honest, pretty rampant in the DPP. 

I also think anyone paying attention already knew that, but it was rarely discussed. 

I wanted to discuss all of this and more in a much longer post, but now I can't, at least not yet. What we're all following instead are the sexual assault allegations rocking not just the DPP, but the KMT and to some extent the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) on the heels of Wave Makers -- or more likely, because the 2024 election is starting up. Here's a mostly-complete rundown in English of the current accusations and scandals.

The initial story to break was eerily close to the main plot arc of the show: a female DPP employee was sexually harassed, the harassment was covered up, and legislative candidate, Sunflower leader and Guy With A Good Reputation Lin Fei-fan, tasked with supervising the department where it took place, allegedly knew and did nothing.

I say "allegedly" because I don't actually know what Lin knew. However, his explanation that he learned only that there was an incident but the parties chose not to pursue a formal complaint, and regrets not following up personally, makes more sense to me than all of the theoretical talk of respecting women, while denying any specific harassment took place, from the KMT.

Lin has also suspended campaign activities for the time being to work with the party investigation, met with women including female friends to ask their opinions, and discussed how pushing aside these issues for some semblance of "solidarity" is not good enough. He has offered a real apology and does not deny the incident happened.

I can't say for sure that he definitely knew there was a cover-up, or didn't. But these actions imply sincerity, and I think it is far more likely that he is telling the truth than not. I doubt a legislative candidate who wasn't taking the issue seriously would actually suspend their campaign activities.

To be honest, I've avoided this a little. Partly it was just life: I was in Tainan for work as the news kept breaking. Partly it's personal: I've experienced sexual harassment (to be honest, it was assault, but I've processed it, am doing well, and rarely think of it now). I've also had bad people attempt to use my previous openness about that experience against me through intentional misrepresentation, and watched a thread about it devolve into unrelated but overt lies. It sometimes bothers me that, if I am open about it, many people don't seem to reflect much on the ways in which their own inaction and silence has allowed an anti-woman culture like this to fester. I don't feel particularly shy about discussing this, but I also don't care to rehash it, either. 

There are other reasons why I felt conflicted about writing on this topic; I won't divulge them. 

Here is one I will discuss: I'm a woman, but I'm not Taiwanese. I don't subscribe very strongly to the notion that only people from certain groups should ever share their opinions -- generally, people from affected groups will have more thoughtful, nuanced and interesting things to say, but if an idea is well-reasoned and insightful, I don't mind as much where it comes from. What's more, plenty of bad ideas come from the right group of people: Wave Makers showed us this too, with all the nonsense being spewed on Taiwanese political talk shows.

However, on this particular issue, I'm somewhat uninterested in hearing all the chatter from anyone who is not a Taiwanese woman. That presumably includes myself! But more than that, although some insights have been welcome, I have trouble taking seriously all the copious wordage spilled by men about this issue that primarily (though, to be fair, not exclusively) impacts women. 

Much is made of the need for more Taiwanese voices in Taiwan discussion spaces, reporting and advocacy. There is merit to this. And yet, when an issue impacts women -- Taiwanese women, in this case -- so many men think they're qualified to weigh in as though specific perspective from the group most affected no longer matters. One example of this is the most recent Taiwan This Week on ICRT. I respect Gavin Phipps and while the show is good as long as the guests are good (they are often very good, but not always), I have a real problem with his inviting two white men on the radio to talk about sexual harassment mostly experienced by Taiwanese women.

Why? There wasn't a single woman -- better yet, Taiwanese woman -- they could have had on the show to discuss this very woman-centered issue? Frankly, it's infuriating. If we're going to talk about Taiwanese voices, great. But how about women's voices? Why is it still okay to stifle those? I hesitated because being a non-Taiwanese woman didn't feel like sufficient qualification to speak on this issue, but men in general are perfectly fine with it, it seems. Again, why?

Certainly, a good opinion is indeed a good opinion no matter where it comes from, but the only opinions that have made much sense to me in the past week have come from Taiwanese women. For example, this excellent piece in Voicettank (in Mandarin) discussing how Taiwan's #MeToo movement has not yet come (all the nattering men, in contrast, keep calling it "Taiwan's #MeToo movement"). 

I'm too tired to translate tonight, but writer Zhang Yinhui (張茵惠) points out all sorts of things that most women know in their gut, and men seemingly do not: that stories about sexual harassment and assault that can be easily told are also relatively easily solved, but most stories are complex and interwoven in structures built and maintained by imperfect people. Wave Makers showed us that there is no such thing as "the perfect victim", but it's hard to really feel that unless you are that imperfect victim, or one of their close connections.

Zhang also pointed out that the DPP nominating Li Zhenghao (formerly of the KMT, and accused but acquitted of non-consensual filming of his ex and refusal to delete the images, but not found guilty) caused a lot of progressive women to wonder why they were continuing to be silent so as to not "topple the bird's nest" -- that is, not threaten the DPP's chances of election. What's the point, when they're going to say they care, but then turn around and nominate someone like Li anyway?

Most importantly, Zhang noted that we cannot possibly say that Taiwan's current scandals constitute a #MeToo movement, because too many men who are known to be serial sexual harassers and offenders continue to be in power. She pointed to former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-zhe, who crowed about the DPP's scandals while ignoring allegations in his own party, the TPP. He's still running for president, and has openly and unapologetically said some horrifically misogynist things. He has paid no political or persona price for this.

She clarified that although the current spate of allegations focuses on the DPP, in fact the pan-blue camp has seen many more such cases by volume if you look at the past several years. The recent news has not caused much reflection in the opposition camp, either.

And yet, how many people are talking about the KMT's rampant issues with sexual harassment? A few, but not nearly enough. Besides, Zhang said, #MeToo is used by relatively powerful women to take down a few awful men. While this is a good thing, it hasn't done much to address systemic social and political failures that allow it to happen. 

I agree with this. Wave Makers got a more or less happy ending -- perhaps because creator Jian Liying herself has said she was harassed by exiled writer Bei Ling, who continues to call it a "fabrication", denying Jian her happy ending -- but chances are, the women coming forward across the Taiwanese political spectrum now will not. Recall how the issue of comfort women is repeatedly to score political points, but the actual World War II-era comfort women got very little justice? The same thing is happening here: accused of things they can't possibly ignore, both sides have turned into giant smearing machines, using real sexual harassment allegations not to seek justice for those harassed, but to attack each other. The victims probably won't get much of anything for all of it, let alone justice or, heaven forbid, systemic change.

Of course, men can experience sexual harassment and assault too, and in fact some of the allegations have been brought by men. I do think many men understand and empathize with what women face constantly; some have had it happen to them. So, I would never say that a man can't or shouldn't talk about these issues. Indeed, they can!

However, I find myself not particularly wanting to hear male perspectives on an issue that primarily, though not exclusively, affects women. The experience of being treated like a verbal punching bag by some men after I spoke more openly about what happened has made me more distrustful of men speaking about this issue -- some of that suspicion is justified, but I admit some might not be.

