How'd you become Green or Blue?

Politics Taiwan Politics
1

I’m sure that most expats posting on this board arrived here with some form of political affiliation. Americans might be Republican or Democrat: Canadians might be Liberal, Conservative, NDP or part of some other party… and so on…

But what I’m curious about is how so many Forumosans developed strong Green or Blue leanings. Being a Democrat doesn’t mean you’re necessarily pro-DPP, to take just one example. Green and Blue can’t be clearly divided into Left- or Right-wing, exactly. [try explaining Left/right wing to your students… go ahead …]

I have the feeling that most forumosans fall into the following categories:

  1. Green
  2. Blue
  3. Consider both of them corrupt
  4. Was originally green or blue upon arrival, but changed mind after a long stay

I don’t wish to provoke a lot of anger in this thread, I’d just like to hear how and why you developed the political leanings you currently have. Because we all seem to have some leaning… even though most of us can’t vote anyway :smiley:

2

Step One: Hold your breath while waiting for reform and you will turn blue.
Step Two: After 3 weeks when they find you will be green.

3

i first went to taiwan in 87. i’ve seen changes for the better that were pushed for by the greens. i’m for the greens.

4

Aha…so this is why you’re in NJ.

5

Aha…so this is why you’re in NJ.[/quote]

Well, hey… I didn’t want this to turn into personal bashing on the basis of one’s opinion. You can state your enthusiam for one or t’other party in some other Taiwan Politics thread… but as for this one, just post how and why you came to your decision… please…

dissing someone for their displayed location, post count, flag or signature seems like a cheap shot to me… but that’s just me…

6

[quote]Step One: Hold your breath while waiting for reform and you will turn blue.
Step Two: After 3 weeks when they find you will be green.[/quote]

this reminds me of a quote I cannot attribute:

“If a man is not a Communist at twenty, he has no heart: if he is still one at forty, he has no brain…”

7

Before I arrived, I had read the history of Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT, and of their failings, corruption, and oppression of the Taiwanese people and language. The DPP arose as an underdog pro-democracy party, fighting against the repressive, foreign-imposed dictatorship. So there wasn’t really ever any question of whom to back, at first.

Later, the DPP disappointed. But that wasn’t enough to push me to support the still corrupt old KMT… so now I’d say I’m disillusioned and don’t support either one.

8

Aha…so this is why you’re in NJ.[/quote]

Well, hey… I didn’t want this to turn into personal bashing on the basis of one’s opinion. You can state your enthusiam for one or t’other party in some other Taiwan Politics thread… but as for this one, just post how and why you came to your decision… please…

dissing someone for their displayed location, post count, flag or signature seems like a cheap shot to me… but that’s just me…[/quote]

Was that a diss? Or was it a statement about failed intent to reform?

9

Aha…so this is why you’re in NJ.[/quote]

Well, hey… I didn’t want this to turn into personal bashing on the basis of one’s opinion. You can state your enthusiam for one or t’other party in some other Taiwan Politics thread… but as for this one, just post how and why you came to your decision… please…

dissing someone for their displayed location, post count, flag or signature seems like a cheap shot to me… but that’s just me…[/quote]

Was that a diss? Or was it a statement about failed intent to reform?[/quote]

Well, based on the fact that there are thousands of reasons that V. could have returned to NJ, I’d call it a diss. But the intenion of my post was to keep this thread on topic…

10

lurkky , politeness such as you’re concerned with is a rarity on forumosa. i welcome it. but i’m used to way worse dissing about my personal life that happens on this forum, so i didn’t even register that as a dis. when i came here in the summer of 87, martial law had just been lifted. people were still afraid at that time to say anything negative about jiang gong gong. just the lifting of fear that has occurred is enough for me to support the admirable elements in the dpp and to disregard the corrupt ones. that is not to say that the dpp shouldn’t be criticized.

11

I first came to Taiwan in 1990. At first I supported the DPP just becuase Taiwan was under one-party rule, and I believed there should be greater democracy (and I still believe in democracy). Then, over the next 6 years, I saw conditions improve for expats under KMT rule. I went back to the US and some more advances were made during my absence.

Then the DPP came into power and life started getting harder for expats. Teaching kindy is illegal. The motor vehicle licensing system changed for the worse. Visa rules changed making it harder to live here (for example, the free five-year multiple entry for two-month stays extendable twice at a time is now a thing of the past). It’s harder to get a visa through attending school now. Tongyong Pinyin was invented. Names of places, companies and institutions are changing left and right. And the DPP has been doing other things I don’t like, like rapidly pushing for independence without allowing for debate.

