Taiwan, China, and other things. Recovered from the defunct TypePad platform.
Ah, those were the words of pro-Beijing demonstrators in Seattle earlier this month.
And here’s a clip of some of their counterparts in Canberra, illustrating what they mean by "Love." (skip forward to about 1:30)
(Image from The People’s Cube)
UPDATE: More here.
UPDATE #2: Heh. An ambush interview at a Chinese consulate in Aus.
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DVD player on the fritz, so it was time to buy a new one. Actually, before that I asked some Taiwanese acquaintances about repairing the old one, and to a man they all thought I was crazy. Absolutely bonkers.
Think of the time, the expense, and the possibility that it’ll break down again. "Foreigner," they said, "don’t you know? New is better."
So off to Carrefour I went.* When I got back home I checked through the blogroll, and ran across these videos of protests against the store over on the wrong side of the Taiwan Strait. [UPDATE: those particular clips have since been pulled from YouTube, but the site has others which can still be viewed]
Thursday’s Taipei Times had this disturbing bit of news:
In the southern city of Zhuzhou, protesters reportedly attacked a young US teacher on Sunday evening after he emerged from a local Carrefour.
Happy to report that there were no protests against us foreign devils at the TAIWANESE Carrefour where I went. Friendly service inside. And outside? Well, I guess there was ONE incident that I could mention . . .
Outside, a Taiwanese guy saw me and decided to impress his girlfriend with his machismo — by showing her he had the guts to say, "Hi," to me. In English. And to me, ME!, a complete stranger.
Oh YEAH? Well, TWO can play at THAT little game. So I gave my snappy trademark, "Hi – Ni hao," right back at him!
Pretty scary stuff, let me tell ya. Guess the locals aren’t receiving enough of that Chinese patriotic edumacation.
* I wasn’t being a big ole pushover here. The old DVD player’s been fixed once before — only a year and a half ago — for the same problem it has now. Hate to throw it away (it was expensive!), but I also hate to throw good money after bad, too.
From Wednesday’s Taipei Times:
In a showing of pro-China support, hundreds of demonstrators protested outside a college arena as the Dalai Lama spoke to students on solving problems through dialogue.
Thousands of people have flocked to Seattle to hear the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader speak since he arrived Thursday for a five-day conference on compassion, but the city’s Chinese community had remained largely silent until Monday.
[…]
Some [protesters] echoed Beijing’s stand that the Dalai Lama is behind the recent uprising against five decades of Chinese rule. Signs called the Dalai Lama a liar and a “CIA-funded militant.” Many people waved large Chinese flags.
The group chanted “We love Tibet,” “Stop lying” and “Dalai, your smiles charm, your actions harm,” as thousands of people filed into the University of Washington arena. A small plane flew overhead with a banner mirroring the chants.
Ah yes, they love Tibet. Though not enough to march in favor of free speech or democracy there, I’ll wager.
To paraphrase the old Soviet joke: In America, Chinese are free to denounce the Dalai Lama. While in China . . . they’re FREE to denounce the Dalai Lama, too!
Saturday’s editorial from Taiwan’s China Post:
This week, we have seen the sadly unsavory spectacle of the Beijing-bound Olympic torch being blocked and harassed while passing through London, Paris and San Francisco.
[…]
It is so ironic that the Olympic flame, which symbolizes peace, friendship and unity, has become the target of attack by those who wanted to make a political statement.
Yeah, it’s a bloody outrage those uppity Tibetans want to make "political statements" – statements the Chinese government FORBIDS them from ever making back home. Almost a million dead, six thousand monasteries destroyed, but hey, why can’t those people let bygones be bygones and start pickin’ up on all of that groovy "peace, friendship and unity" Beijing so generously provides ’em with?
(Incidentally, all the original Nazi Olympic torches from 1936 bore the company logo of the German arms manufacturer, Krupp. A fact somewhat at odds with that whole "peace, friendship and unity" thing.)
POSTSCRIPT: Was some of the harassment staged by Beijing itself to gin up outrage back home? Some evidence that the thug who tried to snatch the torch from the Chinese wheelchair lady in Paris may have been a plant. (Hat tip to Instapundit)
UPDATE (Apr 18/08): More on the Nazi origins of the Olympic torch relay.
1999: China trashes the Falun Gong sect, calling it, "An evil cult."
2000: Beijing vilifies Taiwanese Vice-President Annette Lu as, "The scum of the nation."
2006: The PRC blasts Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian as, "A destroyer of peace."
2008: The Chinese government labels the Dalai Lama, "A wolf in monk’s robes. A devil with a human face, but the heart of a beast."
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But the icing on the cake? A headline on the front page of Monday’s Taipei Times: "Media ‘demonizes’ China, Beijing’s UK envoy says"
LOL
You know, the kind where you’re too gutless to even open your mouth. From yesterday’s Taipei Times:
Vice president-elect Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) arrived in China yesterday for the [economic] Boao Forum and is scheduled to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) today.