I say this gently, with only friendship in my heart. I've Donovan Smith's article in Taiwan News was factually correct, but didn't quite strike the core of the issue. Certainly, he can empathize with the current national conversation, and I know other men who understand because they've been harassed or assaulted, or been a target of people spreading lies about them without much recourse. So, I'm limiting my comments to this article only.

That is to say, the allegations wracking the DPP were all accurately summarized, and Smith did note that the KMT is hardly innocent in this regard. He's correct that the DPP cannot run on a platform of "okay, maybe we're also a little rotten but we're not as rotten as them".

However, to state that the current allegations of cover-up are only hitting the DPP, implying (though not outright saying) the problem is somewhat specific to the DPP, isn't quite right. There's a reason why this is hitting the DPP harder, and again it's locals who've pointed it out so succinctly.

News about sexual assault in the KMT hasn't taken off the way it should because everyone already knows the KMT has a rotten record on this. It's not surprising. That Fu Kun-chi is accused (and is denying anything happened) is not surprising. There's a list circulating on Facebook of all the known sexual assault allegations from other parties, and the vast majority -- far more than the DPP is dealing with currently -- are from the KMT. Some of these cases are known to have resulted in the woman's suicide (this link includes just one example, but there is at least one more, by a worker in Hou You-yi's administration in New Taipei, mentioned in the list liked above.) 

This is not to minimize the way the DPP has disregarded women's issues in its own ranks. These need to be dealt with, and to be honest, Zhang is right. They probably won't. It's simply necessary to point out that the DPP is catching most of the flak for this because people's expectations of the DPP are higher. This is partly due to Taiwan's political history, and partly because the DPP bills itself as the woman-friendly, progressive alternative to the traditional, rotten KMT. Of course they should do better! But it's also not right to let the KMT fester without comment, letting them win elections because the DPP looks bad on some issue, when they're actually worse on that same issue.

What's more, these scandals are hitting the DPP now because, from what I've read about the KMT's history with this issue, women who are harassed more or less know that there's no point to speaking up. Politicians and officials will insist they take sexual harassment seriously, promise that they'll diligently follow up on every case, but either decline to comment or deny that any particular case happened at all.  The DPP does cover-ups, but the KMT outright denies.

Why complain when you know that's how it will go? Why should any woman think she'll be heard if she speaks up against a member of the KMT? From rumors that Lien Chan is a domestic abuser (if the messages between Lien's daughter and her friend at the American school showing evidence of misconduct sounds like a familiar plot point...well) to a KMT city councilor openly screaming about how a female firefighter who reported sexual harassment is at fault for not locking the door, they make it impossible to speak up. They know what they're doing, but I'm not convinced they truly know it's wrong.

The current scandal may be hitting the DPP harder, but this is deep, ingrained, societal and political, and it is the result of continually sidelining women, and then telling them to lay low rather than capsize the whole boat. That is, to not make waves. 

How many women have not had their talents fully recognized because they were not given the opportunity to shine by misogynists, and how many women slunk off and quit because, once landing that job, they were sexually assaulted? In comparison, how many men have had that happen to them?

Smith also assumes Lin Fei-fan "knew about the cover-up", linking to a shoddy TVBS article on the issue. As discussed above, I don't know what Lin knew, but it strikes me as more likely that he's telling the truth. To me, it feels a little too close to putting Lin in a similar camp as the KMT's overt denialism, which may be unfair.

Hell, even Annette Lu, who is so often wrong on contemporary issues, got it at least partly right this time: the current scandals are the direct result of a "male centric legacy" that treats women as objects that can be treated however men wish, that sexual harassment tends to be difficult to prove and therefore is rarely discussed, and that it's not unique to a particular party. 

If Annette Lu is right for the first time in awhile and her points are worth considering, maybe we really should be listening not to men -- and especially not white men -- but to Taiwanese women. Maybe we don't need an ICRT program that platforms two white men to talk about this issue. I always value Donovan Smith's contributions but maybe in this specific case, he's not the person to listen to. 

I've felt pressure to not make waves in pro-Taiwan circles, where absolute garbage humans are tolerated as long as they're sufficiently dedicated to Taiwan's cause. I've experienced sexual harassment not unlike what a lot of the women coming forward in Taiwan describe. I've felt pressure to then not speak about it too much. I fail to see how we can built not just a Taiwan recognized as independent of China, but also a Taiwan worth living in, if we ignore issues primarily (though again, not entirely) facing one marginalized group. The DPP is facing a similar conundrum: they claim to not only want Taiwan's continued independence, but also a better Taiwan for all citizens.

How can they do that if they, too, ignore women's safety and wellbeing? And how are we ever going to move forward if the stories of women finally being told are just being used as inter-party attacks and not steps toward real justice? How can we move forward if we don't prioritize women's -- especially Taiwanese women's -- voices? 

I have a lot of Taiwanese female friends (they all speak good English; maybe ICRT could have asked one of them, or literally any insightful Taiwanese woman, to discuss this issue). They're feeling this hard right now. I see it on their faces, I hear it in their voices even if we don't linger on the topic. Generally speaking, they're not interested in beating up on Lin Fei-fan for negligence (they're all dark green Sunflower supporters, so I'm not surprised). They already knew Fu Kun-chi was this kind of guy; even the initial post about him by media persona Tung Cheng-yu had several comments pointing out that he was a known serial harasser. 

What they do seem to want is justice. Change. For Taiwanese women to be listened to and taken seriously, even if they are not "perfect victims". To get opportunities they lose because men with power who hate women withhold them, or make them contingent on tolerating sexual harassment and assault silently. They're sick of being asked to choose between supporting the party that cares about Taiwan's continued independence, and speaking frankly on the ways that party has failed women. 

I may not be Taiwanese, but I am a woman, and I empathize. Indeed, empathy is possible from all corners, but I'm seeing a lot of mudslinging and very little movement towards actual change.

The Day After

I don't have a good cover photo, so here's a relaxing picture I took of a beach in the Maldives. 

A pretty strong content warning on this. I'll be talking about hate speech by transphobes on the right and left. Suicide comes up. If that's not something you want to be around right now, I will never know and never care if you choose to skip this post. In fact, I'll respect you for your choices regarding your own wellbeing.

I also want to clarify that I know I'm not saying anything new. Trans activists have been talking about these issues for ages; it's just that I still see transphobia popping up around me, so maybe someone will read this and re-think. All I can really do is speak from a cis woman's perspective, so I try to keep to that. If you want to hear trans perspectives, I thoroughly enjoy the podcast Cancel Me, Daddy.

* * *

International Women's Day was this past Wednesday, and I really want to have cared.

I remember a time when Lao Ren Cha was specifically aimed at foreign women -- especially, but not exclusively, Western women in Taiwan. The experiences of that demographic most closely matched my own; it was an easy and frankly needed angle to take. At that time I would have written up something from that angle for something like International Women's Day without hesitation. 

