This year's Double Ten design is U-G-L-Y and it ain't got no alibi

 

No, not this. This is actually pretty cool -- it came from here -- and I'm in favor. No, no, the 2024 National Day logo looks exactly like a design for the Republic of China, not Taiwan. It's also an aesthetic monstrosity:

IT UGLY.

If you immediately clocked this as a KMT "Chinese identity" throwback, you're absolutely right. Although I did not actively know that the design committee is organized by the Legislative Yuan and chaired by the speaker, I subconsciously inferred it from this absolute blight on the eyeballs. The legislature is currently controlled by the KMT, so even though the DPP is the "ruling party", this looks like something your crotchety grandpa who shouts that you call yourself Taiwanese because "those 太綠班 brainwashed you kids" would wear on a t-shirt he got for free and wore for the next 17 years.

Maybe it's the subliminal messaging from the giant "H" in the center, that some have already compared to the old Han Kuo-yu bomber jackets. 

Maybe it's the return to the ROC-flag inspired blue and red, or the plum blossom that just doesn't seem to be sitting quite right in the center: I can't quite pinpoint why it looks wrong, but I'll offer a few thoughts on that below. Maybe it's the failure to mention Taiwan in Mandarin, referring to it only in English. 

Just kidding -- it's all of these things. And yes, there's been an obvious design shift based on who runs the committee: 

From here

Seriously, it screams "a government committee designed this", which is exactly what happened. As a commenter below pointed out, it's got big Iron Cross energy, though that's probably unintentional. It's giving "we got super fucked up and watched old Practical Audi-Visual Chinese videos all night". It's giving "Taipei is the capital of Chinese Taipei". It's giving "I fed an AI a steady diet of TVBS for six months and then asked it to design a logo."

Actually, while I didn't feed an AI months of TVBS (not even AI deserves that), I did ask it to generate some designs based on the typical parameters for these logos. Perhaps my prompt engineering could be improved as it kept defaulting to circles, not double tens, but here are a few that made me chortle:

AI seems to show a similar level of commitment to the CCP as the KMT does, but remember, AI isn't sentient. Anyway, I think that thicc-bottomed sun in the bottom left is actually a better logo than the one the government actually unveiled. 

As with the KMT, the AI generator likes big suns and it cannot lie:

Also a fan of the retro zero: 

Artificial intelligence creates even simple characters like 十 about as well as a tattoo artist on one of the seedier Jersey Shore boardwalks who misread the dose on his edible. And yet, it still understands the KMT's secret heart: 

...although I'm not sure why it decided that Double Ten needed to imply beeeewwwwbs.

And this one just looks kind of like a stylized butthole, heh heh:

I'll throw in a few more at the end for your amusement.

My favorite part of this isn't the comment about the giant H or that it looks like the Super Mario warp pipes, it's the defensive commentary from the KMT on a design so many people seem to hate. 

I mean, as a Facebook friend commented, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and perhaps Luftwaffe officers would appreciate the aesthetic. I can think of some dead KMTers with close family ties to the early regime who would love it. But, you know, probably unintentional, right?

Legislative Speaker (barf) Han Kuo-yu called it a "beautiful work" that "carries Taiwan's deepest emotions" -- which is true, if you assume only KMT settlers and their offspring over the age of 60 have emotions.

I also enjoyed this quote: 

Interior Ministry Deputy Minister Wu Tang-an (吳堂安) complimented netizens’ rich imaginations and added that if you look closely, the colors line up with Taiwan’s flag.

He's not wrong exactly, but to see that it imitates the flag, you'd only have to look "closely" if you had glaucoma. 

Wu also said that the theme of 2024's National Day celebrations was "happy birthday to the Republic of China". Okay, but I thought that was the theme every year?

Wu is an absolute comedy machine, by the way. He tied the plum blossom -- a symbol of the KMT, which ran a brutal, deadly suppression campaign for decades under Martial Law -- to "respect for history", and said the blue and red symbolize "different opinions and voices coming together". Sorry dude, but the Republic of China flag that the KMT imposed on Taiwan, which is obvious in the design, isn't known historically for "different opinions and voices". It's known for one voice -- the dictator's -- coming together with his minions and cronies to use the military to disappear, torture and slaughter dissidents. 

According to several sources, the design was created by a team of "passionate young designers". They apparently prefer anonymity, which should surprise no-one. As is common in Taiwan, the committee trotted out "it was designed by a team" to avoid admitting that anyone in particular wasted their parents' money on design school. 

Also, I gotta say, "young designers" created this thing? At some point in my prompt journey I told the AI to make the designs "more retro" and it came up with some ideas that, while very weird, at least looked retro in a cool way. This is the sort of logo you'd see on a mug in your parents' cupboard that you'd immediately donate it to charity. Retro, but it's not a compliment.

Or maybe these designers are indeed "young", if measured on a KMT timescale. You know, the same scale on which Taipei mayor Chiang Wan-an is young (he's 45). 

The thing is, my dislike of the design isn't just because the KMT sucks, the flag is an ugly reminder of a dead dictatorship, and contemporary, democratic Taiwan deserves better than to be forced to swallow a party logo as a national symbol. 

It's also just a bad design. 

I keep looking at that plum blossom, wondering what in the absolute hell is wrong with it. Perhaps the two petals on the bottom and one on top (which is standard) make it look bottom-heavy when it's placed in the middle of that long, slim line. The blue field taken from the ROC flag cutting into the H makes it look off-center, even though I don't think it is. The design lacks balance: this might be the only time I'll ever say that there's too much going on in the left and center, and not enough on the right. 

The whole thing also looks a bit like it's being crushed? Stretching it out on the sides but keepin' it stumpy on the vertical doesn't evoke progress, innovation or the future. It gives "we're trying to expand our influence but are being crushed by the weight of history" -- which I suppose is an apt metaphor for the Republic of China. 

Long 'n Stumpy here also has a certain...je ne sais quoi. Except, oh wait, je very much sais quoi. You could call it Iron Cross, but I'm gonna call call it "I want to take a picture of my junk, but stretch it a bit so it looks normal and less like a chode." 