[…]
Meanwhile, the Taiwan Friends of Tibet group has issued an open letter to Hu and asked Siew to bring it to the Chinese president.
The letter urged Hu to “stop repression and all kinds of aggressive actions against the people of Tibet and start a sincere dialogue with the [Tibetan] government-in-exile led by the Dalai Lama.”
The group said an electronic copy was forwarded to [Siew’s spokesman] Wang [Yu-chi], who accompanied Siew on the trip.
“I haven’t seen it because I don’t have Internet access here,” Wang told the Taipei Times via telephone. “I’ll probably not have it throughout the trip.” [emphasis added throughout]
Yeah, I can see that. After all, what cause have we to think that a technologically-backward country like China could provide INTERNET ACCESS for business travelers in any of its FIVE-STAR HOTELS?
(Or maybe China’s upscale hotels DO have web access, but Taiwan’s future V.P has gone a bit down-market, hoping to pinch a few pennies on his hotel bills. Staying at the local YMCA then, is he?)
A terrific photo essay at PajamasMedia:
I arrived over an hour before the scheduled relay start time only to find, to my initial surprise, supporters of the Beijing Olympics lining the route. The fact that they all had identical oversized Chinese flags, souvenir t-shirts, and even little paper American flags led me to believe that the Chinese government had organized the whole scene.
Despite that, it looks like protesters (which included a "Hands Off Taiwan" contingent) outnumbered China’s well-wishers.
(Later, things got interesting when it became clear that city authorities deliberately LIED to citizens about the relay route, and the torch was nowhere to be seen . . .)
(Hat tip to Instapundit)
Be good, kids. You don’t want this guy to chant a SUTRA at you, or anything.
(Dalai Lama photo from Yahoo News)
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Guess the Chinese are hell-bent on showing the world a thing or two about crowd control:
China’s blue-clad flame attendants, whose aggressive methods of safeguarding the Olympic torch have provoked international outcry, are paramilitary police from a force spun off from the country’s army.
The squad of 30 young men from the police academy that turns out the cream of the paramilitary security force has the job at home of ensuring riot control, domestic stability and the protection of diplomats.
[…]
The guards’ task for the torch relay is to ensure the flame is never extinguished – although it was put out three times in Paris – and now increasingly to prevent protesters demonstrating against Chinese rule in Tibet from interfering with it.
But the aggression with which the guards have been pursuing their brief has provoked anger, not least in London where they were seen wrestling protesters to the ground and were described as “thugs” by Lord Coe.
The Olympic medalist and organiser of the 2012 Games was overheard saying that the officials had pushed him around as the torch made its way through the capital on Sunday. He added that other countries on the route should “get rid of those guys”.
“They tried to punch me out of the way three times. They are horrible … I think they were thugs.” [emphasis added]
Not seeing much criticism coming from the International Olympic Committee about the Chinese goon squad. What we DO get is this, though:
"I’m definitely concerned about what has happened in London and in Paris," Jacques Rogge said. "I’m deeply saddened by the fact that such an important symbol has been attacked. We recognize the right for people to protest and express their views but it should be nonviolent. We are very sad for all the athletes and the people who expected so much from the run and have been spoiled of their joy."
Sorry to rain on your parade, Jacques. I’d feel sorrier for you and your pals if you’d pressed the Chinese harder on free speech. As it was, I saw an official from the committee on CNN International a few weeks ago telling viewers that he was engaged in silent diplomacy with Beijing with regards to human rights. [UPDATE: It might even have been Rogge himself on CNN; today’s Taipei Times says, "Rogge has refrained from criticizing China, saying he prefers to engage in ‘silent diplomacy’ with the Chinese."]
OK, so maybe English isn’t his first language, but c’mon. SILENT diplomacy kind of makes it sound like you’re . . . Not. Saying. ANYTHING.
(As for the Chinese government, hey, this is what happens when you outlaw all expression of dissent in your country. Those who make peaceful protest impossible make violent protest inevitable, to spin the old phrase. And let’s keep this thing in perspective — the violence of which Rogge speaks are a few attempted cases of TORCH-SNATCHING.)
More from another IOC muckety-muck:
Other senior IOC officials who are in Beijing to prepare for the August Games spoke bitterly of the demonstrations that have marred China’s efforts to stage the most ambitious torch relay ever.
“All I can say is we are desperately disappointed,” IOC board member Kevan Gosper said.
“[Activists] just take their hate out on whatever the issues are at the time,” Gosper said.
