A Tiny Ceramic Flag and the Sweet Southern Wind: Day Tripping to Xigang and Xuejia

Years ago, a fellow foreign teacher I befriended in China made an offhand comment that he'd thought I'd run out of things to do in Taiwan after I'd already lived here for far longer than I'd ever lived in China. He didn't explain his reasoning, and the comment was not meant to be mean-spirited. He'd visited Taiwan before, so he was aware that the country lacks the big-ticket tourist spots that China boasts -- which I mean in both senses of the term. 

I don't remember my exact response, but it was along the lines of "there's a lot more to do here than people realize." 

Of course, I did not mean that there were undiscovered 'big ticket tourist spots' that the rest of the world was unaware of. I meant that years of living in Taiwan have given me a deeper appreciation for the intimate and local. Culture, history and the ins and outs of daily life here hold my interest more because I actually like living here, which I could never say about China. Not only do I not need a Great Wall or Forbidden City, but smaller-scale things like a tiny ceramic flag on a small-town temple arguably hold my interest just as much.

With that said, I come down to Tainan fairly often these days, a combination of business and personal travel. Usually, a very close friend drives up from Kaohsiung and we pick a destination or two outside the city to visit -- places you have to drive to get to (of course I make up for not driving by paying for lunch and other random costs). 

We started in Xigang, at the village of Liucuo (劉厝) -- literally "Liu House" because a branch of the Liu family  once settled there. I had also been mapping out all of the traditional mansions (古厝) I could find in the Tainan area with the intention of visiting any given one that might be on the way to something else, and the Liu Family Mansion (劉氏古厝) happened to be on the road to Xuejia. 

What we found was a quiet, friendly village in an agricultural area, with an absolutely stunning traditional three-sided house. In addition to being very well-maintained -- swept and gleaming with sparkling white paint and blue trim and new window and door frames -- the Liu mansion features a set of windows out front with a stylized "long life" (壽) pattern in faux brick. If you look carefully, you'll see that they're painted to look like bricks but are actually solid. The front gate says Xun Nan Feng Lai (薰南風來) -- Sweet Wind from the South (or Fragrant Southern Wind), which is just lovely.

Very often in these places, if you just turn up and ask if you can take a walk around the grounds (I never go inside unless specifically invited), people are quite happy to have you around. 

As the gate was closed and nobody appeared to be home, we asked around at the community center that looks like a temple next door, where a friendly auntie went over to an ancient neighbor's house, as she knows everyone. Grandma says that visitors usually call in advance but anyway, we could just step over the low brick wall surrounding the compound. 

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" she said, as she put on some flipflops and hopped easily over, despite having obvious back issues and looking to be about 100 years old. My friend and the two women -- likely Liu family members but I never did ask -- chatted as I wandered around and took pictures. I was pleased to see them growing hibiscus in the back the way my family used to have a berry brambles; a tray of drying hibiscus flowers sat on the low brick wall just as a bowl of fresh berries might be found in our fridge growing up. I'm a big fan of hibiscus tea -- really just brewing the dried flowers -- for its flavor and blood-pressure lowering qualities. 

The Liu mansion was built in 1864, and is said to be the oldest house in the Xigang (西港) area (Liucuo is in Xigang). It was built by a descendant of Liu Xi (劉喜), who himself was a descendant of Liu Dengkui (劉登魁), one of the original Liu family immigrants to Taiwan from China. Liu Dengkui was born around 1640 and died around 1722 -- I looked it up from this post but I can't promise that my double-check of which calendar year corresponds to which emperor's fancy-name year is perfect. Liu Xi settled the area now known as Liucuo around 1710. The Liu family were both in the military and known for cultivating farmland in the area, and this branch is quite populous in Taiwan now. 

Behind this mansion was another old farmhouse, less immediately appealing but with some charming details. Grandma easily pushed the heavy gate open, swatting away my hand when I tried to help and let us in. The owner, who was outside watering his plants and wearing a baseball cap for the local temple, didn't mind. The paintings around the doors on this house are very well-preserved and well worth a look if you can find someone to show you back there. 

Both houses are decorated with Majolica tiles along the roof beams which are also worth a look, although they're a bit hard to see. 

Auntie recommended that while we were in the area, we also check out nearby Bafen (八分), where two more mansions could be found; one was well-maintained and seems to house some sort of employment or community center. Behind it was another one that had burned down some time ago and was slowly being taken over by tropical plants. 

They can be a little hard to find as they're not visible from the main road, but a friendly local who himself has a very nice courtyard house pointed out the way to us. The whole area smells like a pigsty -- an honest, agricultural smell -- but it's absolutely worth it, if you're into old houses. The well-preserved house in front has some gorgeous Majolica tilework to admire, and the one behind it is a picturesque ruin.  