I'm not sure if the designers wanted the 十十 to look slimmer, or if they were trying to evoke stately columns or...what, but the edges read "serif" and if there's anything that just doesn't work on Chinese characters, even the simplest ones, it's freakin' serifs. 

Personally, although I'm a Century Gothic acolyte, I like a serif in some cases. I enjoy a nice Garamond or Cochin from time to time. I can ride with Baskerville, and if you're looking for something new, Self Modern isn't bad. I don't think they're hopelessly old-fashioned per se. 

But they don't scream "modern and clean graphics" as Wu Tang-an suggests. I see defensive borders, pushing anything new or foreign from the center. Or maybe they're closing ranks, keeping the riff-raff out. A serif is okay in some circumstances, but these absolutely convey the message that the KMT wants you damn kids to get off their lawn. 

That's not even getting into the clunkiness of the design language. It does not evoke. It does not reference. There is no subtle metaphor. It whacks you over the head with a dollar-store baseball bat. It's the difference between the person who references their love of retro sci-fi with hints of chrome and black in their decor, versus the one who hangs a papier-mâché UFO in their living room.

It does not hint at the ROC flag -- there's a literal ROC flag in the motto! Y'know, because the theme is "happy birthday to the Republic of China", which is a totally fresh and innovative theme to have! It's not symbolic of the KMT's Republic of China vision so much as a simple product of it. And I do mean "simple" in the cruelest possible way.

Something about the size, thickness and spacing of the English, compared to the relatively lighter Mandarin is just off. It's too long and fat, which is yet another thing I never thought I'd say. I know that slogans which aren't necessarily sentences sometimes have periods for emphasis, but something about this period feels wrong. Perhaps the phrase is so long that one's brain is tricked into thinking it could be a sentence, but it's not one.

I didn't always love the Double Ten designs created by DPP-led legislative committees. But at the very least they were contemporary. They weren't afraid to look at colors beyond red, white and blue. You could tell someone under the age of 70 had a hand in designing them. With the possible exceptions of 2019 and 2023, if someone gave you a mug featuring one, you might actually keep it. 

That's all I really have to say, so enjoy some more trippy AI designs for "Republic of China National Day". While I like the terrifying birds, the Alien Body Horror Sphere is also rather eye-catching. 

Antique and secondhand shopping in Taiwan isn't always easy

I'm actually excited to tell you about this lamp

I've had a lot going on these past few months, from my cat's heart attack to a voracious return of my lifelong insomnia (it's ebbed and flowed since childhood). One way I find relief from this is physical activity, preferably paired with some sort of mental problem-solving. When we lived in Jingmei I'd take long bike rides along the riverside. I started blogging as an outlet. More recently, I've taken an interest in interior design, making my home look as good as it possibly can, while spending as little as possible. This usually means scouring everywhere I can go or Lalamove will pick up for secondhand finds. 

The problem: while secondhand shopping in Taiwan can occasionally yield some real treasures that it'd be difficult to find elsewhere, and is especially good for Shōwa-era vintage Japanese items, it is usually riddled with issues. 

First, however, I'd like to share a success story. I came across this old Japanese pendant light at April's Goodies a few weeks ago. NT$700 was an acceptable price, so I nabbed it. I removed the old light as it didn't look safe. I could have re-wired it as a ceiling pendant with a fairly straightforward lighting kit, calling an electrician for installation only. Instead, I saw its potential as a table lamp and ordered a wooden light bulb stand online (a 燈座, not 燈台, as I learned after an educated guess and a fruitless search). 

                    

I don't have much restoration experience, so while I theoretically know how to make old things beautiful again, I lack the practical application skills. This I could handle, though. I removed the acrylic panels, washed them and coated the yellowed ones in a baking soda and peroxide mixture to dry overnight. I cleaned the wooden base and applied butcher block oil to give it some new life. The acrylic was slighly warped with age, so they no longer snapped in place -- I added a small amount of plastic adhesive to each panel in turn, weighing it down from the inside to dry in place before replacing the next one. Plop the whole thing over the lightbulb stand and boom -- a gorgeous "new" lamp! It will be extremely easy to turn it back into a pendant light if I ever so desire. 


                      


A happy ending like this, however, feels pretty rare. Frankly, I find secondhand shopping in Taiwan a little difficult. I don't mean the language barrier; I regularly communicate with sellers on Facebook Marketplace. Rather, the overall secondhand scene is often not ideal. 

I'm a little wary of the markets under the bridges, which are probably the best places to hunt. I've heard on multiple occasions that some (though likely not all) of the best finds are actually stolen. In fact, our building had a shoe thief for some time, which prompted a security upgrade. I asked a neighbor once why anyone would continually scout apartment buildings for used shoes to steal and she said that's the origin of most of the shoes at, say, the secondhand market under Fuhe Bridge. 

The secondhand furniture and kitchenware markets on Xiamen Street and Chongqing South Road are more trustworthy, but also a bit more specific (and I've yet to find a piece of furniture I actually want on Xiamen Street, despite checking it out multiple times). 

Thrift stores seem to come in two varieties: clean and organized but small, like Kuang-ren Green Fashion (光仁綠時尚) or the small shops in some MRT stations, or big but -- how can I put this -- often a bit grimy, as with many branches of Flea Market (跳蚤本舖). There are some bigger secondhand furniture markets outside the major cities, but there's nothing quite like the thrift stores where I furnished most of my college and early-twentysomething apartments. I do understand that Taiwan isn't the US and I can't expect something like thrift store culture to be exactly the same, but an option that's even vaguely parallel would be welcome. Kuang-ren is the best I've found so far. 

The antique stores are a little better in terms of quality, and I usually have good luck at Shōwa Old Home Store, Qinjing Warehouse and April's Goodies, but every vintage fiend I know is still reeling from the end of in-store browsing at Treasure Hunters. Their Line group is a bit overwhelming and I'm not always free when the bidding starts. What's more, if you're not already in the group, it's now very difficult to join. I have to wonder -- do they really want our business or not? 

It's a real shame, as one of my favorite secondhand lacquerware items came from Treasure Hunters, as did the matcha bowl I use as a catch-all and my beloved live-edge coffee table.


