We all know how this ends: a howl for Hong Kong and Taiwan

Support rally for Hong Kong in Taipei in mid-June

A lot of op-eds and thinkpieces have come out recently regarding the events in Hong Kong and Taiwan's status - in fact, one side benefit for Taiwan (other than a boost for President Tsai) is that the turmoil in Hong Kong is causing the world to also take a closer look at Taiwan. I may blast the international media for not getting Taiwan 'right' (and they often don't, even the most well-intentioned among them), but these past few weeks, journalists who aim to raise awareness about Taiwan to the world have really come out in force to tie the two issues together, and I am grateful for that.

Instead of linking throughout the piece, let me draw your attention to some of this excellent work:

Taiwan's Status is a Political Absurdity
Wishful Thinking and the China Threat
Hong Kong Has Nothing Left To Lose
Support for Hong Kong rises in Taiwan amid fears for a future under Beijing's rule
Hong Kong And Taiwan Are Bonding Over China (in fact they've been close since 2014 but nobody in the international media cared until a few weeks ago)
Hong Kong's Desperate Cry

...and more.

All I could think while I read this excellent work were of two things I experienced recently. First, at the 'support Hong Kong' rally outside the Legislative Yuan, one of the speakers quoted Dylan Thomas - slightly out of context but I'm cool with it - exhorting us to "rage against the dying of the light".

And another context, over a week later, in which a friend made me her plus-one to a reception at AIT and I told some random employee quite directly that it was time to officially recognize Taiwan - not as the Republic of China but as Taiwan. He wasn't wrong when he mentioned anger from China, or that the US does do what it can (generally, depending on whose in charge). But I said to him:

"Look, you know where this ends, right?"
Random Guy: ...
"You know this ends in war."

And that's just it - all I can see in Hong Kong's future is bleakness. War, massacre or the dying of the light. I don't predict a much brighter future for Taiwan, though at least there's a sliver of hope remaining.

I mean, pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong should not back down, and will not back down. There is no legal pathway for Hong Kong to go from where they are now to full democracy, and the protesters realize this means civil disobedience is necessary (I have a link for this as I'm not the only one who's had this idea, but I can't find it). In any case, if you accept that there is in fact a 'right' and a 'wrong' here and those who want greater freedom and autonomy for Hong Kong are right, they should not back down: Carrie Lam, LegCo and their Beijing handlers should. It's not the protesters' job to ensure peace - it's their job to fight for what's right. Peace will come when the bad guys stop being bad.

But that's not going to happen.

It's even worse than that - the anger here isn't just over the extradition bill. Withdrawing it won't fix the problem.

The problem is that what Hong Kongers want - as a general consensus - is actual democracy and a greater degree of sustained and guaranteed autonomy (with a vocal subset wanting full independence). And that is like oil to Beijing's water. Worse still, there is no emulsifying agreement in the world that could make them mix. This isn't just because democracy anywhere on Chinese soil (or on claimed Chinese soil) scares Beijing as it might give their own citizens ideas they find unacceptable, but also because they fundamentally don't understand why it should matter. They just don't see why Hong Kongers should need or want it. They have no intention of negotiating an agreement that gives Hong Kong real democracy and human rights, let alone allowing such a system in perpetuity - and yet that's exactly what Hong Kong wants. And nothing less will do, because anything less is not democracy or human rights, period.

And in 27 years, these two notions of how a country should be are headed for a game of chicken, with millions of lives at stake - with no real middle ground for negotiation. Either you have a democratic system with a trustworthy assurance that it will not be eroded, or you don't. There is no universe in which the CCP has power and is willing to offer that assurance.

I mean, look at who the pro-democracy forces are talking to - a leader who cries more over broken glass and spray paint than people who actually died, and is now presiding over the widespread arrests of demonstrators, and a huge government that once rolled over their own people with tanks, is in the midst of a literal genocide in Xinjiang, and will do it all again if they can get away with it because they fundamentally don't see what's wrong with any of it.

So when you've got one side that isn't going to readily accept anything less than this, and another (more powerful) side that doesn't even see why it should be considered important, and the second side basically owns the first...well. None of the thinkpieces on Hong Kong want to go that far or say the words, but come on. We know where that ends.

All I can say is I don't know what the UK was thinking when it assumed that 50 years - or any number of years - would be an acceptable period of time in which to convince an entire city that the democratic norms they never really had but do want were not necessary, and that it would be acceptable to let a regime like the CCP determine Hong Kong's future. They had to know that at the end of the One Country Two Systems timeline, that Hong Kongers wouldn't be clamoring to give up what limited rights and freedoms they had to be more like the rest of China. Was the UK really that shortsighted - thinking it was doing the right thing by giving up its colonial rule to deliver Hong Kong to an even worse master?

(Yes.)

Is there any way to stop the inevitable? Perhaps if the world does more than pledge verbal support to Hong Kong and actually does something to make China feel a bit of pain - though probably not. I don't think any country is willing to actually send in troops to stop the slow erosion of Hong Kong, when the process by which it is happening is entirely legal and was in fact somewhat negotiated. I also somewhat doubt that they'd put the economic screws to China, because it'd blow back on their economies as well. If there's one thing I've learned in the 21st century, it's that even when it might be effective, wealthy countries are terrified of doing anything that might cause economic discomfort.