I just want to take this opportunity to tell you where my interest in random old houses comes from. I grew up in one, built in the 1850s (making it older than the Liu mansion). As a kid I hated it. Drafty and creaky and far from everything, with everything in a constant state of needing renovation, and we didn't even have a decent television because my parents didn't think it was important. I don't even believe in ghosts but if they do exist, that house was definitely haunted (my mom, sister and I often thought one of the others was calling us, usually around 8-9pm, when none of us were. I'm not joking). I spent a lot of time outside and a lot of time reading until my friends were old enough to drive. I complained constantly, but it's given me an affinity for life in an old house. Now, I'd consider buying one if I had enough money to renovate it to my standards. 

While driving through the pig-scented countryside, my friend told me about 草地郎 (cao deh lang), or 'good country folk', which everyone we met had been. A good English translation would be 'salt of the earth'. I wouldn't go so far as to call myself that, but despite some cultural differences, my rural childhood wasn't entirely different, growing up in an old house in the middle of nowhere, supplementing our food with things that grew in our backyard. I didn't have a baseball cap from the local temple, but I did have to go to church every Sunday.

In Bafen there is a very old temple once known for producing a particular kind of special incense that was used in many temples across Taiwan. It's been renovated and doesn't look particularly special, but if you're in the area a quick stop is worth it; the interior has a few vintage features including a very pretty mid-century floor with a lotus design near the altar and a lovely banyan tree out front. 

Apparently this temple, the 八分開基姑媽宮 (Bafen Kaiji Aunt Temple is the best translation I can offer) was founded in the late 1500s and honors the four goddesses of Yin, He, Li and Ji (鄞， 何，李，紀). Apparently there's a couplet in the temple that references Koxinga, but I didn't see it.

The 16th century seems early, but there were a few Chinese fishing and trading outposts in this part of Taiwan then, before serious migration began in the late 17th century. It looks newer because it was rebuilt several times since the 1700s, most recently in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Several stele have been gifted to the temple over the centuries, some of which have been lost, while other ones can still be seen.

Another story about this temple is that those resisting Japanese colonial rule could pray here to find out where the Japanese army would be, so they could head in teh opposite direction.

There is more to this temple, so it's worth reading their Wikipedia page, linked above (Mandarin only). 

From there, we drove on to Xuejia (學甲), famous for milkfish, first stopping for a delicious milkfish congee. My friend thought it was a bit sweet; I just thought it tasted like Tainan food. 

Xuejia's famous Ciji Temple (慈濟宮) is where we finally meet our tiny flag. 

When you first approach the temple, look up at the three roof gods (known as the “three stars” or 三星). They appear on most Taiwanese Taoist temples. If you didn’t already know, these are 福祿壽 (Fu, Lu and Shou) and represent fortune, prosperity/happiness and longevity: the three things essential to a good life. Each is associated with a star in Chinese astronomy. In Western astronomy these are Jupiter, Ursa Major and Canopus, respectively. Each generally carries a specific item: Fu carries a baby and a scroll, Lu carries a footrest (though I’ve seen him with gold ingots too) and Shou carries a longevity peach.

What’s interesting about Ciji Temple is that, while Fu’s child typically holds a toy, this particular child is holding an ROC flag. 

Grateful to be rambling the countryside with a friend fluent in Taiwanese, we asked about the reason for this. Apparently, when the Japanese took over Taiwan, they razed several temples and replaced them with Shinto shrines. We appreciate the shrines which remain and want to preserve them as part of Taiwan’s heritage, but the fact is that at the time they were a colonizing force, just like the Chinese architecture and administration that replaced the Dutch, after the Dutch sought to replace the social and religious systems of the Indigenous tribes. After the Japanese, the ROC again razed as much of the previous colonizer’s architectural mark as they could and re-built either in mid-century concrete, northern Chinese-or “Eurasian” style which has nothing to do with Taiwanese culture or history. 

So, to protect their temple from Japanese administrators who would have happily demolished it, they gave the child on the roof a small Japanese flag to demonstrate their “loyalty” ("loyalty" meaning "please don’t tear down our temple"). It worked, and the temple was left alone. You can see a reprinted picture of the temple with the original Japanese flag in the exhibition hall. When the temple was renovated in the mid-20th century to protect the remaining priceless ceramic work, the Japanese flag was covered with an ROC flag to demonstrate the change in government. You can still see a photo of the original flag in the exhibition hall that contains the old ceramics, which is well worth a visit.

I can think of no better metaphor for Taiwanese history than two temples, a short drive from one another, one of which has records dating to before the Dutch or Koxinga and which helped people avoid the Japanese, and the other of which features art by a 19th century master -- more on that below -- where a tiny ceramic Japanese flag still flies, albeit covered with a Republic of China flag.

