- I never got the appeal of Lorde's "Royals," which unfortunately made me write her off as someone who wasn't my cup of tea. Then she started promoting "Team" and I thought, Okay. This is better. Then this weekend S was playing "Glory and Gore" in her car, and when I asked her about the song, she also told me to check out "Tennis Court." Now I'm wondering why they promoted "Royals" so heavily, because I've been hooked on the other songs. Maybe my tastes are just not quite aligned with the general population.
- Dunno if I'll watch it anytime soon (I didn't love the series), but I'm glad Divergent did so well in the box office. Every time a YA-movie adaptation is released, I get all anxious about whether or not it's gonna bomb. Cuz people shit on YA all the time as the lowbrow entertainment of choice for hormonal teenage girls. Also, this bingo card pretty much sums up all the irritating things I see whenever a new article disparaging YA springs out of the ground like a dandelion every other month:
- Yesterday I discovered Tinashe and started listening to "2 On" and "Ecstasy." Her style really reminds me of 2000's R&B--which Sevyn Streeter's "It Won't Stop" and Jhene Aiko also seem to emulate. And while I like this type of music, it also occurred to me that I'm getting to the point that the stuff I grew up with can have trendy "revivals." Yikes. But okay--I like this stuff better than the EDM pop phase, but someone needs to bring back the female rappers from that 2000's era.
- This weekend I learned firsthand just how much conspiracy theorists can drive me up a wall. Long story short, I ended up in a 1 vs 2 argument over a ridiculous, nonsensical theory regarding the missing Malaysian Airlines plane. It almost felt a bit like a debate between evolutionist and a creationist. People will believe what they want to believe. But really, where is the plane??
- Speaking of current events in Asia, I am very confused about what's going on in Taiwan. It's not covered extensively in Western media and I can't really read Chinese news. A Facebook friend of mine (went to high school in Taiwan, went to Duke for college) wrote this FB status-essay-thing about it, and 50 people or so "liked" the status with multiple people left supporting comments. My reaction was a bit different. First, I was confused what his point was, because the beginning seemed something like "Can't we all get along? Why resort to violence by taking over a government building?" and then it suddenly diverged to something about how the rest of the world doesn't even view Taiwan as a country and how there should be doing a goal-oriented protest instead of people being fueled by rage and hormones and jumping to conclusions, and then finally he capped things off by saying that as youths of Taiwan, "instead of being stuck in the past, we should be thinking about how to improve the future." Huh? People kept complimenting him on such a well-written post, and I was like, ummm okay? And your point is that people should stop being angry? How is that any more goal-oriented than the protestors?
Side note: then I scrolled down and saw this kid (must be a mainlander, based on his comment and last name) whose comment about Taiwanese people being arrogant really ticked me off. Which I will explain in a second.
Anyways, so I sent an e-mail to my mom asking her on her opinion, and we had a conversation back and forth about it. Disclaimer: my Taiwanese family has generally been politically green--that is, they believe that Taiwan is independent from China. So naturally, that's the perspective I've been raised in, so I guess I would be considered an "arrogant" Taiwanese-American. Anyways, my mom's explanation (with some grammar edits lol):
The Taiwanese president Ma wants to pass the trade deal with China as a whole package without discussion. That's why people are against it. The procedure of writing the deal is not legally transparent and the consequence is devastating. For example, in the deal, as long as a person in China invests 200K USD, he can bring three people to Taiwan. They will each be granted with legal citizen ID with benefits like national health care, and it means that each of them will have a vote in the future election. Since Taiwan is so small, in this way, China can just BUY Taiwan easily without military force.
The people in Taiwan who already own a lot of properties will benefit from this deal, because China's buying power will buy everything and make them rich. But, if you look at it from the young people's view point, their future is rather grim. China's buying power will make the Taiwanese real estate in high demand and high price, which young people can't afford. The health care and other kinds of social services have been in a gigantic debt and that will be the young generation's burden. Once all the big business are under Chinese investment control and the small business can't survive, it means their bosses will control them all.
