Back around May or June, it became clear that there would be a leadership contest within the ranks of the KMT for a new chairman. The chairman at the time, Lien Chen, had lost two presidential races, and his attempts to have the March elections declared null and void were going nowhere. Unless the KMT wanted to to be led by its own version of Harold Stassen, Lien had to go.
Lien still had his supporters however, and they began to grow more vocal. The nadir came when a group of elderly men kowtowed on hands and knees in front of him on national television, weeping and begging him for the sake of the party not to resign. It was suspiciously like a scene from Imperial China, where a man had to decline supplicants three times before he accepted the job of Emperor.
One of the two contenders for the post, by the surname of Wang, hedged his bets. Wang said that he was eager to get the job, he was champing at the bit, he was raring to go. Unless of course, Lien still wanted the job. In that case, Wang would graciously bow out, because obviously the party would be much better served with a two-time electoral loser at its helm.
The other contender, hizzonner Mayor Ma Ying-jeou of Taipei, was made of sterner stuff. Ma wanted the job, whether Lien quit or not. Suddenly, Lien’s "unanimous annointment" strategy began to fall apart.
It’s safe to say that no foreigner could ever have predicted the gambit that Lien would then employ. It could only have been conceivable to someone raised in the Chinese culture of ‘filial piety’. For what happened next was that an old KMT stalwart named Ma Ho-ling went to the press and weighed in on the issue.
If my son runs against Lien Chan, said Mayor Ma’s father, I will commit suicide.
Gee, thanks for your support, Dad.
Lien ended up resigning, Mayor Ma became the new KMT chairman, and Ma’s father didn’t drink any cyanide-flavored kool-aid.
I repeat the story now, because yesterday, Ma’s father was hospitalized.
On this matter, my heart goes out to Mayor Ma. His father however, gets no sympathy from me.