Jinmen Dao

Recently I had the great fortune to spend a weekend on Jinmen Island. It's a political oddity in that it an island that is controlled by Taiwan but most people will admit that it is actually a part of Fujian Province in China. Not only that it- at its nearest point Little Jinmen Island (as opposed to large Jinmen Island, see below) is about eight kilometers away from the Chinese Mainland.




The island is a wonderful, near idyllic, place now but that belies its sordid history. During the Cold War Mainland China chose to bombard the islands with hundreds of thousands of artillery shells resulting in thousands of dead islanders and Nationalist troops. One would think that this would engender a fair amount of animosity towards Mainland China (and one would be right) but life is even more complicated than that. The Jinmen Islanders (and the Matsu Islanders to the north) were not active participants in the Chinese civil war. As the KMT army retreated to Taiwan they militarized the peaceful islands and put the inhabitants into the middle of shooting war. The inhabitants are aware of the pawn that they became between the Nationalists and the Communists and chafed under Marshall Law for many decades. I often asked the locals if they thought they were Taiwanese or Mainlander and I received what became a familiar refrain: I am Jinmenese and my parents are Mainlanders. (Translated, obviously.)

That being said Jinmen is now a thriving community. The Taiwanese army has poured money into the islands and they've been serving as an in between point for the Mainlanders who want to do business in Taiwan and vice-versa. It was, without a doubt, the cleanest place I've visited in Taiwan and the its oft noted wide and well maintained roads are very inviting.

Jinmen also enjoys full county status in Taiwan and elects its own representatives to the Taiwanese parliament. In preparation for an approaching election we were treated to a semi constant barrage of campaign advertising. One of the candidates had bleach blond hair but I think he got stiff competition from another candidate who was always pictured next to a giant hamburger. Was he a hamburger mogul or was he using the hamburger to explain his policies? I'll never know but I hope he was the winner. (Bleach blond Asian dudes sort of creep me out.)

While on the island we visited war memorial after war memorial after war memorial. It was cool! We found an amazing beach that was completely empty. It felt more like being on an unpopulated alien planet than a cold war flashpoint. On the beach we found an awesome tank that was covered in barnacles and no island weekend would've been complete without the land mine warning signs. Jinmen is also famous for a peanut candy and a knives made out of artillery shells. I wanted to buy a knife but I just couldn't figure what I would do with it... oh well, just another reason to return to Jinmen- hopefully with someone who looks better in a bathing suit than Sean.

Below is a temple where you pray for good grades at:




Alone:




If we ever start a band this'll be our first album cover:



Awesome:

The linguistic battle of wills

A fascinating socio-linguistic phenomenon to observe is the battle of wills between two people who are each trying to practice the others native language. It can happen in any place, at any time, and to nearly anyone.

You could be at the local 7-11 (ok... one of the local 7-11's) buying a bottle of 酒 and instead of quoting the sales price to you in Chinese the tiny and meek attendant slowly but deliberately says "seventy four dollars, please!" followed by the proudest and toothiest (and in Kaohsiung, the reddest) grin you may ever encounter. It's sweet, it's cute, it's wonderful, and it's one of the most annoying things on the face of the Earth.

The linguistic battle of wills occurs most often between foreigners and natives in Taiwan. Some foreigners come to Taiwan hoping to practice Chinese only to discover that an increasing number Taiwanese people want to practice their English with almost anyone who will talk to them.

Imagine being Taiwanese and spending every single year of your school life learning English! Imagine your parents sending you to an English language tutor nearly every day after school! Now imagine that at long last there is a real live American right in front of you that you can finally speak to!

Now imagine your disappointment that he refuses to speak to you in English and insists upon using sub-standard Chinese to communicate the very simplest of ideas.

Of course there's the opposite disappointment of being from the English speaking world. We say goodbye to our family, friends, and dog, fly all the way to Taiwan, enroll in Chinese classes, go out of our way to make Taiwanese friends only to find that our dream of "total language immersion" is impossible because everyone wants to practice English, the language we are trying to escape from!