At times I think about going back to that narrower focus. But, over the last decade-plus, as life in Taiwan has become simply life, not some exciting new immigrant or expat journey, what I have to say isn't always categorizable by gender. I'm also no longer sure that my experiences are similar enough to the average foreign female newcomer.

Of course I remain an ardent feminist even as my blogging focus has shifted: there isn't much about my personality that is reducible to my gender, and I believe as any reasonable person does that everyone should be considered as individuals, not an agglomeration of stereotypes about how "men" or "women" should think or act. 

When I came here as a starry-eyed twentysomething who believed that women, who bear so much sexism from society, could all come together in solidarity to end it. I believed then that valuable and meaningful discussions are possible with those I don't always agree with or like.

I still want to believe that's true. To some extent, I do: the idea that everyone is set in every belief is too simplistic. People can and do say things in the moment that, on further reflection, they realize are problematic, don't reflect their core values, or that they don't truly believe. I've certainly done it! Some people aren't open to new ideas, but many are.

And yet, there I sat two days ago -- a feminist blogger simply unable to write a single thing on International Women's Day. I don't generally attach great importance to specific days, but at the very least I believe that day should be one of raising each other up, not woman-on-woman conflict.

That does feel like women's rights discourse has become, however. We've always had to deal with reactionaries shouting down the concept of women having full human rights (like, say, the right to all forms of health care, including abortion), or treating women like human beings rather than some gaggle of mysterious sirens whose primary role is ornamental.

Now, however, it's clearer than ever that some of the misogyny has always come from inside the house. It feels impossible to simply engage with other feminists without having to listen to some trash talk about who is and isn't a woman (according to them), portraying some women as enemies or worse, predators, based on zero evidence -- simply because they were not assigned 'female' at birth. 

In short, I'm sick of transphobes shouting about how feminism is necessarily transphobic. This is a perspective I thoroughly reject. In fact, I find that ideology embarrassing in its hatefulness, and I hope everyone clinging to it is thoroughly abashed just like so many anti-gay folks who sure panicked a few years ago, but now realize they sounded like particularly bigoted turnips. (Not all of them have repented, but there has been a change in the overall discourse.) 

On International Women's Day, I seethed about it. I can really only speak from a cis perspective, but I felt genuine anger at the idea of women celebrating that day, but including only the women they deem "acceptable". I tweeted, but I didn't really write. The day after that, I started to question whether I could still truly justify that lofty ideal of solidarity. 

The day after, I decided that perhaps it was time to be clear about the fact that Taiwan, at least among Western women, has a TERF problem. 

I don't just mean transphobia, but specifically women who think of themselves as feminists, but exclude trans women from any discussion of women. To me, that's not feminist at all. It's not empowering; it's just exclusionary. The problem isn't limited to Taiwan expat communities: if you've listened to any of the rhetoric coming out of the West, it's everywhere. But it exists here too, and I live here, and I do not like it one bit. 

Certainly, transphobia also exists in local society as well. I don't think one post can really address that, nor do I think I'm the best person to do so. Perhaps it's because my primary language of communication is English, but when I go online most of the Taiwan-based anti-trans vitriol I see being spewed is from other Westerners. There are more of them than I would have guessed, and they're difficult to avoid if one wants to participate in feminist spaces.

Transphobic cis women will insist that women's spaces should segregate on the basis of...I'm not sure really. Genitals? Chromosomes? All sorts of things that are not always clear at birth? Something. They seem to truly believe that cis women are in general consensus on this, and "women's spaces" should therefore be for cis women only. 

I reject this. As a cis woman, let me be clear: there is no such consensus.

I as a cis woman refuse to be a part of any "women's space" that excludes trans women. If a group, event, meeting, club, activity, discussion or anything else is meant for only cis women, the creators might think it's for women like me, but it's not. I will not dignify the existence of spaces that claim to be for all women, but exclude some women regardless.

At that point, you don't have a "women's space" or a "feminist space", you have a transphobe space. Cis women like me who believe in inclusion for all women want nothing to do with you, so it's really just the TERFs who remain. 

And why would I want to be a part of any space that claims it must exist as it does to keep women "safe", as though trans women are inherently dangerous? (They are not.) Why would I want to be around people who talk big about that safety, but don't care at all about the safety of an entire demographic of women -- the ones they seek to exclude?

I won't awkwardly smile and try to make the best of it. I won't check my disgust at the door. I won't legitimize it with my presence. I won't pretend that these are just "differences of opinion" when the TERFs sound indistinguishable from the right-wingers and their ideology does real harm. 

It positions trans people as criminals when they're more likely to be the victims of crimes. It results in bullying, harassment and assaults on trans people. That, in turn, drives attempted suicide among trans people. It allows for the dissemination of disinformation targeted as "they're trying to trans your kids!", which can lead to the restriction of age-appropriate affirming care due to incorrect beliefs about such care. It allows essential care for women to deny access to some women.

All of it is in service to exactly one belief: that the problem is the penis and women with vaginas are therefore justified in excluding women with penises. 

Although penises are hilarious (have you seen them? What the hell?) I just don't think a body part is the problem. Patriarchal systems are the problem, and patriarchal systems are inherently anti-trans. They are cruel to trans people, as they are cruel to cis women. Perhaps the details differ, but the cruelty remains the point. So, hey, if you want to support the patriarchy, by all means continue to be a transphobe! 

That's not a difference of opinion. These are human lives. Trans people are more likely to die because of the way society treats them. I think beliefs that perpetuate this treatment are, in a word, sick.

I won't pretend that harm is acceptable in any feminist space I participate in. I will never agree that to be safe for me, a "women's space" must include only cis women. No, I don't feel unsafe in restrooms, because I have no reason to. In fact, being committed to inclusive women's spaces, I'm more interested in keeping them transphobe-free. At least then, we're telling people they're not welcome based on their ideology, not their fundamental personhood. 

I'm a liberal because I care about all people, even those who aren't like me. I'm a feminist because I care about equal opportunity for all women. I'm not interested in so-called liberal or feminist ideas that sound exactly like the right-wing reactionaries with whom I so profoundly disagree. 

Are you really a feminist if you sound just like the guy at CPAC who called for transgender people to be "eradicated from public life entirely"? Because the end goals are the same: restrict gender-affirming care, make it unacceptable to be publicly trans (especially a trans woman), make it very acceptable to demonize and bully trans people.

You can tell because the same "they're trying to steal our kids!" panic is prevalent in both the conservative and "feminist" forms of this ideology. And you can tell because even when the reactionaries say something that even the TERFs know is truly ridiculous ("trans people have no hobbies") or post memes alluding to trans suicide, the "feminists" never call it out. They're too busy screaming at trans people to stop for a moment and say "hey that meme is shitty and cruel". 

Why would I want to be included in "feminist" discourse or spaces where they sound exactly like Michael Fucking Knowles talking to Republicans?

And where does that leave me, a cis woman in Taiwan?

