My Life as Adoga

While visiting Taipei's "Bird Street" this weekend I came across this very young Macaw, a bird badly in need of some affection. Such a beautiful creature, but I can neither afford to own a parrot nor would I want to have a pet that would outlive me by so many years.

The Pingpu aborigines keep running up against hard brick walls in their attempts at becoming an officially recognized tribe. But hats off to them as they keep trying anyway. The first official snub came in June 2009, when the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) rejected their application. Currently, the Taiwan government-level council only recognizes 14 "indigenous groups," or tribes. The council said that the Pingpu do not meet the criteria to be officially recognized as Aborigines according to the Aboriginal Identity Act (原住民身分法), and that the then-Provincial Government of Taiwan did not make any mistakes in its call for Aborigines to register their identity in the 1950s and 1960s, “so, the Pingpu cannot legally be granted Aboriginal status.” The Pingpu claim they never heard about the registration at the time; they had either failed to be notified by mail, or did not understand that the call for registration applied to them because the government at the time use

Professor Lei Li-fen wrote an opinion piece worth reading. His essay arises from the recent scandal in Miaoli County, where the local nationalist government is dispossessing farmers so more land can be given to industrial expansion. People have short memories of the food shortages that hit many parts of Asia a couple of years ago. Read Lei's essay: " Agriculture Deserves More Support ." ( Taipei Times , July 24, 2010, pg. 8.)

What have they got against the Mexicans? Two years ago the unfolding H1N1 epidemic revealed a streak of anti-Mexican racism within the Beijing foreign policy bureaucracy, but it takes much less to encourage Taiwan's politicians to show themselves as arrogant haters of things Mexican. All the politicians needed was a survey in Foreign Policy magazine that ranked Taipei City as No. 34 among the world's most favorable urban sites, a fall of six point from last year's No. 39 slot. A mayoral election is coming up, so the out-of-power (and likely to remain that way: Taipei citizens vote the party, not the policy) DPP blamed the slide on the current mayor's performance. "The ranking of Taipei City fell from 34th to 39th," he said. "Mexico City, on the other hand, was ranked 30th," he quickly added. What does he have against Mexico City that he seems to naturally expect it to rank lower than it did, and certainly far lower than Taipei City? There's an un

Turning tables is a part of political life in Taiwan. When the DPP was in power the KMT blamed them for a stagnant economy, while the DPP defended itself by asking how much a government can or should do to control the economy. Now that the fascistoonationalists are in power and the economy continues to go sour--with more people now living below the poverty line than under the previous government and the income gap widening--the DPP is calling on the KMT to "shoulder responsibility" for the economic mess. The current government lays all the blame on globalization. Admittedly part of the problem is globally influenced, but a larger part is perhaps domestically generated. First, the government's policies favor the upper middle class, thereby encouraging the income gap between the richest and the poorest. For those who can find work, they are typically taking on temporary or dispatch jobs. Real wages continue to decline. As for those of the business class so favored by the g

In an opinion page piece titled " The Myth of Chinese Soft Power " by former DPP legislator Lin Cho-shui draws to a close with the following comments on a Pew Research Center poll of 24,000 participants in 22 countries: "The center found that there has been a large increase in the number of people who hold a negative view of China in the United States, Japan, South Korea and Western European countries. The survey also found that those who hold a positive view of China are people from African and Latin American nations, with people from Pakistan , Kenya and Nigeria having the most positive opinions about China. "This survey was something of a surprise. First, it showed that the three nations with the most positive view of China have horrendous human rights records and that they are of the same ilk as China’s two East Asian allies, North Korea and Myanmar.

The octopus with the ability to predict World Cup winners has become a news sensation in Taiwan. The octopus' predictions have apparently irked the German sports audience as well. This afternoon on Taiwan television the satirical program "The Big Party" 全民最大黨 offered a skit featuring a Hitler lookalike speaking his own imaginary German and suggesting what should be done with the octopus. Of course, his suggestion was to mix up a platter of sashimi to enjoy after buying a new BMW. If any German citizens ever saw the skit, they would be both insulted and disheartened. How sad they would feel to see that BMW and Hitler remain the most obvious icons, in the mind of Taiwanese and perhaps the world, of Germany.