There's even another layer to it: Taiwanese culture demands a large amount of courtesy be shown to guests and many Taiwanese feel as though all foreigners are somehow guests in their country. In Taiwan, as in much of Asia, the locals don't want to cause the guest a loss of face by speaking to them in a language the guest can't understand; instead of even trying to speak Chinese it's just safer to speak to the guest in English. In most other ways this courtesy is extremely appreciated.

Although there is no strict rule in the West the general convention is to only use one language in a conversation- and whichever language is spoken first should be the language used to respond. If I start a conversation in Chinese and someone insists upon answering me in English they've actually caused me a loss of face; they've just implied that they don't think my Chinese is very good. There's not even a good way to respond because in American culture it's rude for me to tell you that I'd rather you speak Chinese. My Taiwanese friends tell me that it wouldn't be rude in Taiwan but I'm still not comfortable doing it.

Must we be locked in this ridiculous duel for all time? No, probably not. Following the 4th World War of 2038 the majority of survivors will upload themselves into the technological singularity and all of our conversations will look like this:

0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110
0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110
0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110
0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110
0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110
0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110
0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110

(Good luck babelfish.yahoo.com on that one!)

Note:
Missing is my obligatory swipe at foreigners who are always complaining that Chinese is impossible to learn. Since most Taiwanese people look around and see 20 million Taiwanese people who managed to learn Chinese (plus another billion people across the strait) they can be forgiven for concluding that foreigners suffer from pigment induced, Chinese specific, aphasia.

簡單 -- Not so simple!

One of my newly arrived friends recently recounted a conversation in one of his adult classes that went something like this:

Adult student 1: What do foreigners think of Taiwanese people?

Teacher: Um... (obvious discomfort) well... I guess lots of different things. Nothing too severe.

Adult student 2: What kind of things? I really want to know.

Teacher: Ok... I guess... maybe sometimes I've heard that some people think that some Taiwanese people can be a little, um, boring?

(The adult students talked among themselves in Chinese for a minute.)

Adult student 1: Yes. That is true. We are very boring.

(Entire class laughs in agreement. American teacher is puzzled and attempts to move on with the lesson.)

After he mentioned this story I began to notice how often I have heard Taiwanese people describe themselves this way. Purely for research purposes I even accessed some Taiwan centric dating websites and was shocked to see how many men and women prefaced their dating profile with "I'm a simple woman with simple dreams looking for a simple man" or something to that effect. (I promise it was mostly, almost, entirely for research purposes.) "Simple," "boring," "ordinary," "pure," or even "naive" seemed to be sought after qualities.

All of the above words are attempts at translating "簡單." It's supposed to communicate a sort of trustworthy ordinariness. When someone describes themselves as "簡單" they are advertising their stability and lack of complications. While both of these qualities can be admirable it is far cry away from what most people boast about back home. In a weird twist many of my adult students all but boast about how little they have to boast about.

Unfortunately "簡單" simply doesn't translate well. When an adult describes themselves as "simple," "naive," "ordinary," or even "pure" the words immediately conjure up an image of a person who is bereft of responsibility and possesses a sort of childlike foolishness- hardly the first impression you want to give.

The best translation I've been able to come up with, accounting for the western cultural preference of exaggerating our uniqueness, is "dependable." Calling yourself "dependable" can emphasize your reliability and implies that you have a routine that you follow- it doesn't mean that you're boring but it does mean that you don't let impulsive flights of fancy disrupt your existence.

I'm afraid cultural differences just don't allow for an exact translation of "簡單" that doesn't make someone sound incredibly boring. Most of my Taiwanese friends don't find "dependable" to be an adequate translation but it's the best I can do. One of my students went so far as to point out, almost passionately, that "You are saying that we shouldn't call ourselves "ordinary" but most of us are ordinary. There aren't very many exceptional people in the world; why should I call myself one when I know that I'm not?" Coming from a westerner I would think that she needed some serious self esteem boosting; here in Taiwan it was an admirable showing of just how "簡單" she thought herself to be.