China's investments have bought out some of the Taiwan media groups, that's why the news you hear is not two-sided. The volunteers of the student movement are collecting donations and going to buy one-page ad on New York Times. (They collected enough donations in one day.) These students are in their early twenties. In the past 14 years, they've witnessed the rotting process of Taiwan politics. Now they see the older generation is going to hand them an even grimmer future. How can they not be angry?And yes, I can't deny that I may be biased towards a specific side, even though I know very little about Taiwanese politics. But the grim future is real; I understood it for myself when I saw all the problems with Taiwanese national health care two years ago. Frankly, this is more than just arrogance or rage or hormones. This is about a country that is sliding into the toilet, and the problem lies in a difference in opinion on the best way to turn things around.
2 comments:
Hi, follower of your blog (found you via FictionPress. Great fan of EP by the way!). I'm a Taiwanese living abroad, and surprisingly hasn't heard about the protest (probably because I'm in Malaysia and we're completely submerged in the whole MH370 incident), thanks for informing me!
From what I have read in Taiwanese news, the actual purpose of the protest doesn't really align with any political party. I know that the whole "anti-China" thing is mostly associated with the Green Party, but that isn't suppose to be the focus of this protest. The original intent seems to be a peaceful protest against the new agreement, wanting the government to take civilian voice into account instead of secretly dictating the whole affair. It appears that some people either got too passionate or were just opportunists(kind of like the London riots of 2011 where people unnecessarily looted shops), and those people are the ones who have made the protest lost focus and tainted the overall image of the protest. I read that the leaders of the protest had to beg people not to get violent. The media is partially to blame for this tainted image, perhaps, but people really should have been more rational.
So in reference to your friend's comments, I believe the original protest is much more goal-oriented than it appears now, but those people who complain only about China are missing the point. Taiwan does need change, as you say, our economics is just "sliding into the toilet". There is no easy solution here- but being anti-Chinese right now isn't going to help.
(Side note 1: I read this interesting article drawing comparisons to Ireland's independence from the UK: while during the financial crisis of 2008 Ireland was widely praise to adhering to the agreements they signed with the UK for independence, what people didn't see were the 300,000 people who left the country because of how bad the crisis got for them.)
I'm assuming that this is what your friend is referring to with the "look to the future instead of the past"- instead of complaining let's work together to come up with a solution. How is being angry helping anyone? Yes, the younger generation (including me, since I'm going home for uni this year) is going to be handed a burden, but isn't that always true? (The politics in the world has hardly gotten better, ever.) If we really care about the country we'll do whatever we can to fix it.
(Side note 2: Malaysian politics is absolute rubbish, more so than Taiwan. Maybe that has changed my perspective. Anyway, they just had a general election last year where the unfavoured political party "wins" again, with various suspicious actions. I really like that even though most people are infuriated with the corruption, what the people my age said to that was "Just wait until we're adults. We're going to make this country a better place.")
For the record, even though I proudly declare myself Taiwanese to everyone, I love that my passport says Republic of China so I can treat people who ask to a history of my country- the actual, original, 5000 years old China. I feel no shame in association to the China that I'm from- only to the communist, Orwellian China that it has become. I can write another essay on this but let's not go there.
TL;DR- I can see why your friend has made the comments that he made, "getting angry doesn't solve anything" (to quote Mika's "Grace Kelly"), the focus of the protest is much better than it appears now, which is a shame, and let's work together (logically) to decrease world suck! Yay! Thanks for giving an opportunity to read up more about what's going on :) Looking forward to more EP as well, but no pressure!
Oh my gosh HELLO! :D I was pleasantly surprised to see that someone had commented on this post lol.
Bah, you didn't come across as patronizing at all. It was very balanced and thoughtful, and I'm actually really appreciative that I finally got to hear the perspective of someone who's Taiwanese but also a bit more removed (and a little more unbiased) from what's going on. I feel like I can't read anything in English to make my own judgments, so I have to rely on what my relatives and friends tell me, and I end up wondering if I'm getting a full perspective on what's going on. But I'm glad I helped raise awareness to you and thanks for helping clearing things up for me in return!
LOL I'd be curious to hear about how you manage the whole China/Taiwan/Malaysia pride dilemma, but we can save that for another day haha. Anyways, I think it's so awesome that you found me through FP and thanks for sticking around with me as I've flailed around hahaha. :D yay!
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