The Daily Cow

Isn't it funny how easily we fight for and defend a place simply because of our ancestry and familial ties? Ancestry that we had no control over, a birth into a family that never asked you if you wanted to join. What right does one have to assert that his nation is superior if he would have fought for a completely different cause if only he was born to a different mother? If I had close ties to the Chinese mainland, I would very likely applaud Albert's recent fixation on asserting China's superiority in China-Taiwan relations. If I was born in Sudan I probably wouldn't even know or care about Asia as simple survival would take precedence over such far off matters. But unfortunately, I cannot tolerate these unrelenting attacks on Taiwan simply because I was born with close Taiwanese ties. My entire extended family lives in Taiwan, I have been there countless numbers of times, and I have come to love it for what it is. No, I cannot say it's better than China, as I have never been to China. But likewise, I do not value the criticism of Taiwan by people who have never actually lived there. Personally, I don't like arguing about such unresolvable politic, but yet I cannot keep quiet as others insinuate that my relatives should be bombed to hell or subject to authoritarian rule.

Much is a victim of how we were brought up, our relative perspectives. Albert says that "younger Taiwanese...butcher the language," but to me, the butchery comes from the mainlanders and their simplified characters. But again, I have no right to judge, as I know barely more than 20 words in Chinese whether they are simplified or not. Albert says that "Taiwan itself has no culture to begin with anyway," which is a clearly exaggerated insult. Yes, some places have less "culture" than other places, but when phrased in that kind of tone, any victim of that statement would respond with indignation, even if they might agree with a less offensive form of the same point. Additionally, many Taiwanese would counter that the so-called Cultural Revolution massacred much of the Chinese culture and drove the proponents of culture to the little island of Taiwan, where they have nevertheless managed to thrive and come up with a much higher GDP per capita. I suppose I would not object to Taiwan being a self-governing part of China like Hong Kong is now. But even now as H.K. is part of China, the central government has not dared to make major changes. Hong Kong has grown to be immensely successful outside of "communist" rule, and so has Taiwan, to a somewhat lesser extent. Yet it is also clear that China is on the rise and soon poised to be more successful than all of its self-governing regions combined.

We could argue endlessly on this topic, as we both have somewhat of a personal stake in the argument, and would likely never give in. But I don't want to. I don't think the Daily Cow was ever meant to be a forum for debate on cross-strait relations. I wish Chen Shui Bian would shut up on the issue of Taiwanese independence. I also wish we would too. Like Al's other post said, WHERE IS THE LOVE? :)