The S-I War

Way back in 1962 China and India came to blows over a small strip of basically useless territory on the fringe of Tibet called Aksai Chin. China seized the territory and has maintained control of it for the last five decades despite India's occasional protests. To make matters more interesting India still has control of Arunachal Pradesh, an area that the Chinese government claims as well. Neither side has attempted to change the border through anything but diplomacy but, according to at least one Indian Expert, that is about to change.

According to Mr. Verma China is going to attack India no later than 2012 in order to distract its restive population away from deteriorating economic conditions. The war, which would almost certainly end in China's favor, would also serve to put India in its place and show the world that it will be China who leads Asia for the 21st century.

This is, almost obviously and completely, totally preposterous. A Chinese attack on India would confirm the world's worst fears about China: that as its strength grows it will be willing to use it at the expense of other countries. This would destroy all of the sympathy China currently has in the west, it would derail business relationships, and it would force the Indians into the arms of whatever powerful ally might be willing to help them to upgrade their military. At worst it would cement support for an alliance of Asian democracies to stand up to the authoritarian giant.

On top of all that India has a nuclear arsenal. The Chinese arsenal is probably superior to the Indian (after all the Chinese have had nukes since the early sixties while the Indians have only been freely building weapons for the last ten years) but if the Indians can launch a satellite into the moon's orbit they can fling some nukes at China. Even without nukes India could up the ante and interdict China's seaborne oil supplies from the Middle East and put a fast stop on the Chinese economy- forcing the Chinese into far more than a border war but one that would require the neutralization of India's navy.

Perhaps there are some things that Mr. Verma knows that I don't but without a more compelling argument I fear he just wrote his scholarship's epitaph.

Note: The Chinese government has built a 1:150 scale model of Aksai Chin in the northern desert region of Ningxia. Google Earth has show it to be of incredible detail. Awesome!

When is a shrine just a shrine?

Recently the Japanese Prime Minister offered an expensive ($500) potted plant to a shrine in Japan. China. was. pissed. Why? Because leader Hu Jintao bought the exact same plant but hadn't delivered it yet... now he has to get something new.

Well... not really.

The Yasukuni Shrine honors the nearly 2.5 million Japanese who died during Imperial Japan's many wars between 1867 and 1945. Of course a great deal of these Japanese died in the Empire's wars of aggression against Korea and China. During the course of these conflicts the Japanese soldiers and leadership committed some excessively dastardly acts- dastardly by the standards of the time, by the standards of today, and franky, dastardly by an improbable combination of the Klingon, Roman, and Aztec Empires combined. (Aztec might be a step too far but it was bad.) The actions need not be recounted here but a number of the Japanese leaders were convicted of Crimes Against Humanity and branded war criminals. Some of those leaders are also honored at the shrine. Thusly, when a Japanese Prime Minister honors the shrine he can be implicitly seen as honoring Japan's militaristic and, in some cases, downright barbaric actions towards its neighbors.

Were other countries involved this would be a straightforward story of one leader doing something insensitive and another country taking understandable umbrage. But whenever China is involved it's never that simple. China's people adamantly refuse to tolerate foreigners even discussing "internal Chinese affairs." When I was teaching in China I had to answer endless questions about the Torch Relay Protests occurring in the West. When I pointed out that the United States recognizes that Tibet is a part of China even though a few thousand protesters don't I was seriously asked why police didn't open fire on the protesters.

The Chinese government has used perceived assaults on China to fire up nationalism among the Chinese people (because you're not allowed to comment on the Chinese government without insulting the Chinese people), has attempted to economically punish artists for performing the Taiwanese National Anthem (in Taiwan), and has frequent "news" showing recycled and edited footage designed to make the Taiwanese legislature look like a constant fist fight (it isn't like that all the time) and the United States appear to be a crime infested failed state. I don't necessarily have an issue with one government voicing an opinion (nor do I have an issue with some countries being frustrated at Japanese insensitivity)- it's just that the China doesn't get to demand a "hand's off" policy with foreign powers commenting on its "internal" affairs while simultaneously attempting to control the actions of people in other countries.

