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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why stay in Taiwan?

It's the little things...or is it?

You probably don’t care about my life, but here’s the deal. I’ve had a somewhat tumultuous week professionally, although nothing that ended up being terribly deleterious. I don’t want to say too much about it, but I’ve been feeling frustrated about the limitations of teacher training opportunities in Taiwan for residents like me, despite how much we can help in the face of Taiwan’s push for internationalization. 

I have no desire to discuss the details behind this; it’s insider beef that you really don’t need, and might be wrong of me (or at least harmful to me) to divulge. 

I've also been feeling more frustrated than usual about Taiwan's naturalization laws. Nothing has changed since the 2007 reforms, opening up a pathway for magical stardusted special and senior foreign professionals, basically saying most foreigners who call Taiwan home -- whether they're white collar like me or blue collar like most immigrants here -- are garbage. Not worth caring about. 

Yes, the road to dual nationality may be narrow now, but there's room for it to expand. But I fear it will happen when I'm too old for it to matter. I'm not sure exactly how I will grow old in Taiwan as planned, because I can't get a mortgage and don't have local family, but landlords don't like to rent to the elderly. What am I supposed to do when I'm 80? If the law changes when I'm 60, that's a little too late to fix the problem. 

There's something to be said for fighting for something so that the next generation can enjoy fairer access. And yet, recently I've been wondering if this is enough. Wondering why I bother. 

With all this in the background, I’ve been trying to blog about politics to get my mind off it. Nothing comes out right, though. I have a few half-finished posts that I might wrap up and publish anyway, or perhaps not. We’ll see. Maybe I just need to not with the politics right now. 

Instead, I thought I'd examine something else. I know perfectly well that I'm not actually going to leave Taiwan (which, to be honest, is part of the problem. Maybe I should be more open to doing so). So rather than stewing in my own angry juices over this, perhaps I should talk a bit about why I stay. 

People love to ask why I moved to Taiwan. That story isn't very interesting. Studying in India made me want to learn more about Asia in general. I spent a year in China and didn't love it. And yet, I still felt there was a lot for me to learn, and I like the general feel and pace of life in large Asian cities. So, I came to Taipei mostly out of curiosity. I certainly didn't know much about it. 

Why I stay, though? Maybe that's worth discussing. I've been here for 18 years now. The pay isn't that good. Career opportunities are middling at best. I do have a fantastic local network, but most of my close family live on the other side of the world. Nobody loves Taipei's weather. My apartment is nice, but apartments in Taiwan generally aren't. There's the ever-looming China threat (though I imitate local residents in living my life as though that's not a thing). 

And yet here I am. Still. I've been thinking about this for awhile -- it's easy to rattle off reasons to leave. Any article about the "ghost island" can do that. The more fruitful area to examine is why I stay.

I've identified five very generalized reasons why, despite its faults, Taiwan is the country I chose to call home. These are five things that I think are important for any country I might live in long-term, and Taiwan happens to excel at them.

For my own reflection as much as yours, here they are: 

1.) Generally good infrastructure, including (most especially) public transit

Not all of Taiwan has good public transportation, but Taipei does, and it's fairly easy to get to any other town you might want to visit. Getting around that town might be a challenge, but you can always get there. I live in Taipei, though, and this city has some of the best public transit in the world. In general, I appreciate infrastructure that works. That includes buses that run on time, a clean metro system, convenient trains.

Compare that to the US, where the only city that has public transit that comes close to meeting my standards is New York. That also happens to be a city where I couldn't possibly afford to live. I tried living in Washington DC for seven years without a car. People say transit there is good. I say it's a nightmare. 

Still, assuming I'd never move back to the US, I could enjoy good public transit in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore. If we're talking inter-city, even Vietnam. Europe, too, but there aren't really good jobs for me there. China, generally, has reasonable public transit. What could knock some of those countries off the list?

2.) An open and democratic government

Well, there goes Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong. China is an obvious no-go. I once considered moving to IstanbuI, but I can't get past the importance of a reasonable system of government. I might not have the right to vote, but it's important to me that my local friends do; I would find it very hard to exist as an admittedly privileged American in a country where I could send my ballot back every few years, but locals I knew wouldn't have access to human rights that I consider fundamental. 

For myself, well, I like to opinionate. It's important to me to live in a country where I can do so without fear of government retribution.

Beyond that, there's just something depressing about living in an unfree society. You may or may not have access to good journalism. Random bullshit things may be banned. Your friends can't say what they really think; you may not even know what they really think, depending on how severe the repression is. 

Being in Taiwan for two -- soon to be three -- presidential handovers, countless protests, a legislative occupation, and all manner of public debates? That may seem unimportant or ineffable to some, but it matters to me. Taiwan's democratic society is a big draw. 

South Korea and Japan are democracies too, though. Why not move to one of those?

3.) An acceptable level of gender equality

I'm not saying Taiwan doesn't have sexism and misogyny. Of course it does. The gender pay gap is still above 15%. But, compared to the rest of Asia, I daresay it's doing fairly well. 

Brendan has told me stories about Korea, where he would see job ads that openly offered men and women disparate pay for the same work. 

I know someone in Japan who once detailed many little ways in which women face discrimination; she once saw a pregnant woman stand up on the train for a salaryman! Discussing why that would happen, locals told her that the pregnant woman has an easier, more restful life while the salaryman is tired from hard work, so of course he should get the seat. I don't know that this happens frequently in Japan, but that it happened at all tells me that it may be a fine country to visit, but it's not a place where I think I'd be very happy living. 