Well, it's hard to know where to find that coveted solidarity. I want no solidarity with bullies. I can't just assume something billed as "for women" will necessarily include and support all women; it's important carefully check every women's group, meetup or event to confirm. I've lost "friends" over it; that's fine, I broker no peace with disinformation-spewing transphobes posting cherry-picked predator memes. It's extremely hard to know when a transphobe-y comment is some thoughtless crap that can be challenged with some hope of success, or indicative of a deeper worldview that legitimizes exclusion and promotes bullying.

I also watch out for transphobes welcomed into otherwise inclusive spaces. I understand the impulse to welcome everyone, and I do think it's possible to change some minds with interaction. However, they are part of an effort to push transphobia into feminist spaces in Taiwan, and I just can't countenance that. I only participate if I think my presence as a cis woman trying to be a trans ally will turn that tide. 

It's important as well to keep an eye on the guys. Every once in awhile I hear a well-meaning dude in the Taiwan foreignersphere say or retweet some anti-trans garbage thinking he's being supportive of "women" because transphobic women he respects have told him so. The only way to counter that is to push back and be clear that not every cis woman agrees; some of us believe that respecting women means respecting all women.

As the moderator of an inclusive Facebook women's group, I have had no issues with trans women causing problems, but I must always keep an eye out for transphobes spewing hate against our very welcome trans members.

And finally, as the author of a long-running blog that once focused on women in Taiwan and now focuses on whatever I please, I feel that there is not enough trans-affirming discourse among Western residents of Taiwan. 

Certainly, the wider media landscape seems to be pushing an anti-trans narrative: you hear a lot about controversy over what transphobes say -- they seem to love interviewing transphobes all het up that kids are being dipped in hormone tanks without counseling, or whatever moral panic tropes they're buying into this week -- but not much at all on what it's like to just be a normal trans person living one's life. The exposure to the idea of trans individuals just being seems so rare. You hear a lot of "ARE THEY SALIVATING OVER MY KIDS???" talk, presented as Just Asking Questions but clearly seeking to terrify, and not nearly enough "oh hey I met her at a party, she was cool". 

I'm small potatoes media. Lao Ren Cha is literally just my blog that I do for free and for fun, on Blogspot of all godforsaken places because I'm too lazy to move to a better platform. So sure, this is like a warm, friendly piss in an ocean of ice-cold hate. 

But I can try, so here it is: as a cis woman, I reject anti-trans bigotry and discrimination. I reject right-wing talking points presented as somehow revolutionary and left-wing. They are not. I reject transphobe-welcoming spaces. This may mean I reject solidarity. This is unfortunate, but acceptable: I may not know how to bridge the divide, but I do know what my feminism stands for, and it stands for inclusion.

One final plug: if you are a woman or nonbinary (basically, not a man) and want to be part of an inclusive women's group that leans explicitly feminist and trans-welcoming, check out Super Awesome Taiwan Women. There is also the Feminist Study Group Meetup (I'm not in this, but I have it on good authority that they are inclusive). 

Untold Herstory: The brutal film that you must see

Imagine a Taiwanese crowdfunded film about female prisoners on Green Island making it into Vieshow Cinemas. So central was crowdfunding that donor were thanked at the end (though some had simple nicknames and others cheeky handles like "1450"). 

Although it was reviewed by the Taipei Times, I hadn't heard of Untold Herstory until a very close friend with a connection to the film sent seven free-ticket vouchers.

Imagine, then, that this friend had offered similar vouchers to other people she knew and was rebuffed. "Let the past be the past," they said. Of course, this attitude only protects the villains of history: the same people who call Untold Herstory "the past" which we should "move beyond" probably lose their minds when removing Chiang Kai-shek's statue from Dead Dictator Memorial Hall is discussed. They so often only want to let some history stay in the past. 

The group I went with included people whose families either were touched by the White Terror, or came close to it. They of course have a rather different take on whether The events of Untold Herstory can be considered history at all, seeing as it hasn't even been a century and the party that committed all those atrocities still exists and runs in elections. Chiang Ching-kuo makes an appearance in the film, though they don't show his face presumably because they couldn't find any actor ugly enough to play him. 

His so-called grandson who is Maury Poviching the hell out of that purported family connection might be the mayor of Taipei in a few weeks. 

Is that really ancient history, or is it relevant right now?

***

That's the background. On to the movie. 

The Taipei Times covers the way Untold Herstory pays meticulous detail to language use: people speak in various dialects of Mandarin (you can tell which characters don't speak it natively), Taiwanese, Atayal and Japanese. The guards all spoke Cantonese. As such, the film has both Mandarin and English subtitles, which also make it more accessible to an international audience. If your Mandarin subtitle-reading isn't so hot, catch this movie now: it's one of the rare films of this genre to offer English.

I'm not sure that the prisoners of Green Island would have been allowed to speak that much Taiwanese and Japanese without more severe punishment, but then they also said at the beginning that the inmates were all now numbers, not names. Then they continued to use names, because clearly some rules matter more than others, even back in authoritarian Taiwan.

The plotting and general mood is very Taiwanese. I appreciated the nonlinear scenes which set a certain mood of tension, depression, tragedy and chaos. The opening scenes are slightly disorienting, which does a good job portraying what it likely felt to have your world torn asunder as you land on Green Island for a stint in prison.

The overall effect is one of an agglomeration of memories that come together to tell a whole story, but are experienced somewhat out of order, they way you might encounter it in nightmares and PTSD flashbacks. 

Other details lend authenticity: the fact that some of the inmates were indeed refugees from China themselves -- not everyone was from Taiwan, and not everyone was a leftist or home-rule advocate. The authorities running the prison slept with whatever female inmates took their fancy. That the guards were usually but not always cruel. Most people executed were chosen for political reasons, none got a fair trial, and many were hand-picked by Chiang Kai-shek to die.

Upside-down shots from the viewpoint of characters strung up by their legs also imply how justice was absolutely turned on its head: some (though not all) of the characters are actually guilty of the "crimes" they've been sent to Green Island for. The problem is, in any free country they would not be crimes at all. These "crimes" include being a member of a socialist organization, passing newspaper clippings to one another, and merely thinking Taiwan might be better off as an independent state. That they were crimes as defined by a monstrous government only means that justice had been turned asunder. Those that recognized this and suffered mental breakdowns over it were called "crazy". But of course, they were right.

Untold Herstory isn't exactly subtle on the imagery, but I didn't mind that. Every time some KMT officer was unusually cruel or hypocritical, an ROC flag, a picture of Sun Yat-sen or Chiang Kai-shek was prominently displayed in the frame. The music drove home the point. Sone lines -- "I'm not a Communist bandit, I'm just a Taiwanese ox!", "You are a spy if the Commander says you are a spy!" and the double-edged "how can a flag be just a rag?" were heartbreaking. 

And speaking of smiling in the photograph taken of you just before your execution as a form of rebellion? Well, that just broke me. It broke me. This did, too.

The scene at the end is all the more heartbreaking for being out of context and highly metaphorical: I won't spoil it, but someone in our group recognized scenes like these as a trope borrowed from Japanese films.