Kevan Gosper . . . Now where have I heard THAT name before . . . Could it be the same Kevan Gosper who condescendingly slammed Taiwan last year for refusing Beijing’s Olympic torch route offer? Let’s set the dials on the Way-Back Machine to April 28th of the year 2007:
"Given the special position we’ve delivered to Taiwan’s national Olympic committee, to sustain their position in the Olympic movement alongside China, I think it behooves Taiwan to accommodate matters Olympic and particularly something as important as the torch relay," Mr Gosper said.
"They should go beyond how they feel about their regional position, recognise they have a special place in the Olympic movement and be gracious about being included in the relay."
Yep, that would be him. Well Mr. Gosper, in retrospect it looks as though Taiwan did your organization a BIG favor and spared it a heap-load of embarrassment. And as for your suggestion that Taiwan ought to just suck it up and take it like a man, well, you might want to consider following a little of that advice yourself!
(Meanwhile, Andrew Stuttaford at the National Review impishly proposes that if the IOC doesn’t like Olympic torch protests, they could always make Pyongyang the Games’ permanent home. ‘Cause for a hitch-free relay, Kim Jong-il’s your man.)
POSTSCRIPT: Looks like the Tibetan Freedom Torch run is progressing a little more smoothly:
. . . the only flame Tibetans carried Tuesday was the Tibetan Freedom Torch, which is passing through 50 cities from March 10 to August 8 — reaching Tibet on the day the Beijing Olympics begin, which should provoke an unseemly and badly timed response from China.
As protesters ranging from monks to Irishmen marched with the Tibetan torch — which, I might add, no one was chasing with a fire extinguisher — motorists going the opposite way on Van Ness Avenue stopped in lanes to take pictures, honked and flashed peace signs or, in the case of one Chinese woman I walked past, gave demonstrators the evil eye.
On a related note, John Derbyshire takes on the argument that the Chinese were liberators of Tibet.
[Click to read earlier Parts I, II and III]
Cool stuff, this. From pages 124-128 of Tony Perrottet’s The Naked Olympics:
It takes a serious leap of our modern imaginations to remember that the pagan Olympic Games were devoted first to religion and only second to athletics: every sporting contest was dedicated to Zeus, and sacred rituals took up as much time as sports. In fact, asked to name the highlight of the Games schedule, a classical sports fan would not have chosen the chariot races, long jump, or even wrestling, but would instead have picked day three, when one hundred white oxen were sacrificed on a grand altar. This rite, coinciding with the rise of the full moon, was the Greeks’ most important national ceremony, as spiritually profound as witnessing the mysteries of Eleusis or consulting the oracle at Delphi…
[After the sacrifice,] laborers would drag the remaining carcasses back to the Council House, where they were laid on slabs for an official named the "butcher-cook" to slice…At Olympia, the chunks were placed in giant roasting pits, with the sweetmeats on metal skewers, an incipient form of shish kebab…
It must have been an infernal scene. The sights and smells — blood soaking into the dry earth, the discarded skin and bone, the heat, the flies gathering in droves, the gore-covered attendants — would probably turn the stomach of the modern observer. But even in ancient Greece, there were vegetarians who rebelled against the slaughter. The Western world’s first known animal-rights protest was made on day three of the Olympic Games in 460 B.C. , by the the philosopher Empedocles, who made his own life-sized bull out of dough, garnished it with expensive herbs, and distributed it among the onlookers. (Empedocles preached the doctrine of reincarnation, announcing that he himself had once been a fish and a bird, so that eating flesh was tantamount to cannibalism.) [emphasis added]
Few Greeks were won over. Meat was expensive, and sacrifices were the only time most citizens had the chance to savor it … They could only hope for a small chunk of the sacrificial meat, and took whatever they were given, whether it was a mix of bone and gristle, a kidney, or a chunk of juicy filet mignon. The deliberate randomness symbolically reflected the equality of Greek worshipers…
(Burger King Whopper-lover that I am, I find it hard not to like this guy. Unlike Diogenes, he didn’t disrupt an awards ceremony and rob athletes of their moment in the sun. Instead, between events Empedocles made his case as best he could. And fed a few people along the way. Maybe there was a tinge of blasphemy to it all, but it was aimed at honest reform.)
Regardless of how we feel about Diogenes’ message, or Empedocles’, or any of the OTHER philosophers who brought controversial ideas to the Sacred Games, this much is clear: the ancient organizers tolerated their presence in a way that must seem inconceivable to the Butchers of Beijing. From what you’ve read over the past few days, ask yourself this: How would the ancient organizers have treated the Dalai Lama, one of the premier moral philosophers of the age?
Would they have sent uniformed thugs into the private rooms of his followers, arresting anyone who might
possess nothing more offensive there than his PICTURE? Or would they have WELCOMED him, with all the warmth that was shown to a thinker like Aristotle?
China’s Olympics will be held in August, of that there is no doubt. But as for Beijing’s claims that it’s upholding the SPIRIT of the Games, well, I’ll let the reader be the judge of that.