Everything from work culture to beauty standards feels so much harsher in those countries. The fact that women make up such a small percentage of the workforce in Japan and are deeply underrepresented in politics are other strikes against it. I'll take the country that elected a woman twice, thanks. 

Korea is similar; the gender wage gap there is astounding (Japan is almost as bad). I've enjoyed visiting both countries. As a woman, I want to live somewhere with more equality. 

That brings me to my next point. 

4.) A high level of public safety

It's not just pay, work, politics and beauty standards. All three countries have very high levels of public safety, including for women. As an American, this matters to me. It wasn't fun growing up in a country where it wasn't safe to be outside alone at night. But Taiwan manages the high public safety with a whole lot less of the ridiculous discrimination.

This matters not just for me, but for my LGBTQ+ friends. South Korea, for instance, is not a very safe place for many people dear to me. Public safety isn't just about whether or not you're likely to get mugged or pick-pocketed. It is also deeply related to who you are. I wouldn't want to live in a country where I might be targeted because I'm a woman, or where my friends might be targeted for being gay, nonbinary or trans. 

This, of course, knocks many countries off the list -- including the United States. 

I considered adding "a high level of overall development" to this list, because so many of my points are oriented around that. Advanced economies are more likely to have good public transit and safety, higher levels of gender equality and functional democratic governments. 

But not always -- the United States fails on most of these counts. Plenty of countries that aren't rich do have democratic governments. Besides, I don't think anyone wants a middle class white lady to prattle on about how she wants to live in an advanced economy. In fact, it's not actually one of the key criteria.

Instead, my fifth point is more specific but is still related to overall development markers. 

5.) National! Health! Insurance!

As an American, I cannot express how much this matters to me. I spent the first half of my twenties kinda miserable because I needed to see some doctors, but couldn't afford any of them. My lack of access to affordable health care in the US is directly responsible for the back surgery I needed during my first year in Taiwan. 

This really matters! Health insurance alone is enough to make me forsake the US forever. 

That said, this point has been bugging me recently, because I'm in the middle of a tooth implant that isn't covered by Taiwan's NHI. All told, it will cost me about NT$87,000. The dentist has been clear that for me, it's a necessity (another one of my crowns is in danger if I don't get a tooth put in next to it). And yet, it's entirely out of pocket. 

I think NHI should cover it. After all, it's an absolute necessity for me unless I want to literally be toothless in a few years. 

But, all of that aside, I'm grateful that the many times I've needed to see a doctor in this country, that I could actually afford to do so. 

I'm still not feeling entirely all right about the state of my life in Taiwan these days. It hurts to want to commit to a place, without seeing a clear future there, especially in old age.

There is another reason I stay, but it's intensely personal: I truly believe in what Taiwan stands for. To me, Taiwan means standing up to a dictatorship that landed on your soil and tried to force you to submit, turning the country instead into a functioning and peaceful democracy. It means refusing to shatter under the constant threats from yet another dictatorship that wants to annex you by any means necessary. It means building one of the more advanced and liberal societies in Asia -- if not the most liberal -- on the back of a tragic and bitter history of colonialism and oppression.

That, to me, is worth fighting for. It's worth staying for. It's not on the list because it's not a specific thing Taiwan has, it's more of a narrative that Taiwan embodies.

It does help, however, to think through the reasons why I've stayed, and run through the possibilities of other countries where I might relocate. None quite hit the five criteria -- gender equality, health insurance, democracy, public transit and public safety -- that Taiwan does. Most countries can be exciting, interesting, historically noteworthy, or absolutely lovely. 

But I can't think of another one that actually meets these five benchmarks, all of which are crucial to me. Can you?

Which Taiwanese party offers the best chance for peace? (Not the KMT)

Here's a random picture from Hyderabad because I have somewhere to be and haven't got time to be messing around with photos

Lord forgive me, but I'm gonna pull a Tom Friedman and start with a taxi anecdote. 

If I have work at 9am, I usually take a taxi because I simply cannot with the morning rush hour. Sometimes, we talk politics, and I've heard all sorts of opinions, from the standard-issue to the positively bizarre. This morning, my driver was a middle-aged woman from Tainan with big hair and a bright green skirt who insisted that Taiwan was indeed independent, but there was no need to keep "saying we're independent" because it "upsets the mainland."  She insisted that she wants "peace" and that Taiwan is very small so “there's nothing we can do." 

Crucially, she seemed to think that people calling for Taiwan independence simply should not do so. Not because Taiwan isn't independent, but because it puts Taiwan in danger. 

We didn't exchange views on specific political parties, but her views are fairly consistent with the KMT's current campaign platform: that they're the party of no war, not declaring independence and improved dialogue with China. The only real difference between her views and the KMT platform is that the KMT fundamentally does not believe that Taiwan is independent of China. 

As she talked -- and mostly, I just let her talk -- it occurred to me that a lot of people are still judging presidential candidates based not on their actual platforms, but on some weird fantasy of what they believe those platforms to be.

For example, I've heard people still say they fear that DPP candidate Lai Ching-te will "go for independence" or that the DPP is dangerous because they will "declare independence" if they win again.

Others believe that the KMT only favor "improved dialogue" with China for the purposes of averting war; they'll insist that the party won't sell out Taiwan's sovereignty despite the fact that China's preconditions for dialogue -- that Taiwan recognize that there is "one China" and that this China includes Taiwan" -- do exactly that. 