                     


There's an exceptional antique market on the outskirts of Tainan City, with friendly owners and reasonable prices but, well...although I try to go every time I'm in Tainan, it's still far. There are also places that restore furniture, or make custom pieces out of reclaimed materials, but they can be hard to find and get to.

I've found all sorts of great things at these shops, from gorgeous lacquerware to the aforementioned pendant-turned-table-light. One has to be careful, though: mixed in with some real finds are random bits from IKEA and Zara Home. That would be fine at a thrift store, but I'm not thrilled to see these things at antique store prices. 

My best luck has always been with Facebook Marketplace. After months of bookmarking and training the algorithm, I managed to score this teak dresser/sideboard for approximately 70% less than it would have cost at Scanteak (and it is Scanteak). I scored a real marble bowl for NT$80 which is unreal. Negotiating with sellers in Mandarin has been good language practice, as well. I'm not even all that mad that some of the items are grossly overpriced. That happens in the US, too, although sometimes in the US the price reflects some effort put into refurbishing or restoring something.

In fact, most (though not all) of the items on this sideboard are secondhand. 

What bothers me is how difficult it is to find items with prices clearly stated. If I see a real price I can choose to pay it, try to bargain it down or pass. If I see something listed for NT$1 or $66 or whatever, I have to message the seller to get the price. If it's so high that I don't even think it's worth bargaining -- and it usually is, that's why they don't state it outright -- I've wasted my time and theirs. It's now to the point that I don't even try, even with items I want, if no price is given.

This happens in secondhand Facebook groups too. Often, leaving off price is the norm, so even frequent sellers who used to list prices no longer do. There are some bright spots, like Buy Nothing Taipei and various groups where people who see free curbside finds post photos and addresses (though this has never really worked for me in Taiwan), but overall the caginess around pricing really harms the usefulness of online secondhand shopping.

This isn't to say that secondhand shopping in other countries is easy. Its newfound popularity in the US has caused higher prices, and as someone who doesn't have to buy secondhand but rather chooses to, I am at least theoretically part of the problem. That said, I also don't want to buy new things that it took resources to produce when there is so much waste in the world. 

At least when we travel, I can hit up thrift stores in the US, charity shops in the UK, op shops in Australia. Even in Taiwan, I can't complain too much. It takes awhile, but I have found some real treasures. I just wish there were more or better options here. 

Book Review: Voices from the Mountain

Voices from the Mountain (2014)

Husluman Vava, Auvina Kadresengan and Badai

Translated by Dr. Shu-hwa Wu

Edited by David R. Braden

Recently, I've taken a greater interest in Indigenous Taiwanese literature. One big difficulty is the dearth of such literature that's both available in English and actually in print. It's also crucial not to lump all "Taiwanese Indigenous literature" into one category, as though the writers are interchangeable. All in all, it can be hard to know where to start. 

This is where Voices from the Mountain comes in. Containing excerpts of longer works by three prominent Indigenous writers -- Badai, Husluman Vava and Auvini Kadresengan -- it's a fantastic introduction to Taiwanese Indigenous literature. Instead of committing to a whole novel, you're committing to some of the most interesting parts of that novel, to get a sense of that writer's storytelling style, wordsmithing and the topics they tend to write about.

The only real issue with this is that if you like what you read, the full novel is not necessarily available in translation. It's not really a chance to read more if your interest is piqued, unless you can read Mandarin. As for me, I can, but I find novels challenging and I'm probably not going to. If anyone knows where to get full translated versions of Husluman Vava's Tattooed Face, Auvini Kadresengan's Wild Lilies or Badai's Ginger Road in English, drop a comment below. 

The effort taken to translate these excerpts is commendable, and although I'd have recommended a bit more editing to smooth out some of the rough bits (for example, the odd clause and collocation in the second paragraph of page 64), all three authors were a joy to read. It's not a long volume, making it both a quick read and an excellent choice to throw in a carry-on when traveling. 

Because Voices from the Mountain is a book of excerpts, not a novel, it's hard to review it per se. Each excerpt and author is different. Instead, I'll offer some thoughts on the stories that have stuck with me. I remember Tattooed Face (the first excerpt from the longer book of the same name) most clearly: the characters learn that a person from a different tribe with different traditions is not someone to be feared but respected. We learn, however, that Indigenous communities are not a monolith. Each tribe and sub-communities within those tribes may have their own customs, history and culture. So often, Taiwan is divided into neat little groups: Hoklo, Hakka, the KMT diaspora, Indigenous. Perhaps some include foreigners, mostly Southeast Asian, Western or Chinese. (Yes, China is a foreign country and people from China are foreigners in Taiwan just as British people in the US are). 

But it's really so much more complicated than that. Sure, there are the Zhangzhou and Quanzhou Hoklo, and there are different groups of Hakka (I don't know much about this but I am told that the Hakka community in, say, Meinong is culturally a bit distinct from Hakka communities in Miaoli. But don't take my word for it, I'm hardly an expert). And, of course, Indigenous communities have distinctive cultural and linguistic traits beyond even the 16 recognized tribes. 

Think about it: when I moved to Taiwan in 2006, 12 tribes were recognized. By 2007, it was 13. Several tribes (including Makatao and Siraya) are locally recognized, and several more are unrecognized but claim distinct identity. How can we possibly say that "Indigenous Taiwanese" are one cultural unit when even official recognition is so often updated? 

Auvini Kadresengan's excerpts more obviously follow the same characters, though it was a bit hard to figure out what was happening when. I enjoyed learning about the intra-village dynamics that gave rise to Er-sai's family situation. If you ever had any notion that Indigenous villages were bastions of purity where everyone got along and nobody followed their individual impulses to community chagrin, then please read these stories and wash the eau de sauvage noble out of your perspective.