It's not much different for Taiwan. We know where that ends too.

China's not going to stop insisting on annexation, and Taiwan is just going to move further away from China. There's no common ground there either: either Taiwan is sovereign, or it isn't. Either Taiwan has a real democracy with real democratic norms and rights, or it doesn't. China can promise this under a unification framework, but it doesn't understand why it should have to keep such a promise. Beijing either genuinely can't tell the difference between a "democracy" in which all candidates are pre-approved by the CCP and other freedoms or limited, or they don't care, and they're not exactly known for keeping promises, so there is no incentive to follow through in good faith.

So what happens to Taiwan when China finally has the wherewithal to actually force the issue? Does Taiwan fight and hold off the first wave, only to possibly/probably lose later? Does it become a protracted bloodbath not unlike Syria, because annexation isn't exactly an over-and-done deal and Taiwan is more of a poison pill than an easily-subjugated territory? What happens if a future KMT president tries to ram through a "peace treaty" the way they tried to ram through CSSTA? Do we have another Sunflower Movement, except bigger and with escalating police violence this time?

What happens when Taiwan and the world fully wake up to what many of us have known for awhile: that there is no middle ground that can be negotiated with China? That there is no "you two sides have to settle this peacefully", because one side cannot be trusted?

Does the world step in?

Because "we're doing what we can" (under current frameworks, agreements, treaties etc. that are in place) isn't exactly reassuring. When we're down to the wire and troops are rolling in, do you do something or not?

If we don't do anything - if we cry and wail and make verbal statements of support, or "talk behind closed doors" (or even open doors) but don't actually lift a finger, if you're afraid to even wobble the economy just a little bit...where does it end?

Does it end with a victorious Taiwan, sovereign and rejoicing that it fought off a massive enemy on its own?

Does it end with a victorious Hong Kong, with true, full democracy and all the rights and freedoms that implies?

Does it end with a free world that can co-exist peacefully with China, their raging expansionism sated? A world free of debt traps, Chinese-owned transport infrastructure that is never held hostage whenever China wants something from the country that infrastructure is in, and technological infrastructure that is safe for the world to use?

Obviously not.

When we say "well, we're doing what we can...it's complicated...I mean, Hong Kong is a part of China...we know Taiwan deserves better but China might get angry...I mean, it's tough to do anything about those concentration camps" and pretend that that is sufficient, we all know how this ends.

When we try to talk about these issues as though it's still acceptable to kick this can down the road - okay you guys, just sit in the morass for awhile because cleaning up the morass would make Beijing angry, eventually we'll figure out how to drain it even though Beijing is opposed to every form of drainage system that works - we know how this ends.

I know that's been how tricky diplomacy has worked for decades - just find a way to put it off until later, even if the people who actually live there have to exist in an anxious limbo for generations - and I'm not the first person to have this thought. But it's not going to keep working. So why are we letting the ghosts of the '80s and '90s try to convince us that it will?

When we pretend that short-term band-aids can fix long-term disagreements, and pretend that there is always a middle ground if we just "keep talking" until we find it, and keep telling the good guys to "just wait" because the bad guys need to "agree" to a solution, when we pretend that the only 'evil' or colonial powers in the world are Western ones, and when we pretend that an oppressive authoritarian regime might possibly - with the right negotiations - be acceptable someday to people in freer places like Hong Kong and Taiwan, or that Beijing is interested in working towards an acceptable solution at all...

...well, we all know how this ends.

Don't pretend that the rest of the world can decline to step in and there will still be a happy ending. Don't pretend that China is actually interested in any sort of happy ending that doesn't result in them getting everything they want, regardless of what others want.

So gird your loins, folks. It might be taboo to give voice to what we're all actually worried about - to say "this could be another Tiananmen, or another Syria, or worse", but...

...unless we make Beijing back down now and stop pretending a compromise exists, that's where it ends and you know it.  

Book Review: The Astonishing Color of After

The Astonishing Color of After
Emily X.R. Pan


I like to situate my book reviews in the real world - whatever is going on in my life, I try if possible to relate it to what I've read. I do this because I'm not a professional book reviewer, and I want to offer something more unique than a bog-standard review you might read in a newspaper.

As it so happens, I read The Astonishing Color of After - which deals with depression and suicide - during a time when I was (am?) coping with anxiety, mostly related to graduate school. I don't have depression - anxiety is not the same thing - but what drew me in was a line towards the beginning of the novel - the colors around me were all wrong. I was lucky, if only because I was able to see that something was wrong in time to seek professional advice (it turns out that my case is mild and I don't really need anti-anxiety medication if I make a few lifestyle changes - breathing exercises, no social media before bed, that sort of thing). But what really helped me connect with this novel was realizing that while I'd always known intellectually that sometimes brains just don't work the way they're supposed to, I hadn't really understood personally - viscerally - what that could be like, even mildly. Now I do.

