If you ask me...

A rather one-sided article appeared in today's Japan Times. Titled“Wasted chance as Taiwan's president”and written by one Sin-Ming Shaw, it's a distorted attack on Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian. For example, he blames Chen for the fact that many Taiwanese businessmen have moved operations to China, claiming it's because he failed to "de-bureaucratize and de-politicize" Taiwan's increasingly isolated economy. Actually, the flight to China has been going on since before Chen took office in 2000. He also criticizes Chen for squandering opportunities by "engag(ing) in polemics with opposition parties while he pandered to the extreme wing of the DPP and mobilized his government to "de-Sinicize" Taiwan culture." As most of us who live here in Taiwan know, it's been the opposition that has sought to frustrate Chen in the legislature at every opportunity, refusing to cooperate with his administration for the good of the country. Finally, Shaw's emphasis on Taiwan as a bastion of "unbroken adherence to the ancient (Chinese) culture" conveniently ignores the influence that 50 years of Japanese colonial rule has had on Taiwanese culture (not to mention the contributions from the native aboriginal peoples), and the fact that this promotion of an "unbroken…Chinese cultural tradition" was part of KMT propaganda to convince the locals to accept the rule of Chiang Kai-shek and his fellow mainlanders. 

And yet, Shaw does have a point. Chen has wasted the better part of six years as president of the R.O.C. I was here in 2000 when he took office, and I recall the optimism in the air, the feeling that great changes were about to be made for the betterment of Taiwan and its peoples. While the KMT and PFP opposition certainly deserves a large share of the blame for obstructing many of Chen's initiatives, Chen has been unable to convince the public of this fact. He has backed down on many issues (such as on his initial cancellation of the fourth nuclear power plant), and too often has resorted to grand gestures and pronouncements, rather than nuts-and-bolts policies and programs. His greatest failure has come in not seizing the chance to open up the files on the dark side of Taiwan's post-WWII history. There have been no investigations into 228 and the White Terror, for example. Neither has there been some kind of Truth Commission established to probe criminal acts committed by agents of the KMT government during the days when Taiwan was a one-party authoritarian state. Instead, we get the name of the airport changed from "Chiang Kai-shek International Airport" to "Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport", yet statues of Chiang still litter public parks all over the island. Should the KMT return to power in the 2008 presidential election, the door will shut on any chance to clean up the past in order to strengthen Taiwan's democratic future.

In the end, the responsibility for the failures of his administration lies with Chen. Allegations of corruption aside, if a President Annette Lu can be the person to re-energize the DPP in the remaining two years before the next election, perhaps Chen should think about stepping down.

Japanese あっちこっち書いてある日本語

Two signs spotted this evening on Chung-cheng (Jhong-jheng) Road in Fengyuan. 豊原市の中正路

A sign advertising a "Tension Ring" from Germany, with two lines of Japanese written directly above the picture of the ring:

The first line of Japanese reads "Fukano wo kano ni..." 不可能を可能に… which translates to something like "The impossible is possible...". The second line says "Kando no settingu ga tsukuru kyukyoku no kagayaki" 感動のセッティングがつくる究極の輝き. I'm not really sure how to say this in English. My best attempt would be "The impression's setting makes for the ultimate brilliance". There's really no telling if the Japanese on the sign is being used correctly. 

The other sign is in front of a bakery I sometimes frequent:

The name at the bottom of the sign in Roman letters ローマ字 reads "Maruko", a common female name in Japan. She's holding a kind of cake that's called "Dorayaki", written both in ローマ字 and in Japanese どら焼. A Dorayaki looks like this. 

Tachia (Dajia) 大甲

We were planning on spending the day with Steve and his family in Tachia, a small town north of Fengyuan famous in Taiwan for Chenlan (Jhenlan) Temple and its Tachia Matsu (Mazu) icon. Unfortunately, Steve's children appeared to be coming down with colds, so we ended up going to Tachia by ourselves.

今日大甲とういう町に行った。写真を見てください。

On the way to Tachia, we stopped in Houli (后里 こうり) to have some lunch and buy some drinks at a Sinon (Hsingnung/Singnong) Supermarket 興農スーパー. Here's a photo from the alcohol section, showing Taiwan's beer of choice, the cleverly named "Taiwan Beer". It tastes very similar to Budweiser. 'Nuff said.

台湾ビール

Our first stop in Tachia was to Jihnan (Rihnan) Station, built in 1922.
１９２２年に建てられた日南駅。　

　

From the train station it was on to Tiehchen (Tiejhen) Mountain. Tiehchen is a small mountain that stands alone above Tachia. On the top are several small parks and a Martyr's Shrine, among other things, plus some great views.