It was difficult to make Untold Herstory, and friends pointed out that it probably wouldn't have been made at all even 20 years ago. This was not just because society was perhaps not ready for it, but because the real women who lived these experiences did not want to talk about them, with reasonable justification. It's never easy to talk about that kind of pain.

This is why films like Untold Herstory and the book it's based on do need to be discussed in the present. They exist in living memory. They still affect society. And, after all, only those who want to protect the truly guilty -- the people who committed the White Terror which saw these women and so many others tortured and killed -- seem to think it should be "left in the past". 

They are wrong, so prove them wrong. Go see Untold Herstory. Learn about exactly what the KMT did in Taiwan, and why justice was never served, as those criminals were never truly punished for what they did to the people they imprisoned, both Taiwanese and Chinese. That those perpetrators of crimes against humanity -- and now their sons and grandsons, or "grandsons" -- are even still a political party disgusts me. The DPP needs meaningful opposition, but it shouldn't be a gaggle of mass murderers and their descendents.

Then get a drink afterward, because I promise you will not want to go directly home and stew in your thoughts. 

From all sides, the treatment of Kao Chia-yu has been deplorable

I don't have an appropriate cover photo so here's a picture.

"I was married before," she told me once. 

What followed was one of the most horrible stories to cross anyone's lips. I try not to tell too much of anyone else's story here, but this past week an old account hit the memory stratosphere, burning on re-entry.

Her boyfriend had been abusive while they were still dating, and threatened to kill her if she wouldn't agree to marry him. She didn't want to, and went to her father for advice. 

"Then you should marry him," he said, "because that must mean he really loves you."

She did. 

Of course it escalated. One day she simply had to leave. They divorced, and the whole town gave her the cold shoulder. She couldn't get a job or rent an apartment because she was a divorcée. Her family barely helped -- they didn't like the stigma, either. Even people who didn't know her would find out soon enough, she said, and it was usually the same:

"A man doesn't beat a good woman. What did you do to make him so violent?"

She didn't have the connections to legally change her household registration and set up a new life in a new town, and didn't want to try her luck as a domestic migrant worker without many legal rights.

Looking for any way out of her situation, she married my coworker, a foreigner who didn't care about her past. Or much of anything at all, it turns out: he'd crow proudly that she'd never leave him no matter how often he cheated on her (which was often -- he was well-known at the teahouses and barbershops). He'd announce his intentions to do just that and wander off while we (the only other foreigners in town, and we barely filled a four-top) stayed put at the riverside bar like respectable drunks. 

I told his wife what was up. She sighed and said she knew.

This happened in China -- a different country -- twenty years ago. I shouldn't have expected similar details to pop up in a story from the past week: Taiwan is a more progressive country than the one where this took place, and it is 2021. We know better. 

Why did I remember this story from so long ago?

Last week, legislator and former city councilor Kao Chia-yu 高嘉瑜 told the public her (presumably ex) boyfriend, public figure Raphael Lin 林秉樞, had subjected her to unconscionable abuse.

I won't recap Kao's account in this post. You can read about it here and here. There are a few things the English-language media mostly missed, however -- only the Taipei Times seems to have picked up some of it. First, that Lin made a concerted effort to silence Kao, saying "you know, I know and God knows, so...it doesn't exist" and threatening to derail her political career, using his network of business and political giants willing to "vouch for him". 

When it became clear she would not be silenced, he called up one of the political talk show hosts who frequently had him on the air, saying that people will forgive a person who apologizes and shows contrition, but won't forgive a "scumbag". Kao is not the first woman Lin has threatened.

That's not the only reason I remember this story, however. Another public figure in Taiwan had the audacity to say this:

A KMT Central Committee member said Legislator Kao Chia-yu deserved to be hit by her abusive boyfriend. I'm totally and completely speechless. pic.twitter.com/a9CnDoKYk2

— Leslie Liao (@AngryTaiwanman) November 30, 2021

The person saying it? KMT Central Committee member Huang Jinwei 黃覲偉. His more complete remarks can be found here (in Mandarin). Here's a screenshot from FTV:

My translation: "a woman who makes a man so angry he physically beats her really is such an ignorant person [this is also slang for a deliberate troll, troublemaker or drama-stirrer, especially online]. Especially her cheeks [slang for an irritating person]. But a woman named Tsai [that's President Tsai] who has never been hit by a man, isn't qualified to support her. A woman that no man wants is disgusting enough."

Of course, Huang was roundly criticized for his remarks. No emotionally healthy person could think they were anything other than deeply unacceptable as well as a sign that Huang is, bluntly, a misogynist.

How did he respond? By saying that she "deserved to be beaten".

This all happened about a week ago. Lin has been taken into custody. The KMT has come out to denounce Huang's remarks and insist that disciplinary action will take place. Huang himself has "apologized", saying his remarks were inappropriate and fully his responsibility and not in keeping with "the current state of gender relations" in Taiwan. He neither mentioned his misogynist treatment of Kao or Tsai specifically nor clarify what was unacceptable in his remarks. Nor did he express any sort of deeper understanding of why he was wrong. Essentially, it was an apology only in the most literal sense of the term (in which he issued a statement that contained vague language of regret and took personal responsibility, likely because he'd been ordered to do so). 

I couldn't help but think back to that time in the early 2000s when I met another woman who was told by an entire town that women get beaten only if they "deserve it". It was inappropriate then as now, and in the decades before. People knew that. 

This isn't a recent social revolution or some great change. It's not a culture difference either. In the mid-20th century, domestic abuse wasn't considered a crime so much as a "family matter" or even "therapeutic" (not joking) in the US, and presumably in Taiwan and China as well. The women it happened to generally knew it was wrong. 

Most people know it is wrong, and they have for awhile. There's nothing "current' about these fundamental social evolutions, in all countries. (I also note that Huang mentioned that "the two genders" should get along, but I don't exactly expect this sort of person to have a more enlightened view of gender identity). 

If the person I knew who suffered similar backlash from a less progressive society twenty years ago knew it was wrong then, then Huang should have known before he opened his big jerk mouth that it's wrong in Taiwan now. And it always was.

There is no apology that can erase that. There's nothing that makes it okay. It shows a fundamental problem with how he sees the world and specifically his attitudes towards women.

The only possible outcome is that Huang be dismissed. There's no forgiveness here: his remarks reveal a belief system totally out of sync with Taiwanese society and certainly not in tune with what his party needs to even begin to rehabilitate their image. I've been keeping my eye on the local news, and so far I've seen no evidence that any disciplinary actions have taken place. Promises, yes. Sent to the disciplinary committee? Sure. Action? Nothing yet. That man should not be on the central committee of any political party. I know one must be patient, but that man should already be gone.

What's worse, it seems the KMT's promise that such remarks do not reflect the party's own stance and are wholly Huang's responsibility don't mean much to other members of the KMT. 

As reported by FTV, KMT Youth League director and member of the Central Standing Committee of the KMT Tian Fang-lun 田方倫 asked "whether the case could be considered domestic violence if the couple is not married" and implied that a cohabiting intimate relationship was somehow different in terms of what and was not abuse.