The first is based on a semi-reasonable deduction from DPP party philosophy. They do, indeed, favor an independent Taiwan. The second is based on zero evidence. Such people are taking the KMT at their word that all they want is "dialogue", without considering their fundamental orientation to unification. 

But why take the KMT at their word, while insisting the DPP has some sort of ulterior motive or secret plan to pivot toward a formal declaration of independence when they've been quite clear that they don't intend to do so?

It not only feels a bit unfair to deduce that Lai is being dishonest about the DPP's intentions if they win the presidency again but to take Hou's word as bond, it also assumes that there is a bigger difference between what the two parties are saying than I suspect actually exists.

No, really. Hear me out.

And yes, I'm leaving out Ko Wen-je and Terry Gou because I don't want to talk about Ko, and Gou isn't worth my time. 

If we take Lai and Hou's platforms as they are presented, here is what they say they want: 

The DPP has consistently said it does, in fact, want dialogue with China, and they do not intend to declare independence. 

The KMT also says it wants dialogue with China, and does not intend to declare independence. 

I have no reason to doubt either party is lying, so whether you vote for Lai or Hou, you're getting a party that welcomes discussions with China, and won't declare independence. (I happen to know for a fact that while the DPP does, of course, envision a future of globally-recognized sovereignty as an entity independent of the PRC, there is no current intention to 'declare independence'. There's no ruse, no secret agenda). 

That, in my opinion, is where the similarities end. The DPP's reasoning is that they'd be happy to speak with envoys from another country, as long as Taiwan isn't forced to abrogate its sovereignty to do so. There's no need to declare independence, as Taiwan is already independent. No other country feels the need to put out such a statement. Why should Taiwan?

The KMT is staking their presidential bid on that dialogue with China. The key difference, of course, is that they're perfectly willing to denigrate Taiwan's sovereignty in order to do so. They'll agree to just about anything -- that there is one China as per the (fabricated) 1992 Consensus, that Taiwan's a part of it, whatever the CCP want them to say about "brothers" (兄弟) or "one family" (一家人).

Their reasoning is less overt; they won't come out and say that they consider Taiwan a part of China, but their stances don't make any sense unless you take it as a given. If any party has a secret or poorly-clarified agenda, it's the KMT. They know perfectly well that their pro-unification orientation is not popular with the public. 

In other words, when greens point out that the KMT is willing to sell out Taiwan, they're not wrong. When blues say the DPP are secretly gunning for formal independence even if it means war, they're full of crap. 

Yes, I'm biased. But come on...I'm also not wrong.

Perhaps my dislike for the KMT is causing me to notice it more, but it feels like, as usual, there's a double standard at play with the two parties. The KMT can screw up royally but "well, you know, they've always been that way." They don't even need to make meaningful changes! Their fundamental philosophy regarding Taiwan's status is laughably out of touch with the public but "but Taiwanese like to change out the ruling party" (true enough, I just wish one of the two biggest options wasn't so awful). The KMT can slaughter the defense budget, but the DPP gets blamed for Taiwan's lack of military preparedness.

The KMT can all but say they'd sell out Taiwan, but people will still believe they only want "dialogue". The KMT can have a barely-concealed desire to make Taiwan as 'Chinese' as possible, but somehow people think the DPP are the ones who are hiding their true intentions. 

Frankly, I'm sick of it. 

Okay, you might say, but which party will actually prevent war?

Honestly? The KMT may be running on a "no war" platform, but it's most likely the DPP. 

What do you think is more likely to dissuade China from attacking? A party that will kowtow to the CCP's every demand but perhaps not agree to true unification with the PRC (because the public would never accept it)? Or the party that will do what they can for Taiwan's defensive capabilities and court support from other countries, making the country less of an appealing target? 

Let's say the KMT wins, Hou lets Xi give him a good old-fashioned rawdog, but crucially doesn't actually set a timetable for unification because he knows it would result in mass riots and essentially ruin the KMT's chances for future electoral wins, if not their very existence as a party. China realizes they're not going to actually get a peacefully-unified Taiwan out of the KMT, at least not anytime soon. 

In fact, I suspect China already knows this, unless they've believed their own lies that Taiwan's desire for sovereignty is some top-down DPP invention and not the general public consensus. 

Let's say that the KMT pivoting Taiwan toward China alienates those who might have previously supported its cause -- if you're going to vote in the party that wants unification, why should we support your fight for de jure independence? Domestically, Taiwan's defensive readiness is in shambles because the KMT doesn't actually think Taiwan should need to defend itself. 

What do you think China is going to do? Say "oh well, we tried, good luck in your future endeavors, Taiwan?" 

No, they're going to attack. Not because they have to, but because the KMT will have made it easy.

On the other hand, what do you think will happen when Lai steers the same course as Tsai: cultivating a sense of existing independence for Taiwan, growing global support, rendering the question of a declaration moot as there is no need to declare what is obviously true? 

China will refuse to meet with him for sure. It will look like a more dangerous path, and China will see to that with increase war games and military exercises, various economic coercions, perhaps some financial or cybersecurity sabotage, you know...blah blah blah, the usual. Insist that the 'troublesome' DPP is bringing it on Taiwan, when in fact China is deciding to engage in this. 

They won't do that to Hou. At first, Hou will seem like the candidate for peace, because the random sanctions, military drills and fighter jet excursions will stop. For a time, at least. 