I've read Badai before, so I know I like his writing style. His plot arc in Sorceress Diguwan was a bit nebulous until the very end, but he's engaging and readable. More than the other authors, Badai's writing focuses on the magic or sorcery aspects of his community's beliefs -- and if I remember correctly, his mother was just such a sorceress. Of these excerpts, The Shaman has really stuck with me. In it, a sorceress's son is in an accident, and she attempts to use her powers to save him, as he is being airlifted to a hospital and attended to by medical personnel. I won't reveal the ending, but The Shaman is a riveting story. It explores how magic works in Puyuma culture, and what the requirements of limitations of practicing it are. By contrasting it with Western (or modern) medical interventions, Badai makes it clear that the ability to keep someone alive through magic is possible in that belief system, but leaves you wondering to what extent that belief is in the mother's head -- or to what extent it might be real, and potentially more powerful than a modern hospital.

I don't actually think this is intentional on Badai's part: we're not meant to wonder, necessarily, if the shaman's magic is real. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I got the distinct impression that this was simply my own interpretation, as an atheist who puts no stock in the supernatural. But you know what else? If I've learned anything about such things after 18 years in Taiwan, it's that you just have to accept there are unknowable things, and ways of looking at those unknowable things that deserve respect.

I recommend Voices from the Mountain, and not only because Taiwanese Indigenous literature in translation is rare enough to find. Even so, on its own it's a worthwhile read for anyone who wants to understand more about Taiwan's Indigenous communities -- their literatures, cultures and histories. 

Deciding on Insides: Lin Yu-ting, gender conformity, Taiwanese identity and me

A scarlet ibis at Taipei Zoo

Even before the Taiwanese media began whaling on JK Rowling for stating female Taiwanese Olympic boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) is a man, with many commenters falsely believing she is transgender, I was thinking about issues of gender, identity and culture. 

For some background on Lin, I recommend Min Chao's excellent post on Medium. To summarize, Lin is not trans. She was registered as female at birth. The Medium post says she grew up in a single-parent home; Taiwan News says she took up boxing to protect her mother from domestic abuse. She has faced bullying for her androgynous looks. The controversy stems from an allegedly failed gender test at a competition in New Delhi. I say "allegedly" because both the test type and reasons for the failure are reported as "unspecified" and results "confidential", and the athletic organization running that event is mired in controversy and shunned by the IOC. Lin later passed eligibility requirements, including a medical examination in Hangzhou.

Claims that the test given by the Russian-backed International Boxing Association showed Lin, as well as Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, has having XY chromosomes seems to stem from a single Russian Telegram channel. We don't actually know much (anything really!) about the test or its results and I don't exactly trust one Russian official posting on Telegram as a reliable source of information. It's unclear if Lin has elevated testosterone levels, but even if she does, that wouldn't un-female her.

That hasn't stopped the TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) squad from dismissing Lin outright as "male". It's not really a surprise: if one's chief goal is isntigating hate, one "unspecified" failed test by a sketchy organization is sufficient fuel for that fire.

It bothers me deeply, however, that refuting the hate directed at Lin forces one to reaffirm that she is a cis woman, implying that the criticism would be warranted if she were trans. That they'd be right to criticize if she were trans, but she simply isn't, or that there's something wrong with being trans. Truly, I don't believe this -- I would not care if she were. I don't think transphobes are blinkered just because they fell for what increasingly looks like Russian disinformation about two women who have never transitioned. I also think they're blinkered because they oppose full human rights for trans individuals.

A fair amount of the media coverage does seem to care; as much as I love watching UDN and others stick it to JK Rowling, I would not go so far as to call it enlightened discourse. I do commend UDN for pointing out that gender is not a binary, and neither testosterone levels nor chromosomes necessarily identify a person as specifically male or female. The article notes that we don't actually know the results of the tests, nor do we know anything about Lin's anatomy or whether she's intersex, and it's wrong to speculate. This is true. They take a non-position on the discussion of transgender athletes, correctly pointing out that it's irrelevant to Lin Yu-ting's career. It's a more thoughtful take than I'd expect from a conservative Taiwanese media outlet, but not exactly standing up for trans rights. 

All of this has snagged on a loose wire in my own brain. I've been thinking about it for awhile, both in relation to Taiwan and myself. 

One person's aphorism can so easily be another's thought-terminating cliché. Think about "wherever you go, there you are". As an adage offering traditional wisdom, it simply reminds us that we can't run from  our true selves. It can easily be twisted into something far more sinister, however: you can't change who you are, implying that your identity isn't yours to construct. Rather, it's decided by societal forces, doctrine, orthodoxy, others' perception of you -- and you must either accept it, or suffer. 

Some time ago, I read a tweet noting that many on the Western left stand up for trans equality and the right of any person to decide on their own gender identity and expression, but those same leftists will turn real pink real fast when it comes to Taiwan -- not giving Taiwanese any space to cultivate their identity. According to some, gender identity is fluid butTaiwanese are Chinese whether they like it or not (just as the anti-trans ideologues insist that your gender is your gender, whether that reflects who you really are or not). Who gets the right to decide who they are (and who doesn't) is thus unfair and arbitrary. 

I don't remember whose tweet it was and can't find it, but if you do, please comment below so I can give proper credit.

As with critics of Lin Yu-ting, such beliefs are based on scant or questionable evidence: incorrect references to international law, extremely biased interpretations of history that excise any facts that don't fit their narrative -- for example, that for most of their reign, the Qing only controlled about one-third of Taiwan, and as a colonial outpost at that -- straight-up wrong incantations of US policy or the Republic of China constitution. These critics demand that Taiwanese be Chinese, because it makes them uncomfortable that Taiwanese would have their own agency, or even just historical facts to back up their chosen identity. Taiwanese who disagree aren't conforming properly to the narrative, so they have to be attacked online, called 'separatists', threatened with execution, told they aren't who they say they are. Treated as less than human, not deserving of full human rights, including self-determination. Anything -- anything -- to keep them under control. Conformed. Y'know, doctrine over reality.

That doesn't sound terribly different to me from the TERF crowd insisting that one questionable test with unspecified results from one extraordinarily shady organization is enough to pounce on her for being "trans" or "a man", when she is neither. As a friend put it in a private conversation: 

"...people want to control gender expression and force everyone to fit into tidy little boxes, and anyone who violates that should be unpersoned in their view. Like, I feel like they're so obsessed over tamping down trans people, that they have to go after any kind of gender non-conformity. Trans people are the ultimate violators of conformity, so they have to engage in this witch hunt until everyone is back under control."