Tian Fang-lun brands himself on Facebook as a "different kind of youth", which I guess is true in a sense.

City Councilor and all-around superwoman Miao Po-ya 苗博雅 shot back with something to the effect of "if you don't know what you're talking about maybe just shut up" (she said it a bit more diplomatically), and that these sort of "sloppy" comments actually target the victim even more, which perpetrates verbal abuse. 

I am extremely happy that Miao is one of the councilors from my district.

What I want to know, however, is why both Huang and Tian still appear to have jobs. It's unlikely that Huang will face any serious repercussions, as the KMT central committee is sending the case to the party's examination committee.

It's heartening that their comments have been met with near-universal condemnation. Taiwan is not a country where the social consensus is that domestic abuse is acceptable or a mere 'family matter' (although it does happen, at a rate higher than you'd likely expect from a country that seems so otherwise safe). 

But the fact that they could make those comments and -- despite promised disciplinary action -- drop out of the news cycle while perhaps getting a finger-wag from some buddy in their own party, shows there's a lot more progress to be made. 

I'm also somewhat pleased -- and a little surprised -- to see that most of the local media I've read on Kao's ordeal has reported it fairly straight, by local media standards. Including commentary that points out the way people like Huang and Tian engaged in victim-blaming and further harm to Kao is frankly kinder than I've seen the media be to her in some time, although I certainly won't be calling for any journalism awards.

The Internet commentariat, on the other hand, has been an entirely different beast. Yes, the worst offenders such as Huang were slapped down, but there's an entire board on PTT dedicated to treating Kao like garbage. I don't know whether that falls under 'free speech' or not, but despite most Taiwanese believing domestic violence is a problem in their country, that such ideas still fester in its underbelly (much as they do in the US) is its own problem.

In the past, they spent a lot of time dallying on really unimportant aspects of her political career, which Donovan Smith of Taiwan Report covers in more detail here (it starts after the pig innard extravaganza, about 2/3 of the way through) and here. She's also been one of the people targeted with deepfake porn. I'd like to say more about media and personal representation of Taiwanese women in politics here, but I think that's fodder for another post.

This past week has been perhaps a little better in terms of responsible media coverage, but that's quite a low bar to hop over. Nobody is vaulting.

Kao deserves better, the voters deserve better, the media can do better, and Taiwan knows better. 

Do Western women in Taiwan want "any white f---er who pops along"? No, so don't stereotype.

Consider these two facts:

There are more foreign women than men in Taiwan. Mostly, they're from Southeast Asia or China and either married to Taiwanese men or working, often as domestic and health aides.

The opposite is true of "foreign professionals" -- they're not all Western, but the vast majority are male. 

Add to that two observations: first, the two communities don't intermingle much, even when it would be beneficial (say, foreign professionals showing up to support foreign blue-collar workers in seeking better labor conditions). Second, while there are social media groups for foreign women in Taiwan, they trend heavily towards heteronormativity. I've heard firsthand complaints from women who don't always fit into expected boxes that there aren't many welcoming spaces for them.

When it comes to love, dating and sex, this is a problem. There just aren't that many of us. In my observation, that means our own perspectives and experiences are simply not heard as much. It also means that there's a subset of expat men who fill that void with pretty brutal stereotypes: that we're all sexless hags (don't click that link, it might be the worst blog post I've ever read and honestly any decent person would take it down). That we're begging for anything we can get, that we're desperate and unwanted, that it's best not to talk to any Western women you aren't interested in. That we're all straight and cis, that we don't date Taiwanese men. Or that it's okay to treat any woman you deem "unfuckable" like garbage. 

Each and every one of these assumptions is wrong. 

Every once in awhile, I even come across someone assuming I'm single (and bitter, angry, desperate etc. etc.) simply because I'm an outspoken Western woman in Asia. This amuses me, considering how public I am about having been married for quite some time. We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last year. 

I've written on this topic before but intended to do a new post with more diverse voices for quite some time. So I asked around and found a few women willing to tell their stories, with their full editorial control. Everything here is published with active consent. Together, they dispel the notion that there is any one narrative that can be applied to all of us. Our experiences are varied and unique. They're occasionally heartbreaking or preposterous. They're often fulfilling and fun. They're often far more positive than the stereotypes would have you believe -- and from what these women have said, they're getting it more and better than a lot of the sadsack men filling up the bars we don't go to because we don't need their negative bullshit. 

The best way to learn about what life is like for a community of people is to spend time with them, and hear what they have to say if they're willing to talk. It's not to take generalizations you've already made and apply it to everybody. So, I'll stop here and let the stories stand on their own. 

From "Uma", in an open relationship:

I moved here ahead of my husband to get us set up here — I didn’t come with a job or recruitment or anything like that, and my husband had some things to do in the US. We have an open relationship, so I’d meet people through social events and had an online dating profile. I also hooked up with a few women, sometimes in a group situation. I remember early on before my husband arrived thinking, because he is a great lover — very considerate, doesn’t make assumptions about what someone does or doesn’t want, in touch and likes to please — I couldn’t wait to introduce some of these women to him so they could have that great experience too.


I had some interesting and fun experiences. Most were with other Westerners, though there were some Asian-Americans. No Taiwanese men, which is unfortunate. I think people who say “I’m just not attracted to Asian men” — well, you can say you’ve never been attracted to one before, that’s just telling your story. But to dismiss all of them as a class? If you only feel attracted to certain body types or races, I wonder what your media consumption has been like? If you’ve mostly only ever shown white men and maybe a couple of black men in sexual situations, then yeah, you’re probably going to believe you’re attracted to one type. Or you’ve mostly been shown a narrow stereotype of diverse Asian men.

It’s the same for women’s bodies: if you are only exposed to one type portrayed sexually you’re likely to think you’re only attracted to that type. “What you like” can change if you want. 

Anyway, I had a really good thing going with one Asian-American guy. It was hot chemistry and we were getting into all the kinky stuff you don’t really talk about on those first date like bondage, penetrating him, stuff like that. We both agreed we’d enjoy it until we stopped feeling it, and that’s exactly what happened. It was all healthy, safe, respectful.  


At one point my husband and I had a girlfriend. Some people would say crappy things like “oh, she’s your plaything,” but she was our girlfriend for nearly two years; we were all important to each other and emotionally invested in our relationship. It was hard for all of us when that ended, truly. 


The main thing I want to say is that dating can be hard anywhere — that would be true in Taipei, Tokyo, Paris, New York. I don’t think it’s especially harder because we’re in Taiwan except where we close ourselves off. My sex life here has been vibrant, exciting, passionate, and fulfilling. 

The only personal downside is that, since we don't live in Taipei, you do have to make social things happen in your local community. 