But you know what else is more likely to happen? CCP top brass will look at the costs to a bloody war that Taiwan has purposely built up, from its own defenses to international support, and decide that continuing to rattle the saber is smarter, for the time being, than actually attacking. 

That's not ideal, but it's also not war exactly. 

So if you want peace, don't support the guy that will make it easy for China to start a war when it doesn't get what it wants. 

Because it won't get what it wants -- not ever, because the Taiwanese public is unlikely to pivot toward desiring unification or any kind of strong Chinese identity -- so Taiwan's only option is to make it a bad decision to grab.

As beautiful as the ringworm on her body: a review of Sorceress Diguwan

Sorceress Diguwan by Badai

I'm a blockhead.

I don't do stream of consciousness, and I'm not a fan of I like novels with intentionally beguiling names like Autumn of the Sixteenth Nephrologist. Novels that your white mom would read in her book club that the gals winkingly called "Prosé" because they meet to discuss books and drink rosé. I like novels that are creative, but also follow a novel structure predictable enough that when it's subverted, you go "oh so like Arundhati Roy did that one time." 

I'm also sucker for a surprising line. I don't mean those postmodern writerly affectations where being out of place or saying something shocking just makes you sound like all the other writers who've already done that. 

A novel doesn't actually have to be perfectly paced or structured or even particularly surprising, if it's different enough to keep my attention. Give me enough of an undercurrent and I'll happily float down even the longest roman fleuves.

So, did I like Badai's Sorceress Diguwan? I did. 

It was not a perfectly constructed novel. It begins with an intriguing premise; in 1917, the wife of the youngest son of a Hoklo family living on Puyuma Indigenous land commits suicide, and the sorceresses of Damalagaw springs into action to ensure her choice doesn't bring evil spirits to the tribe. The most powerful among these sorceresses is the playful Diguwan, who happens to be drunk on homemade wine when we first meet her.

As the villagers deal with the patriarch of the family, Japanese authorities in nearby Taitung grow suspicious and vow to keep an eye on their activities. 

Then there's a middle section describing a long training excursion for young Indigenous men. I didn't really see how this was connected to the previous plot: was it simply describing the events of one year without concern for whether they were connected or not? I never did figure this out. Many of the same characters are featured, but they're not doing anything that seems particularly related to everything that had just transpired.

The events from the beginning of the novel do come back around to affect the third act. By then, however, I was struggling to remember who some of the characters were. Certainly the Japanese officials had not been mentioned for so long that I couldn't really remember who was whom. When one of them appeared in the village, I had to flip back to the beginning to figure out why it was relevant. It didn't help that most of the characters were underdeveloped; I had nothing specific to remember them by.  All the middle section did (for me) was illustrate that Diguwan had powers most sorceresses did not. I don't know that this point required one-third of a novel to make.

The last part of the novel centered around Indigenous-Japanese and inter-tribal conflicts regarding homemade guns. Those final scenes were indeed riveting, and I was glad I pushed through the novel to get there. The Hoklo family showed up again too, but the suicide -- a key event in the beginning -- seemed to play no significant role. After some discussion in the beginning of how the women of Damalagaw were treated better by the men than Hoklo women were treated in their society, I still felt that sexism was an accepted norm. There was even a young, beautiful female character who was having trouble finding love because she was considered too 'smart, intelligent, capable and somehow powerful'! (I'm spoiling it a bit, but it was hinted that she did, in fact, find a mate, but at least for me, it's left unclear. The story simply moves on). 

Other plot threads are left hanging; the main inter-village conflict is settled, but another one looms with Naibeluk, which is deeper in the mountains. That never quite comes to fruition.

The translation is littered with mistakes and oddities; it was edited, but even accounting for the notion that an award-winning manuscript should retain as much of the author's voice as possible in translation, it needed another run-through. 

But then the titular sorceress is said to appreciate the marks on a tree that were "as beautiful as the ringworm on her body." 

That ringworm lives rent-free in my head...

...wait, that sounds wrong. Anyway. I love a great line. It was weird, it was unexpected, and -- I suppose rather like a parasitic worm -- I was hooked. 

So far, I've made it sound like I came to appreciate a deeply flawed novel. I suppose that's true. After all, it is flawed, and I appreciate it. Frankly, I appreciate that it's a novel at all. There is a fair amount of Indigenous Taiwanese writing available in English translation. Not enough, but perhaps more than you'd expect if you didn't go looking for it. Most of it is not in novel form. There are many short stories available, and at least one book that's purely stream-of-consciousness. I chose not to purchase that one at eslite when I read that it was praised for having essentially no punctuation. Like, two periods in the whole thing. 

Innovation is great and all, but I like punctuation, and I like novels. I'm a blockhead, remember? Perhaps that's a me problem, but it doesn't make it any less true. 

There's more to like about Sorceress Diguwan than some fun prose and the fact that it exists, though. If you want insight into what Taitung-area Indigenous life was like in the Japanese colonial era, you probably can't do better. Badai was born in the 1960s and so isn't writing an eyewitness account, but the story is drawn from interviews with tribal elders. 

Badai presents a world that is certainly culturally different to the West, but also quite different from Hoklo and Hakka settler society. It's not just that the story is about Puyuma people living in Puyuma villages. Everything from the treatment of women to the use of sorcery to methods of conflict resolution and pathways to adulthood are different. The ways in which Indigenous villages selectively adopted ideas from other groups -- from farming techniques to straw shoes -- was fascinating in its intentionality, at least as described in the novel. 