Ciji Temple, which is dedicated to Baosheng Dadi (the same god as Bao'an Temple in Taipei) once contained a great deal of 19th-century Koji ceramic work (交趾陶), which on temples usually involved painstakingly sculpted, glazed and fired figures and backgrounds arranged into elaborate story scenes.

This particular Koji ceramic work was done by the famed Yeh Wang (葉王, born Ye Lin-jhih 葉麟趾, a 19th century Taiwanese artisan and Chiayi native, the son of another pottery maker. He was -- and is -- famed for his mind-blowing attention to detail who is considered one of the 'creators' of this art form. He’s also responsible for some of the finest examples of this art form across central Taiwan, including several temples in Chiayi. He was invited to work on Ciji Temple after an earthquake in 1853 caused a great deal of damage that required restoration which happened in the 1860s.

To put it another way, he's famous enough in Taiwan that you can buy a children's book about him.

By the 1960s, Yeh Wang’s work on Ciji Temple was becoming a bit weatherbeaten, so the temple was renovated using modern glazing techniques. The new work was done by more contemporary masters in ceramics and glazing.



Fortunately, much of the original work is preserved in the exhibition hall next to the temple. Even better, the entire exhibition is bilingual, although not all of the story scenes are fully explained (there is a rather long and awkward passage about a rich guy who “loved ducks” -- geese in Chinese -- however.) 

Look at the fingernails he created in his Drunken Li Bai 李白: 





Li Bai was quite the alcoholic, saying that sober men never go down in history, only drunkards get famous.

And the furrowed brow on this fellow: 





...and recall that these figures were often places on roofs or under awnings, where such details might not even be seen by visitors.

At the entrance to the temple, there are two people riding lions who have distinctly non-Chinese features, one more obviously than the other. On one side, a man with dark auburn hair, a Caucasian nose and a square jaw is holding an urn and a lotus stalk. On the other, his friend with big round eyes is holding another urn, and a banana leaf (the original ceramic banana leaf is lost). The man who told us about the flag said that they were Dutch (胡人 or "Hu People", which my friend translated as Dutch), and carried gifts because they ‘brought good things’ (tributes and gifts, I suppose) to Chinese leaders. The exhibition hall confirms they are Hu, but describes them as being nnorthern Chinese Hu (a nomadic group from the steppes) offering tribute. In any case, the items they carry said together are "甕甕蓮蕉" (urn urn lotus banana), which sounds like 旺旺連招 in Taiwanese. This is a spoken expression in Taiwanese which means something like 'good things come at the end' or 'the outcome is good fortune' (or something along those lines; I am not as proficient in Taiwanese as I'd like to be).

The current ones can be seen on the temple roof: 

And the Yeh Wang originals are preserved in the exhibition hall:

While Yeh Wang's lions are highly stylized in the traditional way and thus aren't meant to look exactly like real lions, I am quite certain he never saw a real tiger in his life:

Not his fault, of course. In the 1800s one was probably better off not coming across tigers.

There are some other interesting things to see in the exhibition hall: the top floor boasts some ancient archeological finds from Indigenous settlements and the old temple doors with door gods painted by yet another master artist. This area offers no bilingual signage, however.



In short, if you are interested in Taiwanese temples, history or art, Ciji Temple and the exhibition hall are absolutely worth your time. 



From here, we drove out to the Laotang Lake Art Village (老塘湖藝術村), a piece of architectural art composed of old, weatherbeaten building bits and pieces put together by The Mad Painter (or Hyper Painter), an artist from Kaohsiung. It costs NT100 to enter if you're not from Xuejia.

Instead of trying to explain it, here's a picture of the explanation for this place:

The artist is also known for his quick-painted depictions of famous people, and a few re-paintings of famous works (there's a quick-painted Mona Lisa, for example). There's a small exhibition near the entrance. 

This place is truly out in the middle of nowhere; you have to drive past rows of fishponds to get there. Apparently, the Mad Painter created it to evoke the backdrops of old martial arts films, which are meant to be dilapidated and weatherbeaten. The entire area surrounds a small lake (Laotang Lake, I suppose) with an island at the center, and it seems as though a few shops are open on busy days. We were there towards the end of a quiet day, so very little was open, but it was peaceful and lovely at sunset. 

There is one issue, however: the whole area smells of some combination of sewage and garbage. As my friend pointed out, there is a cafe and it would be a great place to stop for a drink, if it didn’t smell so bad. 

I’m not quite sure what to make of it otherwise. It’s not a tourist trap; it’s not well-known enough for that. Xuejia residents get free entry and it seems as though several older people take advantage of this. A few cosplayers were photographing themselves in the picturesque scenery, too. The area is home to several animals who look clean, fed and cared for, and are friendly to visitors. 