One park had a statue of Taiwan's dictator of choice, Chiang Kai-shek. Normally Chiang is depicted sitting in a chair, Lincoln-style. Here he's riding a noble steed.

In Taiwan, if more than five people congregate in a public place for more than five minutes, vendors show up and a market breaks out. Nothing like food stalls and carnival games to enhance that feel-good Sunday in the park experience. I shouldn't complain, however. The sausages tasted good, and there were no karaoke machines, thank god. Go Kings!

公園にある市場　

Last stop was downtown Tachia, where we visited the temple and had dinner. The Matsu statue here is the focus of one of Taiwan's largest festivals. Every spring on the occasion of the goddess Matsu's birthday, the statue is taken to visit another Matsu at Fengtien (Fongtian) Temple 奉天宮 in Hsinkang (Singang) 新港. The round-trip pilgrimage takes eight days, covers 280 kilometers and visits about 60 temples along the way. Even at 6:30 on a Sunday evening, the temple was crowded with worshipers. 

Souvenir snacks for sale near the temple 大甲のみやげ

The most popular woman in Tachia

Life 生物

The date on the calendar may have read Veterans Day, but it felt more like spring, at least while the sun was up. Going for a walk in the hills near Chung-cheng (Jhong-jheng) Park this afternoon, signs of life were everywhere.

今日は１１月１１日だけど春のような日だった。中正公園の近い山道にいろいろな生物がたくさん見えた。

A crab that was some distance away from the nearest source of water カに:
　

Fly ハエ:
　

A small river near my apartment building アパートの近くにある小川:
　

My apartment complex, looming like a fortress over the rice fields　
要さいのようなアパート:
　

Amber, the reason for my being. Pamela has posted a lot of pictures of Amber on this website 見てください:
　

Every day is a lazy Saturday for our cat Chiou-chiou 球球 (タマちゃん):

This evening we went to the local department store in Fengyuan to do some shopping 今晩豊原のデパートに買い物に行った。Amber, as usual, found herself the center of attention from the store clerks:

We ate dinner at the food court in the store's basement, at the politically incorrect "The Red Man Teppanyaki":

Another example of Japanese in action. The Japanese at the bottom reads "Okashiyaki" おかしやき, from a stand selling Osaka-sytle grilled cakes (according to the Chinese):

More Japanese 日本語

Another example of Japanese used in advertising in Taiwan, from a pet store in Fengyuan:

At the top of the sign the word "Inuya" is written in roman letters, followed by the same word いぬや in the hiragana script. "Inuya" literally translates as "dog house", but would be used to refer to a store selling dogs, and/or canine-related items.

Japanese 日本語

Here in Taiwan, if you want to make your product or service look more attractive, you might try using Japanese in your advertising. For many Taiwanese, Japan is the standard by which things are measured, and the source of all that is cool. I'll be keeping my eyes open to record examples of just what I mean. 

Like this billboard for Seiko watches in downtown Fengyuan:

In the upper left is written "誘う　ダイヤモンド", "Sasou" 誘う meaning "to tempt, lure, entice or invite", while "Daiyamondo" ダイヤモンド is the Japanese word for "diamond". At the bottom it says (in roman letters) "Kirameki", which means "a glitter, a sparkle, a flash or twinkling". Which all makes sense when selling a Lukia watch. It also makes sense if you can read and understand Japanese. But the only thing in Chinese on the sign is in the upper center: "Paotao Chungpiao (Baodao Jhongbiao)" or "Paotao Clocks and Watches", the name of the shop.

I didn't notice until after posting this picture that directly below the billboard is an advertisement for a pachinko parlor, with the Japanese word パチンコ partially visible. So much for keeping my eyes open. There's a good reason why I never joined the police force.

Spicy figurines

In the supermarket last night, I was surprised to find a machine dispensing betel-nut girl figurines. There are five of them in the series, and I had previously bought two until my source, a machine in front of the local Blockbuster video store, was replaced. So last night I inserted 120 NT, and added a new one to my collection. Here she is:

Here are the other two:

On a completely different note, I went to the dentist today for a check-up. According to the sign outside the building, the clinic was on the 4th floor. However, the sign next to the elevator door said it was on the 5th floor. The confusion was cleared up when I went inside and looked at the panel

Of course. As in Japan, in Chinese the word for "4", which is "ssu" ("sih"), is also a homonym for "death". And so the fourth floor disappears, and bad luck is avoided. It must have worked, because my teeth are fine.