Some of it did challenge my Western sensibilities. There's a scene where Mawneb, the gun manufacturer, insists that the person suspected of stealing his favorite gun should prove their innocence, rather than insist Mawneb must prove them guilty (as the latter is impossible to do...or so it seems). I'm not sure if that's how society in those villages truly functioned, or just a conceit of Mawneb, but I'll admit I'm still a fan of innocent until proven guilty. 

The scene along the trail, however, was excellent reading. I might be annoyed that the initial catalyst -- the suicide of the abused Hoklo woman -- ceased to play an important role in the story so early on. But ringworm and all, Sorceress Diguwan is worth reading.

Good commentary about bad eggs

There's no reason for using this photo. I just like it.

I've been trying to write something about Artsakh but just can't seem to get my head in the right place. In the meantime, I wanted to share some commentary from others on my last post about the ridiculous egg "scandal". I don't necessarily agree with every comment, so I'll offer some thoughts about each. 

First up, we have my favorite comment, which clarified an idea that had been bouncing around in my head but I couldn't seem to articulate properly (plus, I didn't know all of the details). This was a comment (on my public Facebook post, so not anonymous) by political scientist and blogger Nathan Batto, whom you might know as Frozen Garlic. 

What drives me nuts is that everyone seems to be saying that this is corruption because it didn't match regular market efficiencies. Thing is, there was a huge international market failure, so the markets weren't efficient to start with. [Emphasis mine].  

International chicken feed was very expensive for several reasons including climate crises in several locales and the Ukrainian crisis. , so chicken farmers stopped producing so many eggs across the globe. There's a reason they had to source eggs from Brazil, which is not the normal place that Taiwan buys eggs. I might be wrong but I don't think Taiwan usually imports many eggs at all. I don't think Taiwan has a whole lot of companies with expertise in importing eggs who were clamoring for this particular contract. The government was trying to make sure that there were eggs on supermarket shelves at a reasonable price in short order in the midst of a fucked up international market. And you know what, they managed to do that. Was the process perfect? No. But All in all, this should be seen as a policy success, not a calamitous failure. [Again, emphasis mine]. 

It's the same sort of thing for the Medigen vaccine. At the time, governments across the world were not worried about getting best value for their investment . They wanted a vaccine immediately, and they didn't really care how much it cost. Remember, the United states program was called "warp speed," not "don't waste a penny." Taiwan wanted a vaccine, and it was willing to invest some money to get one. And they got one that worked pretty well . It wasn't as good as Moderna or Pfizer, but if you remember those were unbelievably effective vaccines by most common vaccine metrics. Lots of big pharmaceutical companies and countries tried to produce a vaccine and either failed or came up with something pretty lousy. Taiwan, which didn't have a huge pharmaceutical industry to start with and was using this in part as an opportunity to kick start an industry, produced a reasonably good product in a reasonably short time. This is a policy success!

If you're looking for institutionalized corruption, these are not examples you want.

Yes, exactly. As far as I know importing eggs at all is unusual; they're a delicate product, prone to breakage, and they do expire. I'm no agriculture expert, though, so that's just an educated guess. I have felt in the past that Taiwanese voters have high expectations, and international observers tend to adopt that stance as well. That is, when Taiwan performs well -- or outperforms just about everyone else -- if there is some small imperfection or fault in said performance, it's cause for heavy criticism. Medigen is a great example; Taiwan succeeded where most countries failed. They kept COVID at bay long enough to develop a vaccine, and then developed a pretty good vaccine! And yet, because KMT-led media scares and lack of international approval (thanks, you WHO fuckers) kept people from accepting the domestic vaccines, suddenly it was a bad idea? China was praised for rolling out mass vaccinations with a formula that does not work, but Taiwan developed an effective one, yet got hit with a fake news cyclone? Give me a goddamn break. 

With the egg shortage, Taiwan actually did what a lot of wealthier countries failed to do; it got eggs on shelves at reasonable prices. Given that eggs are an affordable source of protein and a great deal of them are consumed in Taiwan daily, we can speculate that they're an important source of nutrition especially for low-income families. The "reasonable prices" thing is actually central to that issue. 

This brings me to the next comment, which I don't agree with.  There's a little more to this conversation, and you can read it here if you like. 

The egg problem is easily solved. Simply remove the price cap. That’s one of the principal reasons these shortages happened to begin with.

I have libertarian friends who would agree with this. Without arguing about price caps and their role in the market in general, I don't think this would have been a good solution to the egg shortage specifically. Besides, the shortage was due to a screwed up market, high chicken feed prices and bird flu outbreaks, not low prices per se. Most of the world has suffered egg shortages in the last few years, and not all of those countries have price caps. 

First, this would have allowed egg prices to skyrocket, perhaps to double or more. If eggs matter to low-income families (and I believe they do), then all this does is get a few more eggs on shelves, but at a cost beyond the reach of the consumers who need them most. So unless the goal is to "let them eat steak", I don't really see how this solves the central problem. 

There is one thing I do agree with: the shortage might have been somewhat alleviated -- just somewhat! -- by higher prices only insofar as it might have dissuaded the higher-income egg hoarders. Remember when supermarkets were putting limits on the number of cartons of eggs each individual could buy? Well, at least in my area, families would send different household members separately to buy their "share", resulting in egg gluts for some, and no eggs for others. Then, of course, social media was flooded with posts asking what to do with all the hoarded eggs that were about to expire. 