Xuejia is not far from Madou 麻豆, which not only has the Animatronic Hell Temple (Madou Daitian Temple, if you want to be formal about it) but also a famous savory rice pudding bowl (碗粿 -- I don't really know how to translate that but it's a typical Tainan breakfast food) restaurant called 麻豆碗粿蘭 right on the traffic circle heading into town. The restaurant remains open and serves the dish well into dinnertime, and I can honestly say it's one of the best I've had.

Of course Taiwanese employers should pay foreign worker recruitment fees

I don't have a good photo, but this captures how I feel about the entire slimy brokerage system. 

Over the past few weeks there's been an ongoing feud between the Indonesian government and the Taiwan Ministry of Labor, and I'm going to state without hesitation that Indonesia is almost entirely in the right, and the Taiwanese government is almost entirely in the wrong. 

According to the Taipei Times, as COVID19 recedes in Asia and recruitment of foreign blue-collar workers resumes, the Indonesian government informed Taiwan that Taiwanese employers of foreign workers would be expected to pay 11 types of recruitment fees beginning on January 1st. These include: 

...labor brokerage fees in Indonesia for caregivers, domestic workers and fishers; and the costs of labor contract verification, criminal records certificates, overseas social security premiums and overseas health checks, as well as transportation and accommodation in Indonesia prior to departure, the ministry said.

The Taiwan Ministry of Labor has rejected the request, giving a few reasons. First, that more information is needed on these fees, as it's not clear how much they would amount to, and second, that there's an agreement in place that all changes to foreign worker recruitment must be negotiated bilaterally before they are put in place. 

That sounds reasonable on its face. If there's already an agreement that changes must be bilaterally negotiated, it would make sense to insist on sticking to that. The lack of clarity regarding what the costs actually are would be a reasonable issue to bring up. "Asking for more information" also seems like a sober move. Any government would want to ensure that its citizens are not exploited. 

This is what I would say if I believed that when it came to foreign workers, the Ministry of Labor was acting in good faith. That is, I would have to believe that if the Indonesian government came to the Taiwanese government with a list of issues with the current fee system, that the Ministry of Labor would be amenable to working out a fairer deal for the workers, even if it meant meaningfully dismantling the brokerage system and putting some fees on Taiwanese employers. 

Do you think that that's how it would go? Because I have...doubts. The Taiwanese government promotes its human rights record extensively, at least when it comes to Taiwanese citizens. Yet shows shockingly little interest in protecting the human rights of foreign blue-collar workers residing in Taiwan.

There is a clear power imbalance between relatively wealthy, industrialized Taiwan, where there is a market for overseas labor, and Indonesia, where that labor might be recruited. There is also a massive power imbalance between employers -- families desiring foreign home care employees, factory owners and companies, and fishing concerns -- all of whom have more resources than the workers they are looking to hire. 

When talking about unknown costs that might impact employers, it's crucial to remember that the system is already exploitative towards Indonesian workers. They often end up in debt before they even leave Indonesia, as a lot of these costs are foisted on them: 

Migrant workers and workers’ rights groups have long complained about having to fully bear pre-employment costs. The problem lies in the current hiring system, which allows brokers to charge migrant workers exorbitant fees that usually take years to repay and require loans even before the workers depart for Taiwan, the groups said.

I find it hard to believe that the people recruited know the costs involved before they sign up; if they're not clear to the government, how are they clear to the individuals recruited? And yet, they're expected to pay. Although much of this happens to workers residing in Taiwan, the Ministry of Labor has seemed fine with it so far.

If the government truly cared that the costs were unclear, then they would have done something about it by now rather than letting brokerage firms saddle those least able to pay with the burden.

In fact, the Taiwanese government does not have a good track record at all when it comes to the treatment of foreign blue-collar labor. Foreign domestic workers (who make up more than half of the workers in question) have fewer protections as they are not covered by the Labor Standards Act, and abuse is rampant. Slavery -- as in, you are going to work for me and I am not going to pay you, and if you disobey I will beat you -- is frighteningly common on Taiwanese fishing boats, to the point that I've mostly given up eating seafood in Taiwan. Rather than dealing with this, the government has been planning to exempt fishing workers from mandated overtime and work hour limits, in effect legalizing the exploitation. Foreign factory worker abuses are routinely uncovered. The brokerage system piles many more fees on top of this process, all of which fall on the heads of people who are already poorly paid. It gets worse. From the original Taipei Times article: 

In addition, the brokers usually side with employers to exploit migrant workers, forcing them to perform jobs that are not in their contract, migrant workers’ rights advocates have said.

 

That's not even the worst of it. They also make it harder, not easier, for abused workers to get help when they need it. In what I believe is the same case linked above, it was clear that the brokerage agency first told the worker "not to get pregnant" rather than help her deal with being raped. In a recent case, an alleged sexual assailant of a newly-arrived Indonesian worker was a broker himself. In another, it was a town councilor. 