The cognitive dissonance involved in China attempting to control the personal/quasi-religious actions of the Japanese Prime Minister while demanding that no one be allowed to comment on Chinese internal politics is hypocrisy and hints at what issues will come to dominate international politics if China is ever the center of the world.*


*China's name implies that it is in the center of the world: 中國 means "Middle Country." I'm not using that as some sort of damning closing argument- it's just that if legions of foreigners get to comment on the effect of cowboy westerns on millions of Americans I think it's fair game to point out that what your country calls itself may have an effect on the national psyche.

America the Dismissive and Europe the Narcissistic

(Reprinted from my previous blog with permission from the author, me.)

March, 2008

Americans, at best, probably can reach a consensus that the Europeans are our distant cousins and then can be surprised at how much of a divide there is between the two sides of the Atlantic. To me the largest component of these differences stem from our disparate responses to the World Wars.

Twice in the 20th century Europe basically tried to commit suicide. Both of the wars did not go according to plan and both of them drew in the United States. At the end of WWII the Europeans could look back on the last forty years (or even the last 150) and say in a near unison chorus that "War doesn't work."

The response to this revelation was to create the supranational agencies that have been instrumental in keeping peace to this day. The ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) attempted to remove the possibility of a third major war between France and Germany by agreeing to share the energy and building resources that they had been fighting over. It was proposed in 1950 and signed in 1951. In one year more had been accomplished to satisfy both nation's economic and security needs than in 12 years of 20th century warfare.

A turning point had been reached. The Europeans, out of the mutual revulsion to the extremes of the wars, became dedicated to diplomacy as a means to answer all their problems. And it worked. A continent that had almost joyfully been at war with itself since the Roman Empire's collapse has entered a period of peace that will last into the indefinite future... as long as it's up to them.

The experience of the sixty years has shown the Europeans what can be accomplished through diplomacy. Compare that to six centuries of ineffectual warfare and Europe's near grating dedication to being a pacifist community makes perfect sense.

The American response to WWII is very different. The US had little desire to become involved in the wider world until WWII. It was quintessentially isolationist and when one compares its economic potential to its actual armed forces it had the most unrealized amount of military force in history. When Americans think of the World Wars we see our country being dragged into a conflict that we had no hand in starting and little to gain by an all out effort to end. The second thought is of a near religious crusade to completely destroy the perceived aggressors. The second time America got involved it had the benefit of moral clarity. No one could argue that our opponents were acting in self defense. We didn't want to be involved but after we were we unleashed a complete and total and final judgment upon our enemies. (Note: I'm not mentioning the massive Soviet contribution because I'm writing about perception rather than reality.)

At the end of the war the United States found itself convinced that its continued participation was necessary in Europe to prevent a third war or a devastated continent's capitulation to concentrated and determined Soviet aggression. America found itself in the one position it had never desired to be in: a superpower that could never disentangle itself from the world. Through a combination of threats, proxy wars, bluster, and mutually assured destruction the Americans contained the perceived threat from a monolithic communist revolution, something that may never have actually threatened America itself. America paid for European reconstruction out of generosity and based massive armies on the continent to ensure the West's security. By the end of WWII and the Cold War America had risen to be more powerful than any nation had been since the Roman Empire. We learned the opposite lesson from the Europeans: War CAN work. (The Vietnam war, while traumatic, only reversed this belief for a short period of time.)

This nearly brings us to the present day. Despite having more commonalities than any other two distant parts of the world the Europeans and Americans can have profound disagreements on international politics. They can call Americans warmongers and we can call Europeans naive cowards and everyone can feel perfectly comfortable within those judgments.

The different responses to Iraq war followed these beliefs perfectly.

The Europeans can sigh at American willingness to believe that violence, applied correctly, can solve any problem. It's because of they're long history of violence failing to solve very much that the Europeans believe this. Americans can say, on the other hand, "Violence, correctly applied, has a good track record in our history." Both perceptions are correct under the different histories.