The Astonishing Color of After is, theoretically, YA (Young Adult) literature. The writing style is fairly straightforward, the first-person viewpoint character is a teenager dealing with teenage issues and it fits nicely alongside other YA classics. Because of this - and despite it being quite fat - it's a quick read for adults. I didn't realize that when I picked it up, but I'm happy things shook out that way - I'd just finished my dissertation proposal and needed some mental rest with easier prose. It surprises me that it doesn't seem as though this novel has gotten a lot of press among English-speaking Taiwan bibliophiles. I knew when Green Island, Lord of Formosa, My Enemy's Cherry Tree and Wedding in Autumn all came out, but hadn't heard of this book until I came across a copy at eslite. It's a shame, too - YA literature about Taiwan that can be enjoyed by anyone, even if they have no connection to Taiwan, is a niche that needs filling. That kind of soft power helps.

That said, because the narrator is a 15-year-old girl, the prose is written a bit too...muchly. There's explicitness where something might be implied, melodrama where subtlety and implication would suffice. It works, though - the story is told as a 15-year-old might tell it. You can almost envision what the journal entries of the narrator would be like.

Without spoiling too much, the story follows Leigh Chen Sanders, 15-year-old American-raised daughter of Dory Chen and Brian Sanders. When her mother, Dory, commits suicide, Leigh is convinced she's turned into a huge red bird, and eventually seeks answers to her mother's family history in Taiwan. Leigh not only grapples with her mother's death, family secrets and feeling lost in an unfamiliar country, but a father who can barely cope himself as well as a very common teen issue: wanting to do something creative with your life as one of your parents pushes you down a practical path that you are entirely unsuited for.

This struck home for me too. I'm not a teenager anymore, and I'm not in a 'creative' profession (writing is a hobby, not a consistent income source). But along with my dissertation, I've been grappling with exactly why I chose to become a teacher when I don't feel the money I earn really justifies my choice (and don't always feel appreciated in a professional capacity either). I know people think foreign teachers out-earn other professions here, but that's really only true early on. When you hit your thirties, gain experience and professional development and credentials, you start to notice that if you'd gone to work for some corporate machine you'd be earning more by now. But, as with art or music, there are other reasons to choose teaching.

Taipei is rendered as accurately - if generically - as post-smartphone suburban America, and the story is deeply engaging. Pan does a great job of narrating the difficulties Leigh has with Mandarin - a language she is familiar with but doesn't really speak and can't read at all - and Taiwanese, which is incomprehensible to her. The flourish of her Taiwanese mother not really wanting to return to Asia despite her American father being keen do to so - and that same American father speaking and writing fluent Mandarin as his Taiwanese wife avoids her native language - presents a flourish to the story that upends stereotypes readers may have. Frankly speaking, it's a circumstance I've seen play out in real life, and it was interesting seeing it depicted in fiction. It reminded me of how my own grandfather, himself not a native speaker of English, purposefully never taught any of his children Western Armenian. As a result, I never learned it either.

I'm of two minds about Pan's depiction of Taipei. Everything was accurate - the alleys, the doors, the weather, the parks, the house slippers, the apartment shrines, the shops and temples. The depiction of supernatural events fits fairly well within Taiwanese religious beliefs, and the touch that Leigh's mother would visit both a Taoist and a Buddhist temple and not see any problem with that sort of syncretic belief (a fairly common thing to do in Taiwan) was a thoughtful flourish. Leigh's grandparents could be any number of older couples in Taipei city.

But...but. I wish she'd been more specific. Which street with brick arches did she reference? Was it Dihua Street? If so, the temple she described looks nothing like the most famous temple on that street. Was it Longshan Temple? It could have been. But if so, what street? What neighborhood did the Chens live in? Which spot on the North Coast did they actually go to? (Jiufen is referenced but then not much more is said about it or what the scenery is like.) One thing I love when reading novels that take place partly or entirely in Taipei is reading about the author's description of very specific places that I can go visit, if I like. When Pai Hsien-yung talks about Longjiang Road and a park which is obviously 228, I have specific mental images I can conjure up to give life to the story. There's something to be said for referencing a generic residential lane, a generic neighborhood park - the Chens could be anyone and there's literary merit to that - but I like my fictional Taipei to be grounded in a reality that I can personally reference.

I was intrigued by the very common Taiwanese family story of the Chens - a grandmother born in Taiwan and growing up in poverty, and a grandfather who came with the ROC military from China. Leigh's grandmother speaks Mandarin and Taiwanese (her grandfather's linguistic background is less clear). When we start to see flashbacks of Leigh's mother's life in Taiwan, one reference concerns her marrying someone "Chinese" (me: not Taiwanese?) but later that's references as "Chinese or Taiwanese". Which...huh.

There's a lot of digging that could be done into family political dynamics there, a lot of engagement in that particular issue that Pan - and by extension Leigh - could have pursued. But it's left there; there's no further discussion of issues of Taiwanese linguistic, historical or cultural identity. I suppose that'd be a bit much for a YA novel not necessarily marketed only to readers familiar with Taiwan, but it would have been interesting to explore.

Where the novel does a little better is discussing Taiwanese religious beliefs and superstitions, especially regarding ghosts and the afterlife, and Ghost Month in particular. Although I wish the novel had actually gone to Keelung for Ghost Month after explicitly referencing it, beliefs about ghosts roaming the earth and burning items for them to use in the afterlife, I think foreign readers will find these descriptions interesting.