The Ministry of Labor is surely aware of this. It's been extensively reported on, as shown by the links above, yet it continues. When their first priority is making sure that well-resourced Taiwanese (including families that can afford to hire a domestic worker) get the best possible deal regardless of how it impacts the foreigners who take these jobs, do you trust them to negotiate fairly with the Indonesian government to fix one small part of the system -- the fees?

Me neither.  

Once here, workers are routinely subject to discrimination and outright racism. One small example (and not even of the worst kind) popped up in my own community, where someone posted signs in large Bahasa Indonesia script admonishing people not to litter, with a much smaller Chinese translation below. The Indonesians in the neighborhood aren't the litterers, though -- it's mostly local teenagers who take over the community picnic tables after dark, and the occasional thoughtless grandpa. 

Every time people like me (that is, foreign professionals, often from wealthy Western countries) complain about some way in which the government doesn't factor our existence into their policies, we must remember that foreign blue-collar workers face the same issues, with far worse on top of that. 

Any government would want to ensure that its citizens are not exploited, and the Indonesian government is trying to do just that. They are quite smart to see that the Taiwan Ministry of Labor is never going to make it easy to give these workers a fair deal. It makes sense, looking at that power imbalance, and the way such workers are already treated, that they would unilaterally insist on a change. 

The brokerage system simply needs to be abolished; it offers little or no value. I know some Taiwanese employers prefer using it, but they would still be able to recruit workers without it, with far less inconvenience than the workers currently going through it face. 

Most of the other fees should always have been paid by the employers. Flights, contract verification fees, health and criminal checks? If your labor is desired so much that an employer in a foreign country is willing to go to the effort to recruit you, then they need to pay such fees, period. That would be true even if they weren't then offering low wages to the workers. Frankly, any school who wants to hire foreign teachers should also be paying for all of this, and the only reason to complain less about it is that (mostly unqualified) English teachers hired to work in buxibans generally have more access to resources than foreign blue-collar workers, and a better solution would be to cultivate more Taiwanese talent for English teaching jobs. That doesn't make it right, though.

The only good point that the Ministry of Labor has is that clarification of the fees is needed. Despite the concern being raised by Taiwan Report, it's highly unlikely that any worker would -- or would be able to -- spend exorbitant sums on pre-travel expenses in Indonesia, but forcing clarification on brokerage fees would shine a light on a slimy, diseased system and just might disinfect it a little. 

Of course, that would make the brokerage firms unhappy as they thrive, like bacteria, on that lack of clarity. It makes exploitation possible. And the Ministry of Labor is clearly more interested in allowing the brokerage system to continue and lowering costs for Taiwanese employers rather than ensuring that all residents of Taiwan, including foreign workers on its soil, are treated fairly. 

And, again, if they actually cared about clarifying the fees, they would have done so back when the country's most vulnerable residents were forced to go into indentured servitude to pay them.

Instead,  the government is allowing recruitment from other countries to cover the expected dearth in employees from Indonesia. There seems to be little interest in fixing the same system that exploits Indonesian workers, which will then presumably be able to shift its infected focus on workers from other countries. 

No worker should be pushed into a pay-to-play system: there shouldn't be fees required when taking a job. If Taiwanese employers want foreign workers enough to go to the trouble of recruiting them, they should be able and willing to pay for that, period, not foist associated costs onto the very people they are hiring. 

Everything is Calm in the Meatspace

From an exhibit at the Japanese Naval Guest House (日本海軍招待所) near Shi-da

I want to start in an optimistic place. 

Through everything American citizens have endured in this absolute slog of a presidential election, I’ve taken heart that people who are a part of my daily life in Taipei have expressed clear-headed, thoughtful views on events in the USA. At work, in my social life and running errands — say, chatting with the medical technician while getting electro-therapy on a problematic knee — people seem to agree. Some good things have happened for Taiwan under Trump, though mostly not through him, and in general he brings instability and mendacity to the table, and not much more. Big picture, some good things have happened in US-Taiwan relations in the last four years, but both countries are better off with someone who can competently lead. Taiwan certainly benefits more from a stable US. Trump’s highly inconsistent bloviating (one second calling Xi a “good friend” and the next banning a few apps) doesn’t make up for this, as an unstable US can’t really advocate for Taiwan effectively. 

Those are my words, but they’re echoed in different ways from people I know in the real world, most of whom are just average people. This gives me heart that plenty of people in Taiwan are thoughtful enough not to be taken in by the exact sort of fake news maelstrom that they so forcefully rejected when the Han Kuo-yu campaign attempted something similar, just because it’s coming from the US. 

I need that heart, because I have to say that online, the situation looks a lot more dire. 

Many people I’ve friended on social media, only a few of whom I know in real life, have gone from liberals and left-leaning people who support Taiwan and otherwise seem to have a high degree of digital literacy to spreaders of the exact sort of rhetoric they rejected less than a year ago. More than one has bought into the unsubstantiated belief that there was significant fraud in the US election (it’s unlikely; voter fraud is rare and there is no credible evidence for it in this case). 