The legacy of the 2nd Gulf War, and I don't think the final chapter is by any means known, will be which belief about war is regarded as correct by the succeeding generation of Europeans and most Americans. The Europeans could almost be forgiven for hoping that the Americans withdraw less than victoriously because that would mean America's arguments in favor of the effectiveness of violence had been given a serious setback. If the American goals are met before a general withdrawal it will mean that violence worked... and that will likely beget more violence. That being said, even in the face of a catastrophic American withdrawal there will still be a large number of Americans who, instead of saying that violence doesn't work, will believe that the Bush administration's ham handedness in prosecuting the war is the primary reason for failure. (This administration has had so many major screw ups in Iraq that this will be a difficult argument to silence.)

I dislike dumbing down a current conflict, wherein my own countrymen are still dying, to a dry cultural discussion. Regardless, this how I see it.

This entry is long enough as it is but I should mention an excellent article I just read about Europe's choosing to be irrelevant in global politics. The gist of it is that Europe is enjoying the good life right now and enjoying it on the cheap. It can't be invaded but neither can it be asked to shoulder the burdens that the Anglo-American alliance does. Even though the combined economies of the EU countries is slightly larger than the United States economy their lack of political unity or will means that the massive economic strength will not translate into political or military muscle for the foreseeable future. After all, why would they want to?

With no direct military threat the only danger to Europe is an upset the international trade that it prospers from. The same trading forces that propel their living standards upwards do the same for the Americans, who can be counted on to use their military to enforce freedom of the seas. If the Iranians mine the Straights of Hormuz for short term political gain who will go to bat to remove the mines and enforce free passage? The American (and possibly British) navy. Why should Denmark be concerned? American participation is a given. The US has even gone so far to suggest placing anti-missile systems on European soil to protect against a Iranian threat to its allies. This is the single greatest current resentment that Americans have towards the Europeans: we seem more interested in their security than they do.

The European answer is that American bellicosity is just as likely to help create an apocalyptic threat as to deter it. Who's right? The Europeans can argue that they were more right about Iraq but Americans can cynically make all sorts of points about the world still be here thanks to American brinksmanship and hardheadedness. (That's actually one word!)

I don't know who will win in the long term argument between the Americans and our cousins. I know that I hope the Europeans are right. I'd prefer to live in a world that is like Europe as I've described it here. A community that has found reasonable ways to accommodate different country's desires and created a political framework to ensure peace for the foreseeable future. But I'm not that optimistic. I think there are plainly evil people in the world who can not be accommodated and the best answer to them is our ability to deter them or neutralize them if necessary. I don't like having to believe that and perhaps that makes me a part of the world's problems. Maybe I am as much to blame as aggressors throughout the centuries. But I doubt it.

With all due respect, Admiral...

Retired Admiral James Lyons (USN) recently posted his thoughts on Taiwan in the Washington Times. He expressed a much fairer understanding of Taiwan's position vis a vis the United States than the Cold Warriors who educated him have in the past. For nearly forty years after World War II the Chinese derisively and the Americans delightedly referred to Taiwan as America's "Unsinkable Battleship." Lyons shows himself to be a far more enlightened man and calls the island America's "Strategic Aircraft Carrier in Reserve."

Hmmmmmmmmm.

What is wrong this picture? We decry the notion of communists dominating Taiwan because it would destroy Taiwanese democracy but by implying that the United States is the occupying power of Taiwan he is admitting that the Taiwanese, who can't vote in American elections, are not living in a real democracy at all. To be fair the Admiral seems to have no interest in democracy and talks about Taiwan in a stricly military/geographic context. He is right in saying that Taiwan's accession to the PRC would give China de facto control over the South China Sea but aren't we, as a country, beginning to acknowledge that we should at least pretend to care about the citizens of such small countries? Taiwan is not simply a bishop in our game of chess with the Chinese.

My last entry was criticizing Jian Junbo's article about the House of Representatives attempting to manipulate Taiwanese politics and with articles like this floating around I can understand his confusion.