Andy Warhol first said it: In today's age everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame, and the pan-blue media seems to have taken that to heart. At least they will guarantee anyone 15 minutes of media time and fame as long as they can get up and say something derogatory about the president. It doesn't have to be true, it doesn't have to be provable, all it needs is to be critical and have an innuendo of fault.
The pan-blue search for shills, however, is beginning to reach desperate proportions and the life of those shills nears that of a mayfly. Look at Li Wen-zhen (黎文正) and the coverage he received barely two weeks ago.
Li embarked on a hunger strike at the end of last month to demand that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) step down. He hoped to inspire a whole student movement to oust the president; it was time students stood up and showed their idealism.
Launch a student movement? Didn't Li get booted out of Fu Jen Catholic University because he rarely showed up for classes? And didn't he also drop out of another university for similar reasons? Well that may be true, but there is a reason -- he was being filial. He had to take part-time jobs to help support his father.
Ah yes, of course, the noble, filial son, what better example of Confucian values, what better spirit of idealism. But wait, if the filial son is camped out at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial for a month and now is embarking on a hunger strike, how is that helping his poor old father? Well that may be true, but there is a reason. You see sometimes country has to come before family.
Of course, the noble filial son is also a noble filial patriot. That must be why Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) showed up to have his picture taken with Li and express support for his cause. After all, Ma only has his picture taken in noble filial scenes.
Well, what did happen to Li? The last we of saw him was with the pan-blue media cameras filming him being carried off to the hospital. Though there were Mos Burger wrappers swirling in the wind behind, he did have an emaciated look on his face. Did he survive in the hospital? Will his health ever be the same?
Good news. He is doing quite well. Li now hopes to turn his escapade into a singing career. What happened to dear old dad who is in need of financial help? What happened to the idealism of country stands before all? What happened to ... what did happen?
Believe it or not, some two weeks after the six-day hunger strike and the touching photo shots of Ma shaking Li's hand and praising his patriotism, a healthy, bouncy Li appeared in front of the media and said he really belonged on the stage. Singing is the field he should be in and he immediately launched into song to show off his voice.
How fleeting is fame, how fleeting is idealism. How fleeting ... how fleeting are the pan-blue shills.
Speaking of shills, a week after he said he needed 1 million people to donate NT$100 to his cause to oust the president, former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Shih Ming-teh (施明德) was asked what kind of accountability system he would have to show where the money went.
"We're working on it," he said.
Jerome Keating is a Taiwan-based writer.
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to