I understand the impulse to stock up on eggs, but this is behavior is both selfish and stupid, in the long run. Fortunately, plenty of people recognized the very good reasons not to hoard eggs, so not everyone engaged in it. 

But as with Medigen, where the objective was "fast, effective vaccines", not 'saving money", people misunderstood the goal. The goal wasn't just "eggs back on shelves", it was "eggs on shelves at prices low-income families could afford". If that matters -- and I believe it does in this case -- then removing price caps isn't a solution. 

My libertarian friends would argue that price caps push purchasing power down in the long run. I won't comment on the general argument as I'm not an economist, but for this particular shortage, I disagree. 

A friend of mine pointed this out in a Facebook message -- I'll keep them anonymous as it wasn't a public post: 

I don't get it either, the government prevents any mislabeled or bad eggs from getting into the food supply, and that is somehow a sign of incompetence? Meanwhile, in the past our past administrations let us eat gutter oil and that's not a bad thing?

The gutter oil, as far as I know, was from private food companies, and this policy was from the government. However, I otherwise agree completely. It was the government's job to regulate food safety and ensure something like 'gutter oil' would never be used in food. They failed -- and that was the Ma administration, so it was a KMT failure. 

And yet the KMT have the absolute bloody stones to yell at the DPP for averting any food safety catastrophes? 

The lot of 'em can bite me. 

Finally, although I'm working towards quitting Twitter (or only posting blog links), an interesting comment: 

I don't think DPP are so faultless. There's been egg shortages for 2 years now. They've been in power for 8 years.  Taiwan is a rich country. It should be able to supply itself with such a basic commodity as eggs.

Sure, though again, the entire world was struggling to supply itself with eggs. Wealthier countries than Taiwan had egg shortages that persisted far longer, or had eggs, but they cost astronomical sums (which isn't that much better). However, I agree that the DPP could have done more of this successful policy.

I do worry that this is another case of criticizing Taiwan for not performing perfectly, when it's actually outperformed most of the world. Beyond that, in local media (not from this particular commenter) I feel again that the two-party double standard seems to be in hyperdrive. 

The KMT fucks up so much. They couldn't conduct reasonable trade relations with China. They let Taiwan's defenses fall into disarray. They let people eat gutter oil. The last time they did anything major for Taiwan's infrastructure was...well, I can't remember when, but it might just have been the Ten Big Projects.

And yet, they attack DPP successes -- for being not enough of a success, or not a success in the exact way they insist it should have been (which they're usually wrong about). Or, they paint a DPP success as a failure, and the media runs with it, and suddenly people think DPP domestic policy is terrible and the KMT are better administrators. They are not -- at best, the two parties are about the same on domestic policy and local development, and the DPP has a clear edge in international relations and the general consensus about Taiwan's sovereignty. 

When this is pointed out to light blues (people who might be willing to concede that the KMT isn't perfect, but will vote for them), one often gets a "yeah, well, the DPP sold themselves on being idealists but they're just as corrupt!" Nobody thinks the DPP is free of corruption, but this is a very weak argument. It doesn't prove that the KMT runs Taiwan better. "The other guy sucks too" arguments don't stand up well, especially when the other guy actually sucks a lot less, but you want to make their successes look like failures to win elections. 

A bunch of bad eggs

This big snake covered in money lives in a Burmese temple, but it's what I picture when I think of the KMT.

Imagine spending three weeks traveling in the US and Canada -- San Francisco, Las Vegas (for a wedding), the Grand Canyon, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria -- complete with a break from Taiwanese current events, simply because maintaining good health requires lots of breaks. 

Then you return only to see memes and cartoons of the Minister of Agriculture on Facebook. No government job strikes you as less glamorous, but here we are, all because "a number of controversies" popped up about an egg import scheme the government enacted during the Great Egg Shortage of early 2023, and the subsequent resignation of Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲).

As a newly-minted diabetic who was diagnosed just as the Great Egg Shortage was ramping up, eggs became both a cornerstone of your diet, and also the bane of your existence; they were nearly impossible to find. 

That's where I was coming from with all this, and I still struggled to care. It had the whiff of a bogus controversy propped up by exaggerated creative storytelling. 

After looking into it, it still reads as a big fat nothing-omelet. I'd like to talk about why, with a quick caveat: I've done a lot of reading, but I'm still extraordinarily jetlagged and honestly, can't be particularly arsed. So a lot of this is just my opinion in an intentionally casual tone, with maybe some links sprinkled in if my arse decides to...arse. I'm only really writing about it because it's a good example of what happens when the important opposition function of keeping the ruling party accountable devolves into any ol' random attack. Besides, as above, I care about eggs perhaps a little bit more than most people. 

Most English-language news doesn't offer much in the way of actually describing the "various controversies", and the Mandarin-language news is breathlessly reporting all sorts of bullshit, so it took awhile to find anything meaningful.

The Taipei Times points out that a large number of the egg imports expired and had to be destroyed as domestic supply stabilized, and the subsequent waste totaled about US$6.25 million. (TaiwanPlus attributed that number to the total cost of the import project). Other eggs had to be destroyed as the wrong expiration date was printed on them, but the total number doesn't seem to be very high, and no expired eggs were sold to the public. 

