Sat, Jan 09, 2010 page8

• JOHNNY NEIHU'S NEWS WATCH: The Manhattan of land-raising hubs

  • By Johnny Neihu 強尼內湖
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  Is it possible to write a column these days without being forced to talk about US beef? I don’t know ... so let’s take the “No US Beef in Weekly Column Challenge” and see how we fare.

  Got it — let’s talk about city planning. What topic could be further away from bovine offal?

  Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) caught my attention this week with more of his stupendous, visionary policy rhetoric.

  This goodly rag reported on Wednesday that the Hau-ster accompanied the central government’s approval of a NT$70 billion (US$2.1 billion) development plan for the Shezi Peninsula (社子島) area of Taipei City with the line: “We will turn the Shezi Peninsula into the Manhattan of Taipei.”

  Uh, Manhattan?

  It’s not all that hard to imagine, actually. Gliding inland along the Tamsui River (淡水河), you quickly spy the rounded edge of Shezi Peninsula. Here the waterway splits into two, with the Keelung River (基隆河, let’s call this the Hudson) heading to the east and the Tamsui (let’s call this the East River) continuing to the south.

  On the other bank of the Tamsui is the teeming, slowly gentrifying urban mess known as Lujhou City (蘆洲), where ethnic and class differences make it an unreliable electorate for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in mostly pro-KMT Taipei County.

  Call this area Brooklyn.

  On the other bank of the Keelung River is the Guandu Nature Park, where there’s some bird life and a lot of stray dogs; next to it is an underdeveloped area mostly made up of nondescript warehouses.

  That’s New Jersey, obviously.

  The only thing missing is a Statue of Liberty. There are no islands in this part of the river that lend themselves to monument fame, but I reckon if we steal that imitation Statue of Liberty from Keelung and stick it in the river then it won’t matter; silting is so severe that if you just shove it in end first it will hold fast, no matter what volume of water the next typhoon sends down.

  Looking more closely at the northwestern tip of Shezi, there is a muddy bank on this side of the flood levy with just a smattering of vegetation.

  Battery Park.

  This is about where the geo-economic similarities begin to struggle a bit, because the southern end of Manhattan is where all the money is; the corresponding (seaward) area of Shezi is largely agricultural with a lattice of small and medium-entrepreneurial firms. I am confident, however, that the mayor would not be cowed by this inconvenience. There is a plan afoot to extend the MRT to even this unloved area.

  But the first thing we need is a Ground Zero. In this grim section of Shezi there are one or two hairy intersections where I understand motorscooters have spectacularly collided with each other or with light posts. Set up a small memorial to these unfortunate people and that should do it.

  Wall Street is a tougher ask. Let’s pass on that one until Shezi as a whole can agree on shifting its financial power from the southern to the northern end of the peninsula.

  Happily, the long and winding artery known as Yanping N Road, Sections 5-9, could easily pass for Fifth Avenue or Broadway. And Central Park is a no-brainer: Shezi Park is appropriately centrally located; it even has a few paths, a basketball court and a small pond.

  I have to admit, though, that Shezi’s skyline doesn’t convince.

  However, if you, like I, have been to Shezi and New York, you will get that New York frisson just by driving down the street. The buildings may only be a few stories tall, but the roads are so bloody narrow that proportionally they may as well be the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and the former Twin Towers, one after the other. Oh, and try driving in peak hour without getting into a Big Apple-style tiff with the local taxi drivers.

  But what about Chinatown? This poses a problem. How do we find people who prefer to live in a Chinese-speaking ghetto when they’re in a Chinese-speaking city to begin with?

  Eureka — we take all those Chicom tourists who abscond and are caught or otherwise break our fair laws and stick them in a fortified compound. Razor wire, German shepherds and armed guards on the walls, spotlights, monthly food drops ... you get the picture. Kind of like Escape from New York: Self-governing, return to State-of-Nature stuff. Once they go in, they don’t come out. With this regimen, they’re bound to feel like they’re back home. Oh, and crazed unificationists can join them if they wish.

  Yeah, that’s our China Town.

  Joking aside, why can’t Shezi just be known as the Shezi of Taipei?

  I fully admit it. My fellow countrymen have a pernicious medical condition that compels people to talk about turning this or that sector of the economy into an Asia-Pacific hub.

  Why, just the other day, I was discussing with my recently returned gal, Cathy Pacific, whether Neihu District (內湖) should be turned into a waste disposal hub of the Asia-Pacific region and, perhaps, with the American Institute in Taiwan about to move out our way, a semi-official diplomatic compound hub of the Asia-Pacific region, before she stopped, looked at me with concern, held my hand and said: “Johnny, there are no hubs in our home. Go have a lie down for an hour and you’ll feel a lot better.”

  This affliction, which even I cannot shake off, now has the planning authorities of the Taipei City Government in its vile grip. The Manhattan-aspiring hub of the Asia-Pacific is coming to a nondescript riverside peninsula near you, dear reader.

  Hmm. Maybe there’s another explanation.

  Shezi Peninsula may be part of wealthy Shilin District (士林), but sociopolitically it is more like the demographic mix of Datong District (大同), to which it connects to the south. This is older Taipei, and there are more votes here for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

  At the 2006 mayoral election, DPP candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) ran one of the worst campaigns for major office in memory. Even so, he triumphed in each of Shezi’s 10 electoral sub-districts, taking between 49.27 percent and 76.66 percent of the vote (his average for these 10 districts was a commanding 61 percent). Even in the most competitive borough, he beat Hau, the KMT candidate, by 3 percent. This is deeeeep green territory, folks.

  After taking years for this proposal to go through the system, all of a sudden it pops up one year before the next mayoral election. Hau’s vision for Shezi’s development seems to be accompanied by a wafting, gentle fragrance of livestock, no? Actually, the more you look at it, and the more you sniff the eau de porc, the more it screams “pork barreling.”

  So why not just declare Shezi to be one giant Meat-Packing District?

  The good mayor seems to like American icon name-dropping. Then again, talking big (development, development, development) when your CV is flaccid is the last refuge of a political scoundrel.

  The irony is that this purveyor of American standard and style-setting has enthusiastically bought into attacks on US beef, mining the hysteria by forming a laughable anti-US beef coalition of restaurants, trading on whatever little anti-Americanism exists among Taipei City’s beef noodle soup patrons and panicky shop owners. In so doing, Hau has made a mockery of his academic credentials (a doctorate in food science and technology from a — you guessed it — stateside university) and shot down any credibility he might have had with the US government.

  Oh, crap ... I talked about US beef. I was so close.

  As for development in Shezi, may I suggest simply spending any money on raising the entire peninsula by 20 meters? Not only would they avoid flooding during typhoon season, they could pioneer a land-raising technology in this frightful era of global warming. Think of it: a climate change land-raising hub for the Asia-Pacific region.

  I think I need to lie down again.

  Got something to tell Johnny? Get it off your chest: Write to dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com, but put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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