Bubble Tea Defense Shield

[quote]http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Taiwan%20Wanting%20Weapons

The latest sales pitch: The $18 billion price tag really isn’t as big as it seems. The island could save up enough money for the arms if everyone cut back on drinking milky bubble tea - that popular icy beverage with chewy tapioca sucked up with a fat straw - over the next 15 years.

“The Cold War ended with the Soviet Union collapsing because of an arms race,” said Fu Ying-chuan, a retired major general who joined 156 former officers who signed a petition against the arms deal.

The critics plan to hold a protest march Saturday in the capital, Taipei. They appear to have wide support: Recent polls indicate most Taiwanese think the deal is too costly.

Enter the government’s bubble tea analogy, which says Taiwan could raise the money if everyone had one less cup of the drink each week over 15 years. It not only makes light of the $18 billion pricetag, it does so with an example intended to resonate with working-class Taiwanese who favor the drinks sold on most street corners.

Bubble tea vendors, meanwhile, have different ideas about how to pay for the weapons.

“We should drink less Coca Cola,” said Huang Kuo-shu, a city councilor in the central city of Taichung. “That makes more sense.”[/quote]

And you guys thought I was the one with half bake ideas.

:laughing: great find!

How come zhen zhu tea always gets translated as bubble tea? I thought it was supposed to be Pearl tea (usually Pearl Milk tea).
Bubble tea refers to pao4 mo4 tea.

It’s an important distinction if we’re talking about raising funds for national defense needs cuz bubble tea is much cheaper than pearl tea. :laughing:

I think it was a good illustration of how that money is not that much.

If you divide the US$18 billion by Taiwan’s 23 million people. It is only US$783 or less than one US dollar per day for two years.

Why, ac_dropout, are you getting your news from such far removed souces?
“milky bubble tea” – Wrong English, as has been pointed out.
“Recent polls indicate most Taiwanese think the deal is too costly” – unsubstantiated.
“working-class Taiwanese who favor the drinks sold on most street corners.” – Stereotypical clap-trap. Sold on every corner? Right. :loco:
"Bubble tea vendors, meanwhile, have different ideas about how to pay for the weapons.
“We should drink less Coca Cola,” said Huang Kuo-shu, a city councilor in the central city of Taichung " – so this city councilor is a ‘bubble tea vendor’?
By the way, the cost is not US$18 billion, it is US$18.23 billion. That’s a big difference.

I originally found the news in the Chinese paper. Took the news cycle awhile to get pick up in English. So when I found the English article, I posted it.

I heard it called “Bubble Tea,” “Boba Tea,” “Pearl Milk Tea.” I believe the lack of a consistent name is due to the lack of a marketing presence for the product.

I thought it was funny when I read it.

In the Chinese papers there are a slew of comics making fun of the report. Can you blame them.

[quote=“ac_dropout”]
And you guys thought I was the one with half bake ideas.[/quote]

Hmm…without realizing it, you may have hit on the solution. Taiwan’s government can pay for their defense needs by organizing a bake sale. If it works for the Girl Scouts, surely it can work for the military.

“Patriot Missile Red Bean Cakes” and “Kidd-Class Brownies” (flavored with betelnut) - makes my mouth water just to think about it.

That was my take. I think the real flap is that this is a hard, hard issue for people to face. Did you see the article in the Taipei Times today, “Yu heralds a `balance of terror’,”?

taipeitimes.com/News/front/a … 2003204371

Premier Yu got down to brass tacks. I wonder how that’s going to go over with the people?

Yu’s words were put a different way in the Chinatimes Express -

你打台北, 我打上海

isn’t Chen Shuibian promoting a new spirit of peaceful rhetoric across the strait???
What possible reason is there to say this?

There is a bunch of Communist allies here in Taiwan, that want to see Taiwan peacefully usurped by China, failing that they are not against a brutal armed invasion. Those that oppose arms purchases are the same ones that say that Taiwan should get rid of the mandatory military service. Don’t you see it?! They want Taiwan taken over by China. They want a union with their homeland whether it is Communist or not. Sick sick sick…

OK those are my opinions, now for the more staid comments from Taiwan’s President Chen Shui Bien: [quote][i]

How much money was raised by the public after 921? How much money is in the lottery on a big week? It shouldn’t be too hard to come up with the cash if there was a special ‘defence lottery’. However, I’m not at all convinced that a few Aegis destroyers are going to keep the wolf from the door, but some missiles pointed at Shanghai and Beijing would be a more effective use of the defence budget.

In the Flannery O’Connor story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the crazed killer says, right after shooting the s***-stirring busybody granny, something like, “She woulda been a fine woman, if she’d a just had somebody around to shoot her every day of her life.”

Maybe President Chen and Premier Yu feel that China would be a fine negotiating partner, if. . . .

[Edit:] Anyway, Yu is just saying in public roughly the kind of thing that Richard Nixon said over the Washington-Moscow hotline.

[quote=“ac_dropout”]I heard it called “Bubble Tea,” “Boba Tea,” “Pearl Milk Tea.” I believe the lack of a consistent name is due to the lack of a marketing presence for the product.
[/quote]

Here in Southern California., I only see it as “Boba” milk tea. My wife says it means “big breast” in Taiwanese, but I’m not sure if I believe her…

I expected this thread would be about something else. I thought is was going to be about creating a missile defense shield by having Taiwan’s citizens line the streets, every man, woman and child with a cup of pearl milk tea in hand, and when the Chinese missiles start flying, insert zhen zhu into straw, blow hard and shoot the zhen zhus high into the sky, knocking the missiles out of the sky.

Sounds silly, but it’d be about as effective as dubya’s “missile defense shield plan” (which was previously laughed into obscurity when proposed by Reagan).

What the fark is bubble tea?

Milk tea with tapioca balls in them. The balls are small and usually dark brown. They are chewy and the drink is enjoyed thru a very thick straw.