All in all I'm happy I read The Astonishing Color of After, especially when I did. Its ideas and plot threads came through at a time when they could resonate especially strongly for me, and its clear prose was an inviting fictional place for my mind to escape to when it very much needed an escape.

Even better? I think you can still buy it at eslite!

The kids are all right

Yes, it's been almost two weeks since I've updated, and no, it wasn't planned. I just really had to get my dissertation proposal in. I was going to jump back into blogging with a few restaurant reviews, a few long-overdue trip reports, a book review...you know, the sorts of things that a person who's just spent the past two weeks deeply stressed out might post. But no, some kids in Kaohsiung decided to be awesome, and now that has to come first.

I have a jumble of thoughts about these kids - who are old enough to have been my kids in a very different timeline, which is super weird because I totally want to buy each of them a Taiwan Beer like an old friend or Cool Aunt. I love how creative they are, how willing they are to take public risks to say what they think, and how thoughtful and full of integrity they are at that age. How civil the points they are making are - there is nothing uncivil about telling the mayor to finish his term, or pointing out that he lies. He does lie. It's speaking truth to power at an admirably young age.

I mean, damn - I was a total dipshit at 17. To be honest, I'm jealous. If these are our future leaders, we're going to be okay.

My first thought is that if we can keep Taiwan safe - as in, still a functioning democracy and not sold out to China - long enough for this generation and their immediate elders (think Millenial Taiwanese) to be the most influential voting block, then Taiwan will be just fine. A large enough percentage of them are smart enough to see Chinese media infiltration and other nefarious tricks for what they are, and showed up in droves (tens of thousands, not thousands) to protest it. They understand what equal rights really means and are willing to put in the time to physically show up and voice their discontent.

In fact, their way of protesting Mayor Han was creative and ballsy enough, clear and concise yet civilized, that Taiwanese civil life will be made better as more of them grow up to be activists and public figures, or start otherwise contributing to the discourse here. They are quite literally doing what their parents and grandparents won't, seeing things their ancestors are too naive (or wrongheaded, or brainwashed) to see, and noticing that if a public protest against Han is going to be lodged, they're the ones who have to do it. They're doing what their elders should be doing - but aren't - as it becomes clearer that Han is a Manchurian candidate, with a whole host of undesirable puppet masters.

They know the pro-Han, pro-China, pro-KMT media won't report on their rebellion, but they also know their parents and grandparents will be in the audience or see those photos. They're aiming their protest not just at the media, at Han, and Taiwan at large, but at their own elders, in such a way that they can't look away or ignore it. That's just smart.

That's the thing, though - China knows this. The KMT knows this. The unholy China-KMT Union (yes, it is a thing, don't pretend you don't know) knows this. They are perfectly well aware that they will never, ever win the hearts and minds of the youth, so the plan is to rip the carpet out from under the youth before they gain enough political power to stop it. The war (yes, it is a war - yet again, don't pretend you don't know) is escalating because they know their window of potential victory narrows every time an easily-manipulated older person dies, and a more attuned one gets the right to vote. They need to destroy Taiwan's democratic norms and will to resist before that happens, and frankly, we're not fighting back fast enough.

That's not to say every older person is 'easily manipulated', but enough of them are that it's a real problem, and China is absolutely seizing on it.

My next thought concerns this response from Han, from the Taipei Times link above:

“I think it is a great thing when young people speak their mind,” Han said yesterday in response to media queries. 

He has always encouraged young people to express their opinions and will support them under any circumstances, but it is “inappropriate” to tie political issues to an educational event, he said. 

“If students have opinions, they can express them off-stage,” he added. 

Taking a photo on stage with the mayor after receiving an award for graduating with top grades is the “most honorable moment of [a student’s] life” and he hopes such educational events can remain pure, Han said.

First, Mr. Han, if you really thought it was a 'great thing for young people to speak their mind', you wouldn't say that they should do it offstage - in the least effective way, where it won't hurt you at all. You're fine with them saying what they want as long as nobody listens.

Secondly, this whole thing is a massive concern troll - "inappropriate", "it's an honorable event, keep it pure"? Yeah, okay, and I bet you're just "worried about their health" or "don't want them to have any trouble later", too. Whatever buddy.

And, of course, it's absolutely laughable that a politician showing up at an event would say that event should be free of politics. If you want a politics-free event, politicians should not be invited. They are public figures and must accept that they are fair game at any public event. They make it political by being there. Otherwise Han's just saying that his politics - photo-ops with award winning students are inherently a political activity undertaken to make a politician look good - are apolitical, but everyone else's politics 'impure'.

A lot of people are saying that these kids are the brightest, the award-winners, the smart ones - they're not representative of Taiwanese youth as a whole. And yes, they do stand out. But every generational shift and successful social movement has the people at the tip of the spear. That doesn't mean the rest of the spear isn't there, or isn't important.

If anyone knows where I can formally offer to buy every last one of them a beer - yes, even the underage ones though they can have bubble tea if they'd prefer - I'd love to hear it. And I'm not sure I'm joking.