Facebook groups once full of people I agreed with on Taiwan issues have become clearinghouses for right-wing pro-Trump posts. These come with not just fake news dumps, including the idea that Joe Biden is more in bed with China than Trump, when Trump’s China ties are provable and there isn’t any verifiable evidence for similar Biden ties. At least one of the Hunter Biden stories was entirely fabricated but achieved wide circulation in Asia. The most obvious example is Freddy Lim’s Chang Group 昶社團, though there are others. Apple Daily is the clearest example of the media amplifying and legitimizing highly questionable pro-Trump narratives in Taiwan, and they seem to have found a home in deep green or non-affiliated pro-Taiwan Taiwanese. These include the self-identified progressive and politically engaged online commentariat. 

Right now, the way pro-Trump drumbeats are repeated in these groups honestly reminds me of that part of Snow Crash where people had their brainstems hacked and seemingly randomly started repeating Ancient Sumerian or something. Of course, it turned out not to be random, and this isn’t either. 

Every time I come across this, I have to remind myself that in the meatspace, I interact every day with people who haven’t bought into this. It reminds me that social media tends to amplify more extreme voices, and that while some of them have come to these beliefs sincerely (if uncritically), there are a fair number of intentional bad actors, paid trolls and bots pushing this narrative. If there are bots attacking AIT, they surely exist elsewhere, too. 

Some of the arguments even sound familiar. “But the Democrats started the KKK!” shouts one Taiwanese commentator, just as unaware of the Great Realignment as the Americans who say the same thing. “But the Democrats cut ties with Taiwan!” says another, when that shift was started by Republicans, and when it happened, the cut ties were with the “Republic of China”, then still a military dictatorship that looked further from democratization than the People’s Republic of China. Honestly if I’d bet on which country would liberalize first in 1976, I would have lost a lot of money. “But who signed the Taiwan Travel Act and TAIPEI Act?” another asks, giving Trump credit for bipartisan legislation with bipartisan sponsorship that representatives from both parties voted for unanimously. A president can’t realistically veto that kind of thing. “But...China Joe the Pedophile!” many say, sounding exactly like Republicans in the US and basing it on just as little evidence, a party whose platforms they — the online so-called progressives — would never support in Taiwan. 

Of course, they ignore the provable Trump ties to China and dozens of rape allegations against Trump, one of which is set to go to court. It's not even clear to me why people think Biden was China's candidate. My money is on the CCP supporting Trump while pretending not to, because instability in the US is good for China, and they know it. So far, current headlines seem to be proving me right.

Let’s be clear: few people saying these things actually believe that Trump genuinely cares about Taiwan. Even people I disagree with profoundly on Trump don’t go so far as to say that his administration’s support of Taiwan comes from a place of real concern. One thing we can all agree on is that it’s all a game to them. 

Back to the meatspace, because talking about this too much stings on a deeply personal level. Since the election and presumptive Biden victory, in real life people have expressed relief, either that Trump lost or at least that it’s over. My medical tech offered congratulations as she stuck electrodes to my knee. Students expressed relief that they wouldn’t have to listen to a guy who sounds so “stupid” any longer. 

I had hoped it might stem the tide online. It’s over, so I'd hoped we could turn our collective efforts to pushing him to keep his word on the “stronger ties” with Taiwan that he talked about. Regardless of who our preferred candidate was, we can all agree this is the best way forward now, right?

Apparently not. I’ve had to cut loose several people who are now buying into the whole “election fraud” narrative, insisting on dragging out a dead presidency based on zero evidence. Even now, so many many Taiwanese I thought I respected or at least broadly agreed with have gotten on the Trump Express that it would be enough to make me question my own sense of logic, if not for the Taiwanese people I talk to in the real world, who also see it for the crazy train it is. 

 

On one hand, I understand that many politically engaged Taiwanese who want the best for their country remember how they’ve been shafted by Democrats. One official visit to Taiwan and a few anti-China remarks must surely seem like a breath of fresh air, and all those other scandals are far away. I get it. There is a deep desire and need for more international recognition, better treatment, more allies both official and unofficial. 

I want those things too, but also for the country of my citizenship to be competently run by someone who is not a rapist. The best way to achieve that, in my view, is to hold Biden accountable. It’s over anyway. 

But it still stings to spend years of my life advocating for the best possible leadership for Taiwan — pro-independence, as liberal as possible — and then see so many people in Taiwan who share those views want my country to be run by a rapist and a fascist. If they didn’t actually care about social issues I could kind of understand, but many of them are avowed progressives, and do care about these things in Taiwan. 