It also goes in the other direction. Some who will defend the right of Taiwanese people to determine their own identity -- politically, culturally and otherwise -- will then turn around and insist that it's different with gender. That Taiwanese have the right to identify as solely Taiwanese, but if you dare to state your reality over their doctrine on gender, or express yourself differently, you're not a person and don't deserve full human rights. 

This is why anti-trans ideology is so strongly linked to white supremacy: preserving the system, the hierarchy, the doctrine, at all costs. Frankly, you can say the same for Han supremacy, and keeping people in tidy little gender and ethnicity boxes is just as much cornerstone of the CCP's Han supremacists as it is to the West's white supremacists. If anything, it's worse. Have you seen the state of LGBTQ+ rights in China? It's pretty bad.

You know what else is linked to Han supremacy? Denying the reality of Taiwanese identity and Taiwan's distinct cultural heritage. For One China to Rule Them All, that simply cannot be allowed to exist. Conform or die. 

I have one more thing to say about this, and it's a little more personal. Beyond simply wanting to be a good person who respects the agency and self-determination of others, this bothers me so much because I, too, needed to have a conversation with myself to decide my insides. 

I am a cis woman, in that I was assigned female at birth and continue to identify as female. I've been told more than once that I am female because I was born female, and that's all there is to it. Something about that has never sat right with me. Since I was young, I have not felt specifically or quintessentially female, although being in a woman's body also doesn't bother me. 

How much of that comes from inside -- my own brain not accepting without question that I am a woman? How much from outside -- society presenting to me various 'roles' for women and ways to present and conform as a woman, none of which I particularly relish? I don't know. It's probably both. I spent years desperately out of love with myself because for far too long, I lacked the lexicon to have a true reckoning between my inside and my outside. 

That's why the trans rights movement benefits us all. Yes, even those of us who are cis. We don't all conform, we don't all feel exactly right in our bodies, or as though we naturally are a certain gender just because we were assigned that gender at birth. I didn't! Thanks to all of the trans people who fought for respect, recognition and rights, we now have that lexicon. Those of us who need to have the internal dialogue now find it a lot easier to do so.

I didn't not want to be a woman, but I also didn't entirely want to be one. I wasn't terribly interested in the expectations that come with it. Not just the sheer amount of external maintenance (diet, skincare, makeup, clothing, general 'ladylike' presentation), but also the life paths I was expected to inhabit. Wife? Okay, as long as he's a feminist (and he is). Mother? No thanks. Person discriminated against because of her gender and its presentation? Girl Next Door? Gawkable Object? Feminist But Only If You're Hot? Fuck off.

There have been times when I would have preferred to have been seen and treated as a man, though that might have more to do with how much more leeway society gives men in general than my own internal struggle to identify and come to terms with my benthic discomfort.

I navigated this as you might expect, from the cropped hair and army jackets of my late teen years to wondering why not being particularly ladylike didn't result in the benefit of a more athletic "tomboy" persona. I wouldn't have minded being fit! There was the rejection of Not Like Other Girls (that's a misogynist trope), but also wondering why Quirky Artsy Cool Girl is only an identity available to the thin and hot. Now that I'm older, even Fun Worldly Bohemian Aunt remains elusive. She remains slender and feminine with elegant poise as she sips her drink in some foreign café and buys one for her underage niece; I fart a lot, have terrible posture and a body more reminiscent of Angry Feminist Cat Lady (which I kind of am), or perhaps Overcooked Pierogi (but I do like pierogies). If I had a niece, however, I'd take her to Italy at 16 and buy her a drink.

Ultimately, I did decide on 'woman', which makes me cis. But it wasn't an obvious or foregone conclusion. I was unhappy because I needed to have that reckoning, and growing societal recognition of transgender and other gender non-conforming people -- a world where it is a little easier than it was before to be who you are -- also benefited me. It gave me what I needed to work myself out. 

I once commented in some anti-trans thread that I'm a woman because I decided to be one, and it's more coincidence than anything that my insides match (well, match reasonably closely) to the gender I was assigned. Someone shot back "no, you're a woman because you were born a woman!"

Which is just another way of telling me that they believe my identity is not my own to decide, they know who I am better than they do, my internal questioning threatens their conformity, their doctrine matters more than my reality, and their aphorism is my thought-terminating cliché -- except I refuse to terminate the thought. 

In fact, as a cis woman, I feel a lot more threatened by transphobes and their followers insisting that women have to act, look or be a certain way than I do by any trans woman, ever. Latching onto "but look, he's clearly A MAN!" (as though appearances and personal judgments decide gender), or unproven, evidence-free claims is bullying. And transphobes love bullying. As someone who's been called a man simply for standing with trans women, even though I have never been a man, it scares me. 

You know what doesn't scare me? Trans women.

And does that not sound quite a bit like the "Taiwan is Chinese! Taiwanese culture is Chinese culture!" people shouting as though they know Taiwan's identity better than Taiwanese people do, or that Taiwanese people have no right to determine for themselves who they are, that Taiwan's refusal to conform to a Chinese narrative threatens their ideology?

This has diverged quite a bit from the discussion surrounding Lin Yu-ting, but it grabbed hold of something way down in the depths of my own self, so I hope this has been as worthwhile for you to read as it was for me to write.

Please stop implying the name "Chinese Taipei" is Taiwan's choice

Borrowed (ok, yanked) from Chen Yen-han's Twitter feed

So much has been said about the name "Chinese Taipei" that I hadn't been intending to blog about it at all, especially as I Do Not Watch The Olympics (in capital letters). But there's a particular strain of thought that's been bugging me this time around, and perhaps it's worth addressing. 

That is, the idea that "Chinese Taipei" exists because of a decision -- just about any decision on Taiwan's name or laws -- made and currently affirmed by the government of Taiwan, so Taiwan itself is to blame for it. Even worse, this carries the implication that the geographically nonsensical name was somehow Taiwan's choice. 