Hong Kong residents and Taiwanese gather outside Hong Kong representative office in Taipei

This morning, around the same time that protesters began amassing outside of Hong Kong's legislative council (LegCo) to protest the proposed extradition bill that would allow extraditions from Hong Kong to China, a few hundred Taiwanese and Hong Kong residents gathered outside the Hong Kong representative office in Taipei between Songgao and Xinyi Roads (the office is located in the same building as eslite Xinyi).

I missed the first round of speeches by social activist groups and notable people - including former Sunflower leader Lin Fei-fan - due to work. However, I came by later to find several dozen or perhaps a hundred people still there, braving the worsening rain to continue the demonstration.

Speeches continued after the official line-up had finished, with anyone who wanted the mike able to take it. Longtime expat Sean Kaiteri did so; I did not. In between speeches, a television set up under an awning played a feed of the escalating situation in Hong Kong.





Most of the speeches were in Cantonese, so I couldn't really understand. A huge number of the protesters were also from Hong Kong - mostly students and interns unable to return to Hong Kong to join their friends and fellow citizens in Central. What struck me was that, while anyone with an ARC (Taiwan residency card) does have freedom of assembly - so they actually can participate in protests, just not organize them - it's a bit less clear if some of the students and interns are technically legally able to do so. Some are only here for a few months. Worryingly, there were reports and rumors of immigration police sweeping through. Otherwise, however, the police left the demonstrators alone and some people who appeared to work in the representative office appeared to be watching the demonstration from just beyond it.




I had to leave to work on my dissertation, but as far as I know the demonstration is still going on. This isn't likely to end soon and looks like it's getting bad in Hong Kong, so keep your ears open. I suspect there will be more news to come. 

Taiwan's under-appreciated smackdown of the Hong Kong extradition bill, plus huge media fail

It's not a beautiful cover image, but I don't know how to make it clearer, guys. Quit it already. 

You may have noticed in the vicious opposition to the (deeply terrifying) extradition law that Hong Kong looks set to pass by the end of June - yes, despite the massive protest - that one of the reasons the CCP-owned Hong Kong LegCo (the city's legislative body) gives for the urgency in passing this law is directly related to Taiwan.

Hong Kong resident Chan Tong-kai murdered his girlfriend in Taiwan in 2018 before flying back to Hong Kong, and is currently in custody on money laundering charges related to his dead girlfriend's assets there. However, as the murder took place in Taiwan, Hong Kong can't charge him for it. As there is no formal extradition treaty between Taiwan and Hong Kong, he can't be sent back to Taiwan to stand trial, either. Because he's not in jail for murder, he could be free by October. So now, China Hong Kong is insisting that it needs to be passed so that Chan can be sent to Taiwan to face murder charges.

Here's what's interesting to me - I kept seeing this repeated in the media. It appears in almost every Ali Baba Daily South China Morning Post piece on the extradition bill and subsequent protests. It's present in the Reuters article above. Even the New York Times is including that tidbit, and the BBC has been leaning on it for awhile. It also pops up in The Guardian. 

Here's the thing, though. Taiwan has already said it will not ask for Chan's extradition - which negates the 'we need this bill for Taiwan' argument altogether:

“Without the removal of threats to the personal safety of [Taiwan] nationals going to or living in Hong Kong caused by being extradited to mainland China, we will not agree to the case-by-case transfer proposed by the Hong Kong authorities,” Chiu Chui-cheng, deputy minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, told reporters on Thursday" [last month - this piece is from May].

And yet most media are still pretending that China's Hong Kong's argument is still valid enough to include without comment, without mentioning that the bill is not at all needed for this purpose, because Taiwan's already said it isn't.

It's a wonderful smackdown from Taiwan, making it quite clear that their solidarity with the real will of Hong Kong residents will not be compromised.

The impact of this extradition bill will be huge to HK. Its position of being the Asian financial will be undermined. Read more here: https://t.co/iUhXKjuzr6 https://t.co/gQ6kqX7gut

— Yu Wan-Ju (Karen) (@karenyu) June 10, 2019

Taiwan does not want this bill to be passed despite China Hong Kong using that as an excuse. Yet nobody is reporting it. 

Protests and demonstrations in Taiwan frequently enjoy solidarity from Hong Kong, and Hong Kong democracy and sovereignty movements are strongly supported among social movement activists in Taiwan (and have some level of popularity among everyday people here, too). There's a huge amount of cross-pollination and quite a few friendships that bridge the two groups of activists - a state of affairs which China is unhappy about, but can't really do much to stop (beyond banning Taiwanese activists and certain political figures from visiting Hong Kong). Even outside of social activist circles, Hong Kongers and Taiwanese share a bond stemming from their common threat and common desire to either obtain or uphold democratic norms. The two movements - formal independence for Taiwan and sovereignty for Hong Kong - are quite intertwined.

So, I happen to think this goes beyond trying to convince Hong Kongers of the need for expediency in passing the law. To sow discord between Taiwan and Hong Kong by drawing attention to a murder case in Taiwan that can only be solved by this Trojan Horse extradition law would be a major victory for China - I have to believe this "Taiwan excuse" is a push in that direction.

More people should be appreciating that Taiwan shut it right down over a month ago. At the very least, the media should be including a short acknowledgement of it every time they include China's Hong Kong's "Taiwan excuse", or stop including it altogether.