To me, if you believe in progressive values, you believe in them for everyone, not just yourself. I would not advocate that Taiwan be abandoned if it would be better for the US, because Taiwanese citizens deserves the same rights and freedoms I do, and we all deserve open, tolerant societies. If you’re fine with supporting reactionary politicians elsewhere, then how does that jive with those progressive values?

The lack of leadership from progressive Taiwanese thought leaders also bothers me. A few well-placed words from respected voices might have helped stem this tide, but they’ve been mostly silent as far as I can tell. I understand the government not taking an official position; Taiwan needs to work with the winner, period. I understand, say, Freddy Lim not taking a position (though if his views expressed in Metal Politics Taiwan are still true, he’s no Trump supporter). I understand that it is difficult to tell your own supporters to cut it out; it could undermine your base. 

What I don’t understand is how he and the moderators allowed that group — again, one among many — to become a constant stream of fake news. Could they have let people express opinions and frustrations freely, but drawn the line at blatant misinformation?

At the end, I may need to cut individuals loose. I don’t have the emotional capacity to deal calmly with anyone who thinks that Rapist Hitler is a good leader for the country where my family lives, or who is unconcerned about a leader that has callously allowed nearly a quarter of a million Americans to die when they didn't have to. I have no quarter for those who still believe had the election ‘stolen’ from him rather than being rejected because he is, you know, Rapist Hitler who is responsible for up to 240,000 unnecessary deaths in less than a year.

Despite this, we must remember that the cause is still just. Drew Pavlou said this about Hong Kong, and he’s absolutely right: 

The attitude of the left on Hong Kong makes me furious. They see desperate people holding Trump flags and immediately dismiss them all as racist reactionaries. Stop and reflect for a second why HKers felt desperate enough to turn toward a man who called Xi a “great friend.” 

HKers suffer under a brutal police state, and for the most part, the left have ignored them. Tankies attack HKers out of support for Chinese authoritarianism and liberals ignore HKers out of a mistaken belief that criticizing the Chinese state serves racist anti-China narratives.

I consider myself a leftist. My Christian faith underpins my concern for social justice and human dignity. But I take the world as it is rather than how I would like it to be. That means patiently building solidarity with HKers, even when we disagree on matters like Trump.

It means putting to one side considerations of left and right, putting to one side utopian ideals about ideological purity, and simply being there for HKers and raising my voice for them at this time of suffering.

And others have taken an anti-CCP, anti-Trump view as well, like artist Badiucao. The same holds true for the Taiwan cause. 

People I interact with online as well as in real life are generally on this side, as well. 

I’ve also seen a lot of US liberals and leftists (sigh) take aim at, say, the Hong Kong movement, insisting they must be right-wingers because they are turning to Trump or hoping the US will help solve their problems (something I don’t think is actually true; I don’t think many Hong Kongers think the US will solve this issue; they mostly just want international support.)

The thing is, the Western left was doing this long before Trump came along — screaming quite rightly about issues that affected them, but being quite fine with ignoring the fight for the same things in Hong Kong and Taiwan, because it all sounded so “anti-China”. It was easy to paint them as horrible “capitalists” because they oppose a regime that claims to be “communist”. And it was easy for Democrats to ignore them because while they may be slightly better on social issues in the US, they care just as little about similar social movements abroad. 

How profoundly have liberals ignored Taiwan that Taiwanese are supporting a man who compared their country to the insignificant tip of a pen?

So, I can see on some level why people sick of being treated this way would turn to the first person who said something critical about China, even though he didn’t appear to genuinely care so much as he wanted to start a strongman fight.

However, Taiwanese de jure independence is absolutely worth continuing to fight for, even if many of its strongest supporters have veered very weirdly into pro-Trump territory. Yes to Taiwan, resist the CCP, reject Trump. Biden’s not great but he’s gotten better on Taiwan, and now our job is to hold him accountable.

I doubt I can change their minds and I have limited capacity to try — I wouldn’t expect them to take a foreign resident of Taiwan particularly seriously. However, I will not abandon a cause I believe in just because some voices within it are pushing deeply problematic narratives about the US election. I might have to cull social media and unfollow or leave online groups, but I’ll still be there, in the meatspace, on the street if I have to, hobbling along on my bum knee for the cause of Taiwan.

Book Review: Sanmao's Stories of the Sahara

 

I haven't done a book review in awhile. This was in part because of the dissertation (do you want a book review about intercultural communication in Taiwanese university language classes? Yeah, I thought not). But it was also partially because I read a series of novels, including Chiu Miaojin's Notes of a Crocodile and Last Testament from Montmartre and I had trouble getting started with reviewing those; I finally decided that I probably wasn't in a good position to do so. (If you're curious, I liked the former quite a bit, and the latter a great deal less.) 

But I was excited to pick up Stories of the Sahara, which is as far as I know the first English translation of a writer who is a major name in Chinese literary circles, yet hardly known in the West.

Reading her work, it becomes clear how unfair that is. 