Some questioned the nature of a company who got the import contract -- apparently they're new and don't have a lot of capital -- implying there was corruption afoot without actually saying so, probably due to lack of evidence. There's (frankly insane) insinuations that "maybe" there is a "money issue", again with no proof or even a hint that such proof might exist. Others are calling Chen "Tsai's Boy".

One KMT legislator accused the DPP of waiting to designate Brazil as a bird flu outbreak zone, but those familiar with the imports noted that the eggs in question left Taiwan before the outbreak began. 

None of this seems like a particularly big deal to me. US$6 million sounds like a lot, but on the scale of government budgets it's not really. Nobody bought, ate or got sick from expired eggs. 20,000 mislabeled eggs is unfortunate, but it still just...doesn't sound like a lot? Big recalls are often much, much more sweeping than that.

Even pan-green media are publishing opinion pieces admitting that the issue isn't "about the truth of the egg import turmoil", saying Chen was right to step down as an issue of "ministerial integrity". How, exactly, Chen lacks "integrity" is not explained -- and I can't see that he indeed lacks it. The writer cobbled this (non) issue together with a previous thesis plagiarism scandal by an entirely different person, but I don't see how they're related. One is actually a breach of public trust. Importing eggs and having some of them go bad isn't. 

From a political perspective, stepping down was probably the right move in an election year, but not because he did anything wrong. This is just...what happens when a furor is made -- manufactured, really -- right before an election. I don't think it's anything more complicated than that. 

And yet, it's all over the news. The public is mostly dissatisfied over the government's handling of the whole thing, but I honestly can't find anything to be that upset about. In fact, nobody seemed that dissatisfied when the imports started flowing in and eggs became available again. I, for one, was overjoyed! There are very few foods I can stomach for breakfast that won't spike my blood sugar; without eggs, I didn't really have other good options.

I know Taiwanese voters have very high expectations, resulting in satisfaction rates that seem low by any other standard, but come on.

So here's my extremely biased (but to my mind accurate) take on the whole thing. The KMT would desperately like for there to be a real scandal to take down the DPP. They'd love it if the DPP actually took a major misstep or two. There are even things they could say about Tsai's tenure that I'm not entirely happy with either. Low wages and lack of paid time off for Taiwanese workers, a failure to meaningfully address Taiwan's increasingly broken water and energy systems, lack of sufficient forward movement on migrant exploitation -- and that's just off the top of my head. Knowing they can't promise to do any better and the public likely won't be whipped up into a frenzy over them, however, the KMT leaves those alone and goes for eggs.

After all, a great way to get a lot of Taiwanese voters angry very quickly is to imply there's something dangerous about the food supply. It never fails. 

Nevermind that the DPP has pledged to subsidize improvements in hatcheries to circumvent future potential shortages, something the KMT never seems to have done after past shortages have sounded warning bells about the state of the domestic egg industry. (If I'm wrong about this and the KMT has actually tried to help farmers upgrade their equipment, let me know, but I don't recall this ever being addressed). 

When a party acts as the opposition -- something the KMT never learned how to properly do -- their chief mandate is to hold the ruling party accountable. I haven't seen the KMT actually do this. Where is the push for better energy and water supply solutions? Where is the push for stronger defense forces? Where is the push for pay, working conditions and affordable housing that will encourage people to start families, along with improved immigration procedures as Taiwan's population ages? Where is the push for an improved social safety net?

Oh yeah, right, the KMT doesn't actually care about any of that. Energy doesn't matter because they just want nuclear -- but don't care enough to build public trust that the plants are safe, or safer plants with waste storage solutions that don't infringe on Indigenous land rights. They don't care about water, because...well, I don't know why but this issue is pretty fundamental so I assume it's because they don't care about Taiwan. They don't care about birthrates because they fundamentally don't understand why people aren't having children (I've heard discussions of this on talk shows and it's always some inane bullshit about 'kids these days' -- no, idiots, people need enough money and a good place to fucking live). They don't care about defense or stopping information warfare or cybersecurity because they want Taiwan to be subjugated by China.

So they turn to eggs, and take a non-issue to stir up some fucking bullshit election "controversy", pushing a good man to step down and falsely causing their base to believe there's some sort of scary danger in the food supply when there was none. Failing that, the most famously corrupt party in Taiwan's history implies DPP corruption without proof.

Not that the DPP doesn't have corruption -- of course it does -- but probably not in this specific instance.

And now egg prices are rising again. I've also noticed fewer eggs available at grocery stores -- great. What the hell does the KMT suggest be done about it? Nothing, it seems. 

And what else was the DPP supposed to do about the egg shortage? Just let prices remain high and eggs scarce? Taiwan apparently eats 20 million eggs a day -- I can't remember which media reported that number, but it's in one of the links above. That's almost one egg per person. They're important to the Taiwanese diet, and it makes sense to import when domestic production is adversely affected.

It's like the Medigen "controversy" all over again. Imply there was some corrupt dealing around imported vaccines, with no real proof. Then imply Medigen doesn't work (it does). Then imply that vaccines, not COVID itself, are the real danger (wrong, and dangerous). Then COVID waves continue to roll in and we're not as prepared as we could be. 

All because of a few bad eggs. 

Pear-shaped

Something about this sculpture from Thailand being just a few body parts feels apropos

Content note: this post contains some descriptions of a health issue and its treatment. If such things make you uneasy, you may not want to read ahead. 

“In Taiwan this would have been resolved by now,” I huffed. “Fixed in less than a day. Ouch…ew!”