It makes sense that Taiwan wouldn't buy it (and you shouldn't either) - nobody who is sympathetic to the fight against encroaching Chinese expansionism, who thinks about the issue for more than a few seconds, would think that the extradition of one murder suspect to Taiwan would be enough to merit the passage of a broadly damaging law in Hong Kong. The price is simply too high.

So jeez, guys. Stop recycling stale old garbage. If it smells bad, dump it. 

Of course this isn't the only media fail - in the Chinese-language Taiwanese media...well. They're either not covering the Hong Kong protests at all or put them way at the back:

“How to burry a news” by China Times. pic.twitter.com/ComUEFDM0w

— Pierre-Yves Baubry (@pybaubry) June 10, 2019

I told my family members who rely on "the old three 老三台" for news, none of them are aware of HK Protest. At least not in the prime time https://t.co/OI4wGbGFiO

— Chen-Yi Tu (Crystal) (@crystaltu_) June 10, 2019

As my husband pointed out when he fired up the United Daily News app out of curiosity: "UDN does cover it, but to get to a story about it you have to scroll through three pictures of Han Kuo-yu, a picture of Wang Jin-pyng and a picture of Terry Gou."

So while all my green and colorless friends know what's going on, once again all the blue-leaners in Taiwan won't realize the import of these protests and make up their minds accordingly. Thanks, Chinese Taiwanese media, for being so singularly awful! 

Hong Kong's proposed extradition law should terrify you

I want to address this to my friends - especially real-life friends outside Asia, but really anybody who cares even nominally about my well-being. I'd like you to read this with the thought in your head that every possibility described below could very well happen to me - this isn't some abstract thing that might affect people you don't know in a place that's far away. It's a very real thing that might affect someone you do know. Please consider that, and read on.

A massive demonstration took place in Hong Kong today to protest a proposed extradition treaty that would allow people facing criminal charges to be sent to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan for trial. Nobody is quite sure how many are in attendance but everyone agrees that it is at least several hundred thousand (well, the police don't, but they have a reputation for purposely under-reporting).

That may sound fine - boring, even. You might do a quick search and learn that Hong Kong already has extradition treaties with 20 other governments, so why not add these to the mix? Why would up to half a million people or more* take to the streets of Hong Kong Island to protest it, grinding much of the city to a halt?

Because, as this video from the Progressive Lawyers' Group in Hong Kong explains, there is simply no hope of a fair trial in China. The government decides whom it wants to convict, and throughout the sham trial their conviction is a foregone conclusion. Extradition treaties are based on the belief that the other country or territory will give the person a fair trial - and Hong Kongers would be right to have no such faith in China.

It's an even more troubling situation for Hong Kong, where the government is ostensibly partly elected, but in practice under the thumb of the CCP. They run their own Beijing-backed candidates; if too many pro-Hong Kong/anti-China candidates win seats in Hong Kong's legislative committee, they simply fabricate charges to get them kicked out of the government and in some cases put in jail.

If China decided that someone they wanted to punish, 'disappear' or sentence to death would not be adequately punished/disappeared/killed in Hong Kong, they could simply order the government they ultimately control to send that person to China - even if the alleged crime had not been committed in China. Even if whatever action the Chinese government wanted to punish was taken in a place where it was legal, such as Hong Kong or Taiwan. Then China could do what they liked with that person.

Don't believe me? Ask Lee Ming-che, who is currently serving a prison sentence in China despite having committed no crime (what he did took place in Taiwan, where such actions are quite legal - not China.) And he's not the only one.

Under such a system, Hong Kong would have the appearance of a semi-elected governing body and fair, independent judiciary tasked with upholding residents' and visitors' access to their legal and human rights, but in fact every last one of them would be ultimately subject to the much less fair and transparent Chinese legal system - as their extradition could be requested at any time. It would be very difficult to convince skeptics (and a complicit international media) that this is the case, because on paper, Hong Kong wouldn't have the same legal framework as China. In reality, the difference between them would not matter at all.

What does this have to do with me?

I go to China sometimes, and I know that I risk being detained over my criticisms of the CCP. It probably won't happen - there's an element of white privilege (although they have detained non-Asians), and the fact that I'm relatively obscure and will probably stay that way. They seem to be more reticent to detain US citizens. I write in English for an English-speaking audience on a platform blocked in China; my work isn't aimed at China or Chinese readers. But imagine that one day they do decide that I'm trouble, and need to be dealt with.

I'd probably be aware of that well before I tried to enter China, which at that point I might simply stop doing. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is supposed to be a place I can visit where I would still have some basic protections and access to human rights. Under this new extradition law, however, the Chinese government could order the Hong Kong government to send me to China for trial, despite having done nothing illegal in China itself - or anywhere else (nothing I write is illegal in Taiwan or, ostensibly, Hong Kong.)

Now imagine that Taiwan is forced to come under the same 'One Country Two Systems' framework as Hong Kong, either through some annexationist effort from China or Taiwanese blundering into electing a (potentially) a bought-and-paid-for stooge of the CCP groomed to run on a populist, "let's all get rich" platform with absolutely no substance or follow-through, but very attractive rhetoric that cuts right to some endorphin center in enough people's brains. That elected someone would sign over Taiwan's sovereignty for the right price, or no price at all.