And there are some shitty men — I agree it’s harder to avoid them when you don’t live in Taipei. Entitled sexists, racists, you see a lot of alcohol abuse especially if someone doesn’t have a robust local community or support system. There have been times I’ve wanted to tell them off them but I hate to admit I moderate myself, knowing I’ll see them at the next beach party. I don’t say outright that I think they’re garbage people but it probably shows on my face! I hate this feeling afraid to affirm their stupid stereotypes toward Western women in Taiwan, even though I know it’s ridiculous — like if I get mad, I’m just another “bitter angry white woman.” I just “need to get laid” or “don’t have a sense of humor.” I get laid and laugh plenty and well. Maybe you’re just a lazy, entitled bigot?

 I’m not interested in those men. 

That white Western entitlement, the sort of fat-phobic misogyny that Buxom Babe Abroad has experienced, or the stereotyping they do of Western women where they think we’re sad losers and they’re kings…I mean that’s a boner-killer for me. I don’t want that, nobody with any self-respect wants that, but they think we’re desperate because we don't want THEM? Taiwan deserves better than that.  I may not have experienced it in the same way as Buxom Babe because we have different bodies [ed: this person is white and on the slimmer side] but I know the attitude well.


This stereotype some Western men have in Taiwan that Western women are all bitter, angry, desperate — it’s not true. At least for me, I couldn’t be happier or more satisfied. 

From "Emma", a lesbian woman in a relationship:

I came out fairly late, in my 20s, and actually moved to Taiwan for a girl. I was living in South Korea, and in the town where I lived, there wasn’t much of a gay scene — in fact we’d always complain about just how hard it was to be gay in that society. 

I basically scoured a popular dating site and was talking to someone in Taiwan. I came to Taiwan on vacation to see her, and I just felt this was a much more chill place. I eventually moved here, though that relationship turned out to be somewhat toxic. She was very family-oriented, though she wasn’t out to her family. I felt like she always wanted a lot from me, but didn’t have any time for me. For example, she would get mad that I didn’t wish her father a happy Father’s Day even though he’s not my father, and he didn’t know we were together. She also had a very serious personality. I think she’s abroad now, but anyway that didn’t last. 

After that I dated another woman, who was more into partying — specifically the EDM scene. We’d go to a lot of shows, festivals and clubs together. When her mom called, she’d have me put on music or something and tell her she was at a cafe with friends. That was actually a lot of fun, but she had a bit of a hard time being serious or taking us seriously. It didn’t last very long, but I have to say it was a lot of fun! 

My current girlfriend is a good mix of the two types — she can be a homebody but will go out if there’s a reason to go out. She’s not out to her whole family yet, but her sister knows. Her mother only knows me as her daughter’s “foreign friend”, or that we live together. This is the first relationship I’ve had here where my girlfriend didn’t live with her parents. She’s planning to come out eventually, so we’ll see where that goes. We’ve been together for more than three years, and we just moved in together recently. So we’re not close to marriage or anything like that yet, though I’m happy it’s legal and possible here. I suppose whenever we do meet, they won’t expect me to be like a typical man in a relationship with their daughter, because I’m very obviously not that at all. 



We met on a dating app, which I think everyone does these days. It feels like that’s the easiest way to do it. I did try to go to some lesbian events or bars here, but there just aren’t many bars or specific lesbian spaces, especially compared to what’s on offer for gay men. There are events, though. It feels like that everywhere: all these offerings for gay men — bars, events, parties, nightlife — and not nearly as many for lesbians. We’ve all heard the jokes, but seriously, I do wonder if lesbians just don’t go out enough to support more robust nightlife? They seem to be into more intellectual things like book clubs, but that’s conducive to, you know, friend groups, not necessarily dating. And when there are events or bars, it feels like Ts and Ps hooking up (’T’ for tomboy, ‘P’ for ‘po’ or a feminine lesbian), and it’s like — you’re either one or the other, and there’s not a lot in between. I do see couples where they’re both one or the other, but it’s not very common. 



Our first year together was wonderful. She stayed at my place usually, because hers was really small. The second was really tumultuous, but we got counseling and that helped a lot. So now, we still have our ups and downs but we’re much better at communicating and the ups and downs are on an upward trajectory, so I’m hopeful about that. It’s interesting because I just mentioned that binary of two types of lesbian women in Taiwan, but I’m clearly neither — not too tomboyish, not too feminine — and my girlfriend looks like a tomboy but if you get to know her, she has a really feminine personality. 



So for me, Taiwan is home. I don’t see any benefit to returning to my home country, and my partner is from here, so obviously this is home for her. And I really like it here, so although I worry about long-term prospects, like health and property ownership, it’s hard to see that far into the future but it makes sense for now.

I used to be way more into nightlife, but COVID has kept me away. 

I stay away from a lot of the expat spots because it does just seem to be weird old white men spouting bullshit, and I don’t really want to be around that. There does seem to be an attitude where they think we all want them, but I definitely don’t — like I’m incapable of it. 

I used to go to more things — I even went to a “find a wife" party for lesbian women once, though I was basically the only foreigner there. I spent a lot of time with another girl at that party, so I was disappointed that we didn’t go home together. 

I do see more white male-Taiwanese female relationships but, eh. I mean there are also just a lot more Western men here than women. I’m not sure why that is, but the disparity in who you see in relationships could be impacted by that. 

It’s just wrong to say Western women are all sad sacks here, and anyway it assumes we’re all straight. 

I’m pretty hopeful. Since my girlfriend and I just moved in together, there’s been some adjustment. She’s a huge neatnik, and she had to get used to my cats. One of them ate her plant, I bought her two new plants to make up for it. But, you know, that’s how it is when you first move in together. She loves my cats now and it’s going really well. We dated for over 3 years before moving in together, so we defied the old “U-haul” stereotype.

From "Alice", a woman of color who dated in Taiwan before getting into a long-distance relationship:

I’ve lived in Taiwan for about four years on and off — I went back to my home country for awhile for family reasons — and had lived in another Asian country before coming here. I really like Taiwan, but I was the only foreign teacher at my school in the other country so I didn’t have to put up with too much entitled white male behavior. 



Here, I have a lot of white male colleagues who are married to Taiwanese women, and they complain at work about how bad their relationship is, their personal lives seem to be a mess. And I think ‘you chose this person, and all you do is complain about them? And you act all entitled — maybe your relationship is terrible because you’re terrible.’ 

It’s certainly not all Taiwanese women, but there’s a subset who will maybe look for white guys to date just because they’re white, and those are the women these guys often date or marry, and then they say ‘oh Taiwanese women are crazy’ or ‘she’s crazy’ or ‘women are crazy’ but no — you’re crazy and she’s crazy and crazy found each other.

The problem is, white guys are also the only guys I’ve really dated in Taiwan. As a foreign woman who isn’t white, Taiwanese guys don’t seem that interested, or they hit on me but it’s clearly not serious. 

Basically, the white guys seem to be the only ones willing to look outside their own community to date. But it’s too bad, because the selection isn’t great. A lot of those guys come here to cash in their white privilege and coast, they half-ass it at work and assume they won’t get called out for it, they might not even be qualified for their jobs, and they talk like they’re these studs who can do anything and get anyone. It’s gross. 