The notes at the end say that Sanmao was asked to write about her experiences living in El Aaiún, the capital of the Spanish Sahara, toward the end of that era of colonial rule, and the first batch of writings made up Stories of the Sahara. As such, it somewhat non-chronologically covers her move to the area, her marriage to husband José, and toward the end, the end of Spanish rule of the area, civil unrest and claims by Morocco. Morocco claims it still, but the local Sahrawi wanted and continue to want sovereingty and it remains a disputed territory. It is a little hard to read, however, knowing that a few years after the events of these stories took place, José died in a car crash (a previous fiancé who had also died was not mentioned.) 

The first thing that struck me about her work wasn't just the 'confessional' tone some reviewers have noted, though I agree. It was how different it was to both Chinese and Taiwanese literature I have read, which tends to be darkly ambiguous, highly metaphorical, and to be honest, quite meandering. Contrasted against this tendency, Sanmao comes across as crisp and dry, a strong but fizzy prosecco among a sea of murky stout. Her prose isn't just confessional, it's straightforward and engaging. Sentences don't wander, allusions don't meander. Her references are clear and contemporary to her work. This tone strengthens the content of her work, giving one a first-person, street-level view of life in the Sahara that carries both Sanmao's unique voice as well as rich -- but never mushy or sappy -- description of her surroundings. Typically in short story anthologies, not every piece holds my attention, but I found Sanmao's pieces more or less equally engaging.

It's easy to see why readers in Taiwan, especially adventurous young women, would read her work and dream of traveling -- and being -- like her. I get the impression that the 1970s was a time when some women were free to travel the world, especially women with parents as supportive as Sanmao's clearly were, but constraints on them were greater than those for men. That must have also been true in Taiwan, if not especially so given not just gender roles mired in conservative nonsense, but also the general lack of freedom from the government. (If I seem like I'm coming down hard on Taiwan, remember that this was also the era of Roe vs. Wade and American women winning the right to, say, have credit lines in their own name.) If I were a young woman in 1970s America and read a book by a woman traveling the world written in her own clarion voice, I'd be bewitched as well. 

That's not to say I loved everything about the book. 

The translator's note that Sanmao might come across as condescending or racist towards her Sahrawi neighbors in today's world rings true, though it's tempered somewhat by the instances in the book where she befriended them rather than judging them, and to an extent far greater than many non-locals in El Aaiún at the time. Some of her actions might be seen now as blatant cultural appropriation, but I doubt they would have been seen that way in the 1970s.

It's also interesting to me that, for a woman who upended gender expectations to leave Taiwan and live in northern Africa, she bowed to some pretty retrograde gender norms, as well. When José insisted that he would be the breadwinner, she settled with little complaint into a housewife's life. This was how she managed to get to the Sahara in the first place (though I'm not sure how she would have done it otherwise). In the story My Great Mother-in-Law, she speaks of her husband's mother as a being to wage war against, but that war seems to consist mostly of her, the daughter-in-law, subjugating and exhausting herself until the elder woman is pleased, while her husband enjoys a relaxing family holiday.  To some extent, she relates this to Chinese cultural norms. 

That sounds horrible, regardless of culture. Big fat no thanks on that one, Sanmao. 

Although I had expected more day-to-day feminism from a feminist icon like her rather than some shockingly regressive ideas about how marriage works, I suppose uplifting women's voices doesn't always mean the things other women say are ideas everyone is going to agree with. I can't insist that Sanmao be the 70s bra-burner I want her to be (though bra burning was largely a myth) when the whole point is listening to her authentic voice, not my feelings about what she ought to say.

Finally, although I have absolutely no right to complain strongly about this, it was my hope that reading this book by a woman who grew up in Taiwan that international readers would, well, gain a deeper understanding of Taiwan as a distinct entity. 

They won't. Sections that mention Taiwan or Sanmao's background always bring it back to China. Someone who didn't know a lot about Taiwan reading this would assume, from her writing, that Taiwan was just a part of China and culturally Chinese, because Sanmao names her home as Taiwan and talks about herself as Chinese.

I'm aware that this is a tad unfair. Sanmao was indeed born in China, it was the 1970s when Taiwan had no way of expressing any desires they may have had not to be considered part of China, and much of her work was published in the KMT-backing United Daily News. Generally speaking she didn't seem particularly interested in politics, instead focusing her gaze on people, culture and daily life. Given the era and her family background, it's no surprise that she'd take these beliefs as implicit truths. Regardless, it's hard to see how this could be handled differently, if the aim is to preserve Sanmao's words as accurately as possible in translation. 

However, these are flaws worth overlooking for the curious reader. Stories of the Sahara is an engaging and worthwhile book with a prose style that diverges a great deal from other Taiwanese literature I have read. I do hope that Bloomsbury or another publisher put out more of her works in English in the future.