Brendan mumbled in agreement but did not look; only parents of sick young children and trained medical professionals should have to witness the drama playing out on my right thumb. We were in Portland, Oregon, at the dining room table of our friend’s mother-in-law, and I was doing some very gross things with my miniature medical mis-en-place. 

During the Las Vegas segment of our Great West Coast Tour (to New Englanders like us, Vegas counts as “West Coast”) I developed what appeared to be a mild case of paronychia. An infection around the nail. By the day of my brother-in-law’s wedding it was clearly not resolving itself. I bandaged it for our trip to the Grand Canyon because it hurt to touch anything without warning. 

When we reached Portland, the side of my thumb had puffed from pink to a furious red. My basic travel medical kit didn’t have the means to deal with this; I needed antibiotics.

“I just really don’t want to deal with the American medical system,” I said, even though we had travel medical insurance. 

We flew to Portland to visit old college friends. Someone produced Epsom salts; I submerged my thumb as Brendan cut up a dinner salad, my friends and I complained about politics and we all kept an eye on the kids. 

When I lifted my thumb out of the hot Epsom mug, my thumb had puffed up to sci-fi proportions. My finger had quite literally gone pear-shaped. A little white bulb of pus had gathered under the skin next to the nail.

My friend’s recommended urgent care clinic didn’t seem to be covered by our travel insurance. I called the insurer for a recommendation and was given a code to use for another one; it didn’t work. The provider tried to help, but ultimately sent us back to the insurance company, who confirmed that it never actually works and we’d have to pay out of pocket and submit a claim. We weren’t looking at huge sums of money, but I didn’t really want to submit something after the fact when it might get rejected. We tried another in-network provider and set up an online appointment for the next day, but then once again found that they couldn’t actually locate our provider information. At that point I was desperate — I could barely type. 

The whole affair took an entire evening, just to find a provider and make an appointment.  

The online consultation was fairly straightforward: I clearly had a paronychia, and I needed antibiotics. The nurse practitioner prescribed some and recommended I either come in to have it lanced, or I do it myself at home. 

“What does it cost to come in?” I asked. 

“It starts at $99,” she said. On top of the hundred bucks I paid for the consultation. 

 

That’s how I found myself at a dining room table laying out alcohol wipes, cotton pads and needles on a bed of tissues. I sterilized a needle and gently lanced the white bit. It didn’t hurt, which was probably a bad sign. 

The pus came out in fat yellow drops, staining the cotton pads a freaky green color. The pharmacy wouldn’t open until 11am, giving me plenty of time to relieve as much pressure as possible on my poor pear-shaped thumb. The result felt weirdly hollow, like a drained blister, but deeper under the skin. 

With our friend’s husband working the next day, we couldn’t fit into her car with the two children’s car seats. So we took an Uber to CVS while she drove the kids to a nearby cafe with big couches, with plans to meet there once I’d procured the antibiotics. 

Total time spent: six days from when I would have seen a doctor in Taiwan to when I actually saw one in the US. As I write this, the infection has not completely cleared; I feel like I have a shrinking cystic zit under my thumb pad. 

Total money spent: $140 US dollars, including the online consultation, two Uber rides and antibiotics. That’s on top of an insurance premium for three weeks of coverage that cost four times what we pay in Taiwan each month for National Health Insurance, and their actually covering it is not yet assured. 

Here’s how it would have gone in Taiwan: the same day I realized the infection wasn’t resolving itself as expected, I would have likely seen a doctor within walking distance or a short ride away on public transportation. In a hurry, I might have taken taxis for a total of about US$10. I would have immediately been given antibiotics and the doctor likely would have done a better job lancing it than I had. 

There would have been no question of National Health Insurance covering it. That’s why it exists. The appointment and the antibiotics would have cost about US$5. 

In the US we were lucky to be staying with friends for most of our trip (which is, of course, how we could afford it). We thus had immediate access to basic medical supplies. However, there should have been no need to wait that long to decide medical attention was necessary — letting the infection get a little out of control — spend that much time finding a provider, spend that much money and then lance it myself. 

In Taiwan it would have been a non-issue.

The mundanity of all this is the point: I’m telling you this gross little story exactly because it’s so banal. My only personal experience with the American medical system in 18 years was, in fact, not terrible. I needed medical care and got it, and the cost was something I could afford. That’s frankly unusual, and I was extremely lucky. 

But here’s the thing — even a not-terrible, incredibly boring (yet pus-filled) outcome was still worse in the US than it would have been in Taiwan. It’s easy to point to medical horror stories in the US and compare them to the rest of the developed world: impossible bills, long emergency room waits, avoiding ambulances because you can’t afford them, drugs you break the bank to pay for, long appointment lead times. 

Comparing a fairly good US outcome to Taiwan and still seeing the US come up short? I think that says something. Even when the American medical system basically works, it can’t compete with a small island nation that only recently developed and democratized. You don’t need a horror story to prove this. What is so thoroughly wrong with the US that it can’t even treat a simple paronychia without undue expense and stress?

We were ultimately charged for the consultation, and now have to figure out whatever complicated procedure is required to submit a claim, which may or may not be rejected. 

This should not happen, and in Taiwan it would not happen.

The US delivered a thoroughly acceptable treatment for my messed-up hand, and it was still more expensive, time-consuming and complicated than the same thing would have been in Taiwan. Frankly, that looks really bad for the US.