And I don't like that it's so racialized -- as a foreign woman of color, I don't want to just date white guys. Where I'm from, sure, people might make friends along cultural, class, professional or education lines. And that's not great either, there are still boundaries [where perhaps there should not be]. But I generally didn’t feel I was only able to make friends with people who looked like me. 

There was one guy who told me he’d dated a lot of different women in the past year, and I figured ‘ok so he’s that sort of guy, I’m not into that’ so I turned him down. I didn’t tell him that was why I said no, though.

 When I first got here I dated around a bit, there were some casual no-strings things which basically ended with good feelings, because they weren’t that serious. 

After I came back to Taiwan I decided to just not date for awhile. That was great, actually! I was so happy, I felt good, emotionally healthy. I was in a really good place. So of course I made the typical mistake: I figured I was really feeling great, in a fantastic place in my life, so why not date someone? And I’ll attract better people too because I do feel confident and happy with myself. 

So I met someone through mutual friends. We got along really well, but didn’t trade contacts when we first met. I ran into him again — you know how in Taiwan every foreigner is maybe two degrees separated from everyone else — and this time we did decide to give it a try. He was a part of a very strong community with deep cultural ties, but he didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t from that community. We got along so well.



Then, not long after we started dating he broke up with me, saying he only wanted a partner from that community. I thought that was a bullshit excuse: he knew who I was before we started dating, it wasn’t a secret, so why go down that road? It seemed like this was his key, his ‘get out of jail free’ card where he could just pull this excuse whenever he wanted. I was a little pissed. I asked him why he didn’t just date women he’d actually partner with and he said he didn’t want to do that here and never dated those women. So basically he was dating women from outside and giving himself this pass to just not tell them this belief until he’s ready to hop out. 

It didn’t last long, though it was very intense. 

Anyway, maybe we’ll be friends someday because we got along so well, but for now there’s still some chemistry there. 

What’s funny is that I started dating another guy from the same community. I hadn't intended to, actually, I’d swiped left on his profile on a dating app because I felt like I'd been there, done that -- I didn't want someone pulling the same thing on me. But he assured me he wasn't like that, and we went out for awhile. 

Partly we broke up because of the soft lockdown. it was too hard to see each other and honestly, I felt he just wasn't making nearly enough of an effort. Then he pulled the same crap — “I want to date someone from my community” and I did think, “you say you’re different but honestly you two are exactly the same. I’ve already been through this, so I don't want to hear it, bye.” 


Plus, he always wanted me to go to events and such with this group, and I kept saying no, because my ex would be there, and I just wasn’t gonna do that. And even if I did, I’d end up looking like a crazy stalker lady who hunted down some other guy to date so I could get invited and stalk my ex, even if it’s not like that at all — so, just no. 



I did go back to the my home country over the summer because I hadn’t seen my family in awhile. I got on another dating app just to meet people, and I ended up meeting someone I really clicked with. What I liked about those dates was how diverse it was; it wasn’t just white guys, or Asian guys. And I think that’s how dating could be, and I wasn’t getting it in Taiwan. 

Neither me nor the guy I met wanted to do long distance, but I had to come back, so we’re trying it. I’ll probably leave Taiwan next summer though, I think I’m ready to go. 

He’s open to living abroad for awhile, and I do love Taiwan, but we’d have to think about job opportunities for him. I don’t know, we’ll see. It would be cool to come back together, perhaps. 

And I found I appreciated dating someone who had a similar cultural background as me. He grew up in my home country although he’s not white either. I didn’t date Taiwanese guys because they didn’t seem interested in me, but I would have dated a Taiwanese American. Having that cultural connection is just one less thing, one less barrier, that you need to worry about and I’ve learned I value that. 


Finally, from "Olivia", a married bisexual woman:

When I first got here I was in one of those relationships that really needed to end. We loved each other and we just couldn’t break up, but we needed to. So we tried to be long distance, and then one day she suggested trying an open relationship. We all know where that goes — that’s the end. 

I decided to just enjoy being single and date around. If you just want to fuck, that’s easy. People think it’s hard to find someone to fuck if you’re a bigger girl, but it’s not really. I never had a problem. But in the past I was always ‘in a relationship’, I was never single for long, so I was using this time to enjoy seeing multiple people non-exclusively. That could be a lot of fun, but it could also be pretty weird — I brought one guy home and he said ‘oh, you have a cat’. I asked him if that was okay, if he was allergic or anything like that, and he assured me he wasn’t. So afterwards, I look at him and he’s breaking out in hives. It turns out he was deathly allergic to cats, but he wanted to get laid so bad that he pretended not to be. He asked me to go to the hospital with him, but I barely knew the guy! 

Another time, I dated this taller guy. My apartment wasn’t very comfortable, so he invited me to his place next time. I got there and he said ‘oh my girlfriend will be here soon’. I was pissed! He kept saying ‘no, no, she’s really cute, you’ll love her’ but I felt like this was a unicorn hunt — like thinking being bi means you’re up for anything including getting together with a couple, but you’re not exactly asked first. I said, well, let’s go to 7-11 first and have a few drinks, but they started fighting in the store so I left. The girlfriend actually chased after me, and they got really weird about it so I just left. 

I dated a Taiwanese guy who turned out to have serious issues. We were together for a year, and lived together. He’d get really suspicious of everything, including accusing me of infidelity at times when he was there to see that nothing had happened. He would claim he was getting treatment then the same shit happened again, so that was that. 

After that I dated mostly expats for awhile, though not always Westerners. One Chinese-Malaysian guy came over, but before we could get down to business he said something like ‘the problem with Malaysia is all the Malaysians’ so I kicked him out immediately. 

Then there were some really strange ones. I dated a guy I thought was really cool for awhile, though deep down something seemed off. He rarely stayed over, and something just seemed…sus. Well, I found out eventually that had been dating — in fact, he was engaged to! — my coworker, someone I literally sat next to at work! He hadn’t realized we were coworkers. She initially broke up with him but eventually took him back. And yet he sent me long, incoherent messages for awhile, until I blocked him. 

Then there was the guy who really wanted to try group sex. It was just something he was desperate to experience. I said yes to this, and we got a suite at a nice hotel with a few other curious couples. Well, it turned out that basically everyone there was straight but me! The thing is, the two other women were curious about what it was like to be with a woman, and their partners were fine with them trying it out with me, and I was into it. But this guy was so pissed that this whole orgy thing he’d organized wasn’t all about him and his dick. 

There were a few others, but eventually I met my husband through mutual friends, so that’s all in the past now. But this idea that Western women are these sex-starved harpies who want to snatch the D from any white fucker who pops along…no, not really. At least not in my experience. That’s some bullshit they tell themselves.

Someday I'll likely do another one of these -- a Part III, if you will. A trilogy. I hope you've enjoyed the details and learned something about not stereotyping Western women in Taiwan. And please, please remember that we are truly not desperate hags gagging for, ahem, any white fucker who pops along. 

We're just not. Good night.