China's treatment of human right's activist and author Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) is a reminder of the values system at Beijing's core- the dream of democracy is denied.
The western world knows democracy and free speech.
What is free speech in the Mandarin half of the world?
Modern Chinese media stores sell bright red CDs with songs titled "THE SUN IS THE MOST RED, CHAIRMAN MAO IS THE MOST FAMILIAR" ("太陽最紅﹐毛主席最親").
Communist China, carrying its own crushing weight most familiarly.
The KMT in Taiwan allows the Chinese visits to turn Taiwan's pressured police against the country's people. The handcuffs come flying out as unnecessary assertion from police confuses the protesters.
SET News footage, Channel 54.
FTV News Channel 53.
Daily show, 8:30 pm Monday to Friday,
Repeat at 1am, also in 9 parts on YouTube.
The China-made visitor watches this when he's hiding in the hotel.
It'll be Christmas Eve today. Happiest Christmas to everyone!
Being in Taiwan makes me nostalgic for when the shops were decorated with ribbons and bows and all December was a countdown to the night of "Santa Clause" (a dubious character at best, but let that slide for now).
Still, the true meaning of Christmas needs no decoration and is with us wherever we go. It warms the heart, and maybe being in a place where my favourite holiday is a foreign import makes the Christmas message strangely more accessible, more prominent.
At least there isn't any eco-unfriendly wrapping paper getting in the way.
Everywhere Chen Yunlin goes on this self-proclaimed "historic cross-strait meeting", he hears the voices of the Taiwanese protest.
His obvious nervousness is well-warranted; he can feel that his words lose any meaning before anyone besides himself.
Taiwan already knows where his heart is, what his mission is, and can repeat his thoughts back to him, daily.
The KMT leaders, single-mindedly driven to become "historic", would do well to learn from Chen Yunlin, perhaps borrowing his ears as they seem to be working.
Protests against China and the KMT's ECFA operation continues with increasing clarity and strength. Taiwan is a complete country, and China is a completely different country.
ECFA disguises itself as a progressive "free-trade agreement"- covering geographic re-regulation under the guise of economic freedoms.
Taiwan already has its economic freedom.
Taiwan also has the freedom of Speech.
What is freedom and progress?
The chinese population are heavily censored, sedated;
Taiwan carries its free speech throughout its streets and everywhere Taiwanese people will go.
The seeds of freedom are on fertile ground in Taiwan; Asia sees, and already choses to foster this chance for changes.
12.21.09.
Taiwanese Protesters Know The Meaning of Christmas. Does China Know?
12.22.09.
The Long Sit In. "We are Proudly Taiwanese".
(1:10 min) "78 years old, are you tired?"- "No, I love Taiwan and I'm not tired".
Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year; it is followed by a lengthening of the days and shortening of the nights.
In Taiwan it is a big winter holiday for family gatherings. Age is marked by how many solstices a person has celebrated. The tradition includes eating "tang yuan" 湯圓- colourful chewy spheres made from rice that is glutinous, meaning it'll stick together and become a little ball that is often made pink or white.
冬至 Pictures, from Kinmen Island (a Taiwanese province and military base west of Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait).
Also tonight, a new drama starts on FTV in high definition, Night Market Life. Taiwan's Night Markets are really spectacular- there's a lot of regional foods, shopping, and even cell phone repair- and this series is about the people who make a living there.
" Our society is already in a state of high unemployment,
the ECFA, or to speed towards pulling the cross-strait economic relationship with China closer, will increase our unemployment pressures.
(0:32) So this problem is very simple, it is unemployment, unemployment, and unemployment.
A job's importance includes a social value, the lack of a job hinders each person's self esteem.
In the 80s, when I [Tsai Ing Wen] was studying in England, England was in a state of economic hardship and unemployment was a problem, and it reflected in society.
I did not think that 20 years later, in Taiwan, we would still have to feel the weight that unemployment places on a society.
We must have our government respond, thinking thoroughly.
They are the people with jobs now, perhaps it is difficult now for them to understand the unemployed and their feelings concerning "where will my next job be?", or those who are working but wondering "how long can I keep my job?".
This is a question that the population is keeping in their thoughts.
However, it seems our government is not willing to understand the people's hardships and take actions for the people; the government is working only to placate the people concerning their daily troubles.
The government is passing off the ECFA as harmless, even daring to tell us that employment WILL increase if we do not sign it, that we must sign, and the sooner the better.
Without proper discussion, providing any necessary information, and headed on a one-way path, nothing is explained, communicated,
there is only China's circles; and this kind of brainwashing creates discontent within a democratic society (3:00) ".
If I hear the phrase "Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province" one more time- I'm going to start blogging about it.
The way the Chinese happily throw that phrase around so often, you would think that NOBODY in China has seen Star Wars- a notion that seems ridiculous at first, but then becomes very, very plausible.
Let's break it down for them.
Transmission to China: The "REBEL" Alliance WINS.