I'm choosing to leave aside all the other arguments here: that "Chinese Taipei" exists because Taiwan is part of China, which is so wrong it doesn't deserve anyone's attention, or that it's the unfortunate result of international political give-and take -- which is basically true, but dispiriting. There's also the argument that Taiwan not being independent is a matter of 'international law', which is simply not true. Under any international laws that apply (and not many, if any, do), Taiwan's status is either undetermined, or it's a country. The UN and various diplomatic recognition questions don't change that. 

Besides, if it were a matter of "international law", Hong Kong and Palestine would not be fielding teams, as Palestine also lacks a seat at the UN and is denied autonomy by Israel, with US backing. Hong Kong is a recognized part of China, unfortunately. If only countries could field teams, the refugee team wouldn't exist. Countries, territories, states battling for recognition and groups of people who aren't even from one country can all participate in the Olympics, and name changes simply aren't a matter of international law. 

That's not the point, though. The big problem here, the one that my brain won't release, are the implications that the name "Chinese Taipei" was somehow Taiwan's decision or Taiwan's fault. It is neither.

Let's be clear: if the people of Taiwan had any say at all in what their Olympic team was called, it would be Taiwan, period. Nobody in Taiwan says "Chinese Taipei", they refer to their teams as 'Taiwan'. In 18 years, I have seen exactly one (1) person wearing a piece of Chinese Taipei merchandise, and frankly, he was getting a lot of stink-eye for it. I've never seen a piece of Chinese Taipei merch on sale in Taiwan. Some do watch, and when Taiwan wins, they talk about how Taiwan won, not Chinese Taipei. 

"But the official name of the country is the Republic of China! If they want to be Team Taiwan, they should change the country's name!"

Sure, I want to see a Republic of Taiwan too. The sooner the better, and it would be preferable if it didn't involve a war. But this argument is disingenuous: the name of the country isn't "Chinese Taipei". What Taiwan is called at the Olympics is simply not related to the official name of Taiwan. If it were, they'd be "Team Republic of China". That sounds silly to me, but I suppose it would be accurate at some official level. It might be locally be accepted, with a few groans. 

What's scarier about this is the Catch-22 such commentators intentionally create for Taiwan. They insist that in order to be called Taiwan, the country's name has to change, but will be the first to blame Taiwan if war breaks out because the country changed its name. There's no way for Taiwan to 'win' in the scenario they set up, and I refuse to believe everyone who makes such comments is so brain-addled that they don't see this.

No country, no people, should have to risk a devastating war just to have their sovereignty affirmed, especially if they are already self-governing. Frankly, even if they aren't -- but that's a different, rather irrelevant debate for Taiwan.

Regardless, Taiwan doesn't have to change anything internally to ask the IOC to reconsider now that Taiwan has democratized and seen drastic changes in beliefs, desires and identity. (How drastic, we'll never know -- it's not like anyone was polling what Taiwanese people thought in 1970). Plenty of nations, groups and territories request changes. The IOC is free to grant them. There's nothing stopping them except China. 


"But Taiwan itself claims to be China, so they themselves don't want to just be Taiwan!" 

No, it doesn't. If the constitution could ever have been said to claim all of China, that was put to rest in the 1990s. I could talk at length about what the ROC constitution itself does and does not say, and what the amendments do and do not mean, but I've already done that here. 

All you really need to know is that the constitutional court declined to rule on constitutionally-specified borders of the Republic of China. In other words, they wouldn't take it up as a constitutional question because they consider it a fundamentally political one, with the constitution not clarifying either way. 

Thus, the constitution makes no specific claims about ROC borders, which means it fundamentally cannot be used to claim PRC territory. 

That's leaving aside the amendment specifying that the ROC only claims to govern 'the free area' -- which is Taiwan and its outlying islands. Not the PRC. 

There really is no law that specifies borders, at least not one that I can find. As for comments, almost every elected administration of Taiwan has upheld that Taiwan is Taiwan, and its name is the Republic of China. Several elected presidents, with really only one exception, have stated that the PRC and ROC are two different entities, and neither is subordinate to the other -- or that relations between them are at the state-to-state level. 

At the highest level of office, Taiwan simply does not claim to be all of China.


"But Taiwan had the chance to be Team Taiwan and turned it down!" 

This is technically true. Taiwan was offered the opportunity to compete as Team Taiwan at one point, and has competed under other names. I'm going to quote at length from Focus Taiwan here, as they tend to make their articles unavailable to the public after a time, and I think that's silly:

The PRC stayed away from the Olympics throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, enabling the ROC to compete under the names of "Formosa" in 1960, "Taiwan" in 1964 and 1968, and "Republic of China" in 1972.

During that era, the Kuomintang (KMT) leaders of the ROC wanted the national Olympic team to compete under the "Republic of China" name to get international backing for the ROC's legitimacy, according to the documentary. For the KMT, this was especially important after the United Nations recognized the PRC and expelled the ROC in 1971.

In 1976, when the ROC delegation was asked to join the Olympic Games under the name "Taiwan" instead of "Republic of China," it refused to change its name and withdrew from the games in Canada, which broke diplomatic relations with the ROC and established ties with the PRC in 1970. [Emphasis mine]

The IOC executive committee then passed the "Nagoya Resolution" in 1979, which both the PRC and the ROC governments ultimately agreed to follow.

The resolution recognized the PRC's Olympic Committee as the "Chinese Olympic Committee" and the ROC's Olympic Committee as the "Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee."

After missing again from the Moscow Olympics in 1980, Taiwan was allowed to compete starting from the 1984 Olympic Games under an agreement with the IOC in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1981.

The "Lausanne agreement" -- viewed by some as a compromise by Taiwan -- required Taiwan's team to compete under the name "Chinese Taipei," use a non-political flag, and not play the ROC national anthem.

CNN puts it more succinctly, pointing out that this agreement wasn't exactly embraced by Taiwan, but was rather a negotiation mostly between the PRC, IOC and host nations that Taiwan signed: 

In 1976 and 1980 Taiwan boycotted the Olympic Games, after the host nations refused to allow its team to compete under the ROC moniker.

