This and That

2013年3月5日星期二

Why do people do this? Taiwan's hate on South Korea

Latest, hottest news in Taiwan: Korean wins game, but Chinese Taipei advances

Yes, talking about World Baseball Classic (WBC)

Not surprisingly, 24-hour TV news will non-stop talk about how sad Chinese Taipei lost the game, especially to Korea.

I got up this morning, checked my facebook and found that almost every friend of mine posted things about WBC game last night. Not that I was surprised about the whole cheering and then crying thing, I'm actually stunned to realize how a baseball game is turned to some kind of a tool people and media use to arouse people's hatred toward Korea.

To be clear, I don't watch baseball, and I'm not K-pop fan either. I love Taiwan, but Taiwanese people sometimes get too carried away.... Why? Here are the reasons.

1. Media fail
Before the game, the reporter was outside the stadium in Taichung talking about Korean baseball fans asked for free soup several times. The things is, the vendor says herself that the soup is free!! Now she's blaming customers for that just because they are Korean? What the heck? Media, media...sigh

2. Insult


Flag of South Korea

Flag of South Korea is composed of the element of Tai Chi. And below is how some people decide to mock the flag.

Basically it's a play on words. It says " Bye, Tai Chi!" but it contains bad meaning in it that I don't want to even explain. Frankly, at first I thought it was funny, but later I just don't think it's appropriate to make fun of the national flag like that. A dog on the flag? :(

3. Overdo?

The announcer cried when Chinese Taipei lost. It's sad, I know. But is it a bit ...too much?

4. It's your fault, President!
President Ma congratulated Chinese Taipei advancing on his Facebook. Comments like "Shut up, you brought the shitty bad luck!" appeared.

Friends may say I'm being too serious about the whole thing when it's supposed to be funny but I just fail to see how insulting a nation can be funny. If the flag of Taiwan was treated like that of Korea, what would Taiwanese people think?

I'm no expert on this Taiwan-Korea complicated relationship, however, I find people doing these childish things so immature and annoying.

Anyways, I wish Chinese Taipei best of luck! Go Chinese Taipei!

2012年2月2日星期四

Year of Dragon -- Reunion with family in China

It was a true reunion after several decades. My father's sister and him got separated during Chinese Civil War. Then she was 9 and my father was 14. My father passed away when I was 17 so there were too many stories I don't know.

I had tried to look for my aunt for ages but it was so difficult due to lack of information. I didn't have her address, her phone number, I didn't even know her name! All I had were an old picture of the family taken about 15 years ago, and a couple of photos of my grandparents.

An ad on TV or new paper led me to this detective agency who claimed they could look for your family in China for you. And it only costs millions of NT dollars. I was frustrated. They kept calling and said I had to find my aunt because she was your only family. I thought "I think I know that".

Then an idea popped up; why don't I contact the police offeice in Henan (where my father was born) and see if they could help me? So I called them and then I was transferred to an journalist. She said she would put the photos on the biggest news paper in Henan. The next day, I got a call, the man said he was my cousin. After emailing back and forth with my cousin, I decided to go visit them.

When my aunt saw me in person, tears fell from her eyes. They made dumplings on the new year's eve, the first night I arrived in Henan.

My aunt looks exactly like my father. They showed me his handwritten letter. I haven't seen my father's handwriting for so so so long! I missed him so much that I cried as soon as I saw his handwriting.