China would insist that "One Country Two Systems" would allow Taiwan to keep its current political structure, but in practice everything that's happening in Hong Kong would start to happen here. Intentional flooding of immigrants from China who disrupt elections. Beijing-backed candidates running in races. Beijing-opposed candidates being kicked out of office on bogus charges until everyone in the "elected" Taiwanese government is sufficiently pro-China. The international media would play its same old fake neutrality card, claiming that perhaps this is problematic although the two places technically have different systems.

By then, the same extradition treaty they're forcing through in Hong Kong would be in force in Taiwan, as well.

And I wouldn't just be unsafe going to Hong Kong - I'd be unsafe in the country I call home. If this happens, every single thing I write on Lao Ren Cha could be the thing that lands me in a Chinese prison - despite living in a place that would seem to have its own democratic government and independent legal system. Both, however, would be irrelevant. China could simply tell the government it controls to "send her over", and that'd be that. For all intents and purposes, I'd be under the Chinese legal system.

You know I consider it a moral obligation not to keep my mouth shut about political injustice. How do you think that would go for me? I don't expect random readers to sympathize with the idea that Taiwan is my home and I don't have another one I can easily 'return' to, and I admit to the privilege of having that blue passport. But you guys - my actual friends and family - you know that this is my home and deciding to 'just leave' isn't so simple. 

This obviously affects Taiwanese citizens even more - they'd be more unsafe than me, with fewer places to go. Please remember that. But, as I'm addressing my friends outside Asia right now, all of those people might seem like abstractions. They're unknown - a large population you have no connection with. Far away. You know me, though. You have a connection with me. This shouldn't be an abstraction. It could affect someone who is actually a part of your life.

I shouldn't have to put it this way - that millions of Taiwanese people would be at risk should be enough to scare you. It should be enough to care. But I'm aware that when talking about large groups of people you don't know from a far-away foreign country you've never visited, it's hard to apply that same level of individual human concern. I ask you to try - but if your brain just won't cooperate, make it personal. Think of me.

Don't like that? Well, let me show you how it's even worse.

I can't substantiate this, but the story flicking around Twitter is that shady pro-CCP groups offered to pay pretty decent sums of money to get a few hundred people to come out to support the extradition law, because they know it's so unpopular. If true, they are literally fabricating support for CCP initiatives to make it seem like this is some sort of controversial issue with many sides. It's not - Hong Kong residents are quite clearly opposed to it.

五毛藍絲中共狗找不到人出來遊行，加價到1800塊一天加一個盒飯。香港有骨氣的人，給一萬八、十八萬、一百八十萬買你子子孫孫後代的自由你肯嗎？輪流打爆這個電話，流氓政權無恥行為！ pic.twitter.com/yPiI70BP66

— HK-妮珂（新號） (@Hk60740379Hk) June 8, 2019

There is also word (as of when I am writing this) that police beatings are breaking out in Hong Kong.

Even sadder?

Despite the massive size of this protest - I don't think either side estimated that many people would turn out - this law will probably be passed, and Hong Kong will become just as unsafe as China for anyone who expresses opinions the CCP doesn't like.

In Taiwan, a protest this size might just be a wake-up call. Though its light is fading, the Sunflower Movement had a real effect here and its spirit lives on in some of us. In Hong Kong, this should be a clarion call to LegCo (the city's legislative body) not to pass this law - but LegCo is in the CCP's pocket, and the CCP doesn't care.

But hold on tight - if these protests continue, things could get tense in Hong Kong, in exactly the way they need to. It counts for something that people are standing and fighting. Don't stop.

And friends in far-flung places - please don't forget that this isn't an abstraction. It's not some boring legal battle going on in a place you don't know well, affecting people you don't care about on a personal level. However tangentially, it affects me. I know we all have a lot of competing issues battling for space in our hearts and minds, but it's worth your time to care about this. 

Review: Joseph Bistro 想想廚房 (high-concept Indian cuisine)

Joseph Bistro 
#13 Lane 69 Songjiang Road

Zhongshan District, Taipei
(MRT Sonjiang Nanjing)

(02) 2508-1329

On the heels of a discussion on whether there is, or should be, a distinction drawn between 'elevated' or 'high-concept' Asian regional cuisines and 'authentic' Asian cooking, it was interesting to find myself at high-concept Indian restaurant Joseph Bistro.

For the record, I don't think the cuisines of Asia need to be 'mom's cooking' to be authentic or delicious, and one of the things I love about living in Asia is that, unlike the West, when someone opens a restaurant that is not 'mom's cooking' and tries to do something different, there's a lot of room for that. You won't hear a gaggle of confused Westerners who mistake knowing something about Asian food for deeper intercultural competence going on about how it's not 'authentic', and they should know. How can it not be? It's Asian food, made by Asian people, in Asia. And, to quote Tricky Taipei: "Why does cheap have to equal authentic when it comes to Asian food that’s not Japanese? Why is it so hard for us to say a simple but quality bowl of beef noodle soup can be worth paying US$14 for?"