When Taiwan returned to the 1984 Olympics it was under the name “Chinese Taipei” following the 1979 agreement between the IOC and China that allowed the island to compete, but not use its own name, flag or anthem.

 

That doesn't sound like agency to me, but rather defeated acceptance. Of course the KMT dictatorship wouldn't have accepted "Taiwan" in 1981, but "Chinese Taipei" wasn't exactly Taiwan's idea either. The KMT wanted "Republic of China", which is quite a different thing. The name was never popular in Taiwan, not the leaders and not the people. 

First of all, this happened under the old Chiang dictatorship. Chiang Kai-shek made these decisions, not Taiwan. He not only did not listen to the will of the Taiwanese people, one might argue he would have been actively opposed to it, if he'd cared what the will of the people was. (He didn't.) What "Taiwan" wanted was never a consideration then.  Chiang screwed this up for Taiwan, not Taiwan. He screwed a lot of things up for Taiwan, and most of the "development" of the nation attributed to him and his son was the KMT fixing their earlier muck-ups of Taiwan's infrastructure, economy and industry.

What this tells me isn't that "Taiwan" chose Chinese Taipei, because it didn't. It tells me that at one point, the IOC was open to Taiwan being called Taiwan, or Formosa, or Republic of China. That changed, and the only reason for the change was political pressure from China. It had nothing to do with Taiwan's actions. 

Because if Taiwan were in the same position today, you could wager real money on Taiwan choosing 'Taiwan'. 

"But they held a referendum and rejected the name Taiwan for the Olympics!" 

There was a referendum, true, and it did fail. However, that referendum was subject to massive disinformation attacks, leading many to believe that choosing to ask the IOC to change the name "Chinese Taipei" would result in Taiwan being 'forced to forfeit' the Olympics, which would be bad for Taiwan's hardworking athletes. To be fair, according to the link above (which I'm not sure I entirely trust), the IOC itself implied this. 

In truth, only a minority of voters actually cast a vote in that referendum. Had it passed, the Taiwanese government certainly would not have wanted the bad press of forfeiting Taiwan's participation in the Olympics under any name. The likely outcome wouldn't have been Taiwan insisting on "Taiwan or nothing", but rather asking once again to participate as Taiwan...and being rejected. In CNN's words: 

A referendum is unlikely to unravel that binding commitment, known as the Nagoya Resolution, which Taiwan signed in 1981.

In a statement to CNN on Thursday, the IOC said that the 1979 agreement “remains unchanged and fully applicable.”

You can call the referendum performative, you can call it meaningless. Perhaps it was. But it most likely wasn't a threat to Taiwan's participation.

We can also be quite sure that the results of the referendum aren't actually what Taiwanese want, if they could choose without threat of war or forfeiture of Olympic participation. There's a poll showing it: 

"The poll showed that 80.5 percent of respondents agreed that the nation should participate as “Taiwan” at events organized by world bodies, while 12 percent disagreed...

When asked what name the nation should use at global events, 51.2 percent of respondents said “Taiwan,” while 33 percent said the “Republic of China,” 9.7 percent said “Chinese Taipei” (中華台北), 0.6 percent said “Zhongguo Taibei” (中國台北), and 2 percent said “Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu,” while 0.1 percent said other names, 2.9 percent said they did not know or had no opinion, and 0.5 percent refused to answer."

That's a solid majority. I think we know where Taiwan actually stands.

* * * 

None of this has made me change my mind on watching the Olympics. I Did Not Watch It, I Do Not Watch It, I Will Not Watch It. However, whether you want to support Taiwan (as Chinese Taipei) and accept the vagaries of international politics and Chinese threats, or just call it Taiwan, please don't blame Taiwan for the existence of the name. It's not fair, and it's not true. 

The Black Cat Shoe Drop

Zhao Cai (招財) in the back and Tiberius (台幣) in the front

Content note: this post deals with the suffering of animals. If that’s not something you can or want to engage with right now, then this post may not be for you, and that’s OK.

This is also going to be a weird start to what will eventually turn into a trauma dump. Stick with me if you want, don't if you don't. 

If you need 24-hour emergency veterinary care in Taipei, I recommend Eden Veterinary (伊甸動物醫院) in Dazhi.

* * * 

A wise friend of mine once defined belonging to a ‘culture’ as not just ‘how we make sense of the world’ (a very typical definition) but something more: how many of your core life experience takes place within that culture. He'd married in this culture, bought a home in this culture, worked a job in this culture, hit all sorts of life milestones here in Taiwan, not where he came from. 

While this might not make one a member of a culture exactly, it does create frames of reference within that culture that one might not have in the culture they were born into.  

I can say with honesty that the only place I’ve lived in long enough to call it my own adult home has been Taiwan -- 13 years in the same apartment. Most of my adult friendships formed during my time in Taiwan. Although our wedding took place in the United States, we planned it from Taiwan. I had two health scares not in the US, but Taiwan. I've had two friends die and attended my first and only non-family funeral here. I got sued by a truly heinous person in Taiwan (the usual “slander” nonsense — the case was dismissed). My husband fell off a mountain and survived in Taiwan. 

I grew up with pets, but have only ever had my own pets in Taiwan. In fact, nothing makes me feel more like a Taipeier than wheeling our two chunguses in their somewhat ridiculous double cat pram to see the vet down the road. The only reason we don’t take them to the night market or Carrefour is that they don’t like going out. Does anyone in the US take their cats out in a cat pram? 

This doesn’t make me Taiwanese. But it does mean that nearly my entire frame of reference for being an adult is situated in a Taiwanese context, and that’s not nothing. 

So here’s where we get dark and weepy: one of my cats — Tiberius, or 台幣 — had a sudden heart attack early on a Thursday morning. I’ll spare you the heart-wrenching details of what that looks like. We sped off in our pajamas, Ubering to the only 24-hour vet we know. We truly believed we were going to lose him, and the vet believed it too. I’ve lost family pets before, but never been solely responsible for making hard decisions for pets anywhere but Taiwan. I’ve only ever had to sign a DNR for my cat in Taiwan. I've only sat on a low stool outside an animal oxygen chamber watching a beloved pet -- not a child, but the closest I have to one -- fight for survival in Taiwan. I heard them say he was going hypoxic in Taiwan. He turned a corner and survived in Taiwan.

