A television commercial made by supermarket chain Pxmart for the upcoming Ghost Festival — which falls on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, when people prepare food to honor the dead with traditional pudu (普渡) ceremonies — appears to portray White Terror victim Ting Yao-tiao (丁窈窕).
It is the second advertisement in recent days that critics have linked to the White Terror era. The first, which was on Tuesday withdrawn by the company, was believed to feature the likeness of activist Chen Wen-chen (陳文成).
Chen’s family said that he was killed in 1981 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government for supporting the democracy movement.
Photo copied by Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
The White Terror era was a period of political persecution that took place during the nation’s Martial Law era, which lasted from May 19, 1949, to July 15, 1987.
Ting was executed in 1956 after being framed as a communist spy.
Transitional Justice Promotion Committee member Yang Tsui (楊翠), who researches feminist victims of political persecution, on Friday said that records of Ting’s execution show that her daughter was present at the time and that she pleaded with the authorities, saying: “My mother is not a bad person. Do not shoot her.”
In the latest Pxmart ad, a woman who appears to be Ting at the age of 29, just before she was executed, describes being pushed to the ground with great force. The woman in the commercial speaks Japanese and her daughter is shown trimming a bonsai tree.
Ting was educated during the Japanese colonial era and was pregnant with her daughter at the time of her arrest in 1954, Yang said, alluding to the similarities between Ting and the woman in the commercial.
Ting was arrested after the KMT authorities alleged she was connected with a communist group based in Tainan and taking instructions from Chinese Communist Party member Qian Jingzhi (錢靜芝), who was responsible for directing Taiwanese communist youth.
It was later discovered that Ting was framed by an informant who found a banned book in her desk. The informant had a grudge against her because she told a friend not to pursue a relationship with him.
After Ting was executed, her daughter would not stop crying no matter who held her, Yang said.
Only when the father was tracked down and he came to take her home did the daughter stop crying, she added.
After a tree on the National Tainan Girls’ Senior High School campus — where a detention facility once stood — was uprooted by a typhoon in 2015, workers found a metal cigarette tin that Ting had buried there. Inside it she had hidden a lock of her hair and a farewell letter to her friend and fellow inmate, Kuo Chen-chun (郭振純), because she was convinced she would be executed.
On Feb. 10 last year, the school’s affairs committee elected to remove the statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) that stood in front of the tree, which had been replanted.
The statue was moved to the grounds of a former military dependents’ village in Tainan’s Yongkang Park.
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