I'll only add two caveats to that. If I can get excellent, say, dumplings at one price point, I'm not likely to pay a higher price point for dumplings that I can't tell are any better. But if you wow me with your more expensive dumplings, I will pay. Second, there is (and I honestly think should be) more room for people with cultural ties to a place, who have been eating and preparing food from that place their whole lives, to get creative with its cuisine. There is less room for foreigners to come in and say what is and is not 'elevated' (as opposed to just odd). If you're in the latter group, that doesn't mean you can't jump in, but there's simply a higher chance that you won't really know what you're doing because you didn't grow up with that food - and it's more likely to show in the output. If you want to go there, know your stuff.

All of this brings me back to Joseph Bistro. Forget 'elevated' vs. 'authentic' - it doesn't matter. The food at Joseph Bistro is simply great. You'll pay for that greatness (by Taipei standards at least), but you'll be happy to fork over the cash, because Chef Joseph will wow you.

Joseph Bistro fills a much-needed gap in Taipei's culinary scene - there isn't another place quite like it among Indian restaurants, and outside of some high-concept Japanese restaurants, there isn't a lot of this kind of high-end cuisine from other parts of Asia available. There are tons of Indian restaurants, some of them quite good, but they are standard Indian restaurants. And that's as it should be - we need a selection of such places, and I frequent them. But none of them 'elevate' the way Joseph Bistro does.

I went with friends I don't get to see often, so we were feeling spendy. First, while I would not typically order wine with Indian food (to me it's beer food), the food here matches well with wine. We chose what I cheekily ordered as "a bottle of your cheapest red, please!" But the dry Italian red we got was scrumptious and matched the food well. A good price, too - NT$950/bottle is not bad for wine in a restaurant. (White wines start at NT$1500/bottle, but I'm a red wine person.) There is also a robust selection of beer non-alcoholic drinks.

We started with an appetizer of potato kofte served in a fruit salad raita (raita is a spiced, salted yoghurt). It came topped with edible flowers and we were instructed to mix everything together to eat it - and let me tell you, it was phenomenal. The distinctive flavor of raita mixed with the flowers and fruit - which included both fresh and dried fruits for varied texture and flavor - produced a memorable salty-savory combination that defies description. The potato puffs provided an umami base for this distinctive taste.





We also ordered a Goan fish croquette topped with sea urchin, which combined flavors from three cuisines: the fish cake is a lightly spiced Goan take on a Portuguese classic, with Japanese-style sea urchin for a burst of saltiness. It's great on its own or eaten with pappadum for a bit of a crunch.

The mains run the gamut from clear fusion to classic Indian - we stuck closer to classic Indian but I'm now curious to try their more adventurous dishes, which include a longyan duck leg and argan-oil scented rack of lamb, as well as a cobia steak served with tandoor spices, lemon pickle and grape mint sauce. We had the Goan fish curry, palak paneer and tandoori chicken with coriander chutney. In part I was just feeling like that sort of food, and in part I wanted to see how well Joseph Bistro could do the classics.





Everything was superb - the chicken especially stands out as being perfectly cooked and tender (not dry as some tandoori chicken can be) in an intensely flavorful sauce, the Goan fish curry reminded me of the delicious fish curries I had there - far from Goa but just as good, if not better. I appreciated that the palak paneer used large chunks of high-quality paneer. Basically, although writing this the next day I realized we ordered some of the most boring items on the menu, every last one of them was absolutely wonderful and worth the money we paid for them. All that's done is make me think I have to go back to try more.





The desserts are also worth saving room for. They're some of the most generous portions of dessert you'll get in Taipei. They look pricey but can easily serve 2-3 people, so don't fret too much about it. Definitely try the deconstructed rasmalai, which comes served in a layered cup with chocolate mousse, coffee jelly and rasmalai-mascarpone sauce. Driving your spoon all the way down to get a bite of each layer, you get salty, sweet and bitter all at once and it comes together perfectly.

Or, as my friend said, "it tastes like...summer!"





We also had the crusty red wine apple with vanilla creme - absolutely wonderful. The soft red wine-marinated apples was a perfect textural counterpoint to the flaky-crispy pastries and creamy vanilla topping.





And all this while, we enjoyed our meal in comfortable, tasteful but unpretentious decor. You don't feel like you have to 'dress up' for Joseph Bistro (though you can), but you still get the feeling that you're having a high-end experience that's worth the money. And yet, there was a (cute) young child at the next table putting spoons on his head and generally being a kid. Nobody bothered about it - classy and comfortable, but also unpretentious and kid-friendly.

Did we blow through more than NT$5000 for three people? Yes. (But then we did everything - starters, wine, desserts, the works).

Did we mind? Not at all.

Forget the 'authentic' vs. 'elevated' Asian food debate. Ask yourself - can Asian food be worth paying real money for? Yes, of course. How is that even a question? And ask yourself, is it good?

If it is, and you've got the cash, just don't worry about it. Fretting over authenticity in Asian food strikes me as a specifically Western thing to do. I assure you that in Asia, it's simply not a thing.

Quick note: the chef recognized me from Lao Ren Cha (I was not paid or asked to do this review and received no special discount for writing it), and made the food spicier than he normally would for Taiwanese diners. He did add just the right amount of kick. If you also want your food to be spicier, you may want to request it.