Tiberius ultimately spent two nights in an oxygen chamber. He's since come home, but was diagnosed with stage C congestive heart failure and has a prognosis of months, not years. 

Perhaps this more or less how it would play out in the US, but when I recall those family pets who passed, the light falling within those mental images is simply…different. More than once, we’ve been told that a pet’s condition was terminal, and my parents decided to let them go sooner rather than later. 

As a pre-teen, I had a sweet ginger cat named Mango. When he fell suddenly ill with what appeared to be extremely acute liver failure. The vet recommended giving him a comfortable, quick exit, and that's what happened.

I don't know if such a quick recommendation came as a result of this specific vet's worldview, or because in the US vets routinely suggest such things. Perhaps it was a money thing — while not poor, I know life was not always financially smooth for us, and expensive treatments that would only extend a terminal diagnosis were out of the question. 

All I can say is that as I watched my beloved dumdum struggling to breathe in that chamber, in far worse condition than Mango had appeared to be all those hazy years ago, nobody in Taiwan suggested the same thing. I'm glad they didn't, as I might have okayed it, prioritizing ending his suffering over his possible survival. 

Again, perhaps it was simply the policy of this particular vet not to broach the topic of euthanasia until the owner does. It felt, however, as though despite their commendable efforts to keep Lord Tibblesworth comfortable, the default was a natural, and possibly uncomfortable, death. 

I quipped to a friend some time later that His Majesty the Hamburglar and his older brother, Whiny McScreamer (officially known as Zhao Cai 招財), seemed to get better overall medical care than I did when young. He sees the vet more frequently than I saw the doctor. If either of them seem slightly ill, off we go. Young Lao Ren Cha, however, was given some NyQuil and told to sleep it off. I once had an undiagnosed kidney infection for weeks because Mom and Grandma were convinced it was just menstrual cramps and all I needed was a hot pad and some peppermint tea.

Perhaps, again, this is more personal -- and again, really about money. Bluntly, I have some. Not enough, but some. I can afford to pamper Prince Dainty Fellow and Monseigneur Tibs with the best medical care Taipei has to offer. Sending your kid to an American doctor, even with insurance, was an expensive proposition even back in the late 20th century. 

In other words, I strongly suspect that if my mother had been in our position on Thursday morning in an American veterinary office, with her beloved cat suffering from a massive edema, that she would have been advised to make -- and made -- a different choice. Maybe it would have been culture, maybe her specific worldview, maybe money. 

In fact, it felt slightly wrong to sit on the other side of that chamber talking nonstop to Tiberius (it seemed he could hear us) but unable to provide any other comfort. We had no way of knowing he’d make it; the vet had even said he probably wouldn’t. 

In terms of what it cost to save his life, I'll give the number just in case you're worried about the price tag if it happens to you: NT$45,000 for his emergency care and three days/two nights in the ICU. HIs first outpatient checkup cost over NT$10,000. He will need more checkups as long as he's with us.

To be blunt, in the best possible scenario, Tiberius’s health deteriorates to the point that we can decide to let him go in a comfortable way, and we can be there with him. The next best scenario is that it’s very sudden. However, it is likely he will be in great pain again. There are many worse things than can happen, which I will not describe. 

It feels wrong to know this, and simply let it play out, although every day I have with Tibs the Fat Moron is a stolen blessing. When I originally wrote this post, he was still clearly in recovery. He held his head funny for days and briefly forgot where his food bowl was. Now, he's more or less back to normal, although the prognosis is the same. It no longer feels cruel, though; it feels like a few more months of enjoying a good life. 

Our regular vet keeps trying to reassure us -- less than a year is just a statistic! A few cats in his condition live longer! Sometimes all symptoms go away and they can top taking blood thinners! You never know!

Sure, but I'm not sure if they go so hard on the optimism in the US. I'm struggling with this liminal state; the unpredictability of when and how it will happen haunts me. "But it could be alright!" doesn't really help. Whether that's common among Taiwanese veterinarians or specific to Tiberius's vet is unclear. 

It also may not matter in my specific situation. To be frank -- and skip this part if you want -- what I watched him go through that early Thursday morning looked too similar to my own mother's final moments. While I thank gods I don't believe in that I was able to be there with her, all the optimism of her short-lived remissions, followed by the blood clot that formed and went to her heart, were too many blows to my  psyche, delivered entirely too fast.

I slept a lot in those months. It's my stress response. I slept a lot in the wake of Daft Batman's emergency, too. Of course, a cat is not a mother, and I wouldn't go so far as to call it PTSD -- more like a garden-variety trauma response -- but there were flashbacks. Optimism hurts a little now. I'd rather hear it straight: be there for your cat, because this is what will most likely happen. 

I haven't been myself since. Even when I'm not recovering from a traumatic experience, I struggle to avoid distraction on the best of days. My impostor syndrome creates writer's block even when I'm not going through anything in particular. Travel gets me out of my own head, but we can't travel together as long as His Grace requires two pills a day, which only we can administer. Things are, in a word, weird. I don't know when I'll come out of it. 

But I can at least say that I've had nothing but supportive responses from employers, who've given me a lot of grace as I go through whatever it is I need to go through -- because there's no way this is just about Tiberius. It can't not also be about my mom. 

It’s like this: a few months ago I was at IKEA with friends. One bought two of their rocks glasses, remarking “maybe I’ll find someone to have a drink with”. She called it the pessimism glass (if you buy only one) and the optimism glass (if you buy two). At the register, one of the glasses dropped and shattered. 

“This is why I can’t have an optimism glass, you guys,” she said. “Because my optimism glass has shattered too many times!” 

What I have is this: on those nights when I can't sleep at two, three, four o'clock in the morning, I can still plop down on my couch with my computer and Sir Tibberts, Earl of Tibberton will curl up next to me and respond to my pets with his little prrts, for now. So my pessimism glass is at least half full.