China's emissary Chen YunLin (陳雲林) is visiting Taichung, Taiwan, to discuss ECFA from December 21 to 25, in a desperate effort to ruin the holiday season and good will towards men in the usually relaxed and sunny central city.
His visit to Taipei City last November was met with more animosity than he thought the Taiwanese people capable of.
In one of the calmer moments outside the Jing Hua Hotel in Taipei, satirical cartoonist "Fisherman" (魚夫) leads a protest with the founder of Ming Shi FTV 民視, a channel prominent in the Pro-Democracy movement, Mr Chai Tong Rong (at 3:45min.).
This year, the KMT have "asked" many stores along Taichung's wider streets to close shop days before the arrival, hindering daily business to give the Chinese man the impression of a warm reception, and wasting Taiwan's tax dollars on bodygaurds for the visitor that has already overstayed his welcome.
Thus, Fisherman is among the many media personalities calling the nation's population to document the behavioural details of Mr Chen during this visit: through the widespread use of mobile phones, live videos, and footage uploads to Youtube.com, the idea is to "catch him alive", so to speak.
Chen YunLin's persistent visits to our country aggravate the traffic, business, and livelihood of the busy Taiwanese people enough without the distractions (barriers) put in place by the fiscally irresponsible KMT. We are not impressed. Go Away: "Do not pass GO, do not collect 200 dollars".
A clever octopus adopts a coconut and reuses it as a mobile home. Just when we think we've seen it all (or most of it), the mysteries of the deep astounds us again. The sea deserves our respect, and it needs our care and responsible protection.
The creature that cares for the environment also cares for itself.
Coincidentally, this octopus offers a great step in understanding the coconut's "migratory patterns" (and the royal troubles with royal logic)-
NASA Satellite picture. "I don't see the dim sum, I thought you said this is Hong Kong?"
The Copenhagen Climate Conference is finally on, and with the people that need to be there Being There.
I hope their talks get somewhere fast.
While the delegates exchange political niceties and sit stone-faced across from each other, worrying about their respective governments and their own Mega Futures, there is an iceberg twice the size of Hong Kong speeding towards Australia.
This B171B iceberg, 87 square miles and weighing 200 billion tonnes, isn't the first to encroach on New Zealand and Australia's seas. The news about the icy goliaths have been on heavy rotation in Taiwan's media recently, but there has been an influx of icebergs nearing New Zealand since 2006. There is a flotilla of them, by the hundreds, making the seas more dangerous, especially wth the business of containers shipping still fastly growing.
Some people think this has nothing to do with "global warming", but is an effect of "Changing Weather Patterns".
That is just a new name for global warming, because "global warming" is now so blatantly obvious that it is becoming taboo. It just isn't politically sound to defer to it.
Changing weather patterns, is it? The increase in carbon dioxide levels in the air from our blind industrialisation and globalisation have nothing to do with the hot weather we're having then? The topic has been in the air (ignored) for at least 30 years, and now, when it matters, it seems so passé to admit to human error.
A traveling oil tanker the width of six lanes of open freeway and 300 metres long takes 2.4 kilometres or 1.5 miles to come to a complete stop. I wonder how people will stop the traveling icebergs, the rise in sea levels, and the melting icecaps.
December 12th is a significant day in the important history of our growing democracy of Taiwan. The prolific spawning of Taiwanese journalism and creative "web-friends" makes for a different news coverage than what was offered 30 years ago, when the Mei Li Dao magazine publishers and over 50 "out-of-Party" civilians were jailed and subjected to a military court hearing. Although news cameras were permitted during the proceedings, the coverage was minimal and biased, constucted to be ignored by the citizens of Taiwan.
The recent mayoral and provincial magistrates election results shook the foundations of the KMT, the dominating, and only, party in Taiwan from 1949 to 2000. The comparatively young Democratic Progressive Party won 46% of voters last week, up from their 38% voter-base in May 2008, with the KMT figures at 48% of votes.
The next round of highly scrutinised, and deeply internationally-influenced, peacable arenas in the daily progression of human rights in East Asia is already programmed. The protested impending visit of China's emissary Chen Yuin Ling on December 21 (the first since his visit in November 2008 was aptly complicated by Taiwan's citizen's rallies), the January 2010 legislators election, and 2010's Five Cities mayoral election are waiting for their Day.
15TH day of 8th lunar month. Mid-Autumn Festival ( Moon Festival), 中秋節.
Oct 10. Nation Day (1911), 國慶日.
Oct 21. Overseas-Mandarins' Day, 華僑節.
Oct 25. Taiwan Returns Day (Japan leaves, 1945), 台灣光復節.
Nov 12. Sun Yat-sen's Birthday, 國父誕辰紀念日.
Dec Between 20-22. Winter Solstice, 冬至.
Dec 25. Christmas. Constitution Day (1947), 行憲紀念日.
Healing of the Nations
Rev 22:5. There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.
Lunar Melt
"Anybody can become angry - that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy." -Aristotle.