I used to like the DPP. I now prefer the KMT. The DPP seem too xenophobic for my tastes.

12

And therein lies your problem. The greens may have “pushed for” certain things, but the KMT implemented them, including lifting of martial law, which in your next post, you mention but put it in the greens column. You attach a lot of importance to pushing, but ironically not to actually doing it. Now I understand why the DPP can survive. Word is cheap. Campaign promises are cheaper.

13

And therein lies your problem. The greens may have “pushed for” certain things, but the KMT implemented them, including lifting of martial law, which in your next post, you mention but put it in the greens column. You attach a lot of importance to pushing, but ironically not to actually doing it. Now I understand why the DPP can survive. Word is cheap. Campaign promises are cheaper.[/quote]

Like the blues acutally did anything by their own volition. You’re giving them too much credit. They let go kicking and screaming. If you remember at the time it was reform or potentially lose the country - remember those marches against the presidential palace? Made the dao bien look like a school outing.

14

Being a sweat potato taro hybrid. Might as well side with the side that doesn’t insist that Taiwan is meant for sweat potato.

The rest of the idealogical arguments from the Greens and Blues is just icing on the cake.

15

Our family did not like the old corrupt authoritian KMT, although we recognized they also did good things for Taiwan.

Although the DPP started with good ideals, they have become corrupt and fanatical. Their rabid anti-Chinese culture and ethnicity movement has turned us off.

Our best hope is for a reformed KMT.

It’s interesting that my Taiwanese-in-laws are split half-and-half for green and blue, although it seems that the green side is losing support. Anyway, all the capable members of the family are looking for ways to a second option in another country. :eh:

16

Like the blues acutally did anything by their own volition. You’re giving them too much credit. They let go kicking and screaming. If you remember at the time it was reform or potentially lose the country - remember those marches against the presidential palace? Made the dao bien look like a school outing.[/quote]

You miss my point. Volition or no volition, the KMT did it. The best you can argue at this point is the greens could have would have done it, too. That’s not compelling to me. In fact I question what Taiwan would have turned into if today’s DPP took power in 1989. Probably the same stupid crap we see today, only earlier. Ideas are “nothing”. First of all, DPP doesn’t have a monopoly on ideas. Second of all, even if it did, its ineptitude still makes it a worthless party-in-power due to failure to put ideas into practice.

17

the idea of china expanding its hegemony by ‘uniting’ with taiwan is unconscionable, for as it has shown in its dealings with macau and HongKong and with Tibetans and the Uighur peoples, personal rights, the rule of law, freedom of religion and association, freedom of speech, and space for alternate opinions and lifestyles becomes zero, with a concerted Haninization campaign enforced through robust sponsorship of immigration, promulgation of the Mandarin language, installation of local officials with their nepotistic and pro-party agendas and actions, etc, all leading to a collapse of local indentity and slow elimination of the previous way of life. any one who advocates that ansd especially those who say it will be better for taiwan are blind, misleading or lying. there will be some winners from such a merger, but not most people, and not without a great many lost values. the winenrs will be the core of the KMT supporters at the moment: the best connected and the most monied.

and of course it would be a ‘unification’, not a ‘reunification’, as taiwan was not a part of China under either the PRC or the ROC. if taiwan reunites with anyone it could only be with japan, as it was a japanese colony under the terms of the Qing treaty of 1895 or so. and before that it was a free repubic of taiwan (briefly). and only before that was it a part of china, but neglected, and pretty much undefendable.

so it is pretty easy to see why a foreigner not educated under the influence (and bias) of KMT schooling would be far more likely to be green rather than blue. i did actually know quite a bit about taiwan before i came here, and i had the chance to make up my own mind rather than have an opinion formed for me by family background or whatever makes people choose one of the risible political alternatives on offer here. what a joke of a system operates here: democratic in name and partly so in make-up, but not at all so in operation and outcome. two selfish schoolkids fighting each other over a dollar bill in the schoolyard at lunchtime, with some interested bystanders siding with the one with the biggest fists. not one of them is interested in the upcoming exams or in learning anything at all at school… and after they have torn the bill into small pieces, they argue abut something else. dorks. but at least it is better than being part of china, where tehre is no dollar bill, there is no argument, and the bystanders are police informers and secret police.

18

I was born in Taiwan, got an American education.

Thats why I was both shocked and disappointed at former friends as they publicly declared me a “Race Traitor” and having “Not Enough National Pride”. for calling myself, “Taiwanese” one day. Apparently that was a grave threat at one of the best high schools in New York City and had to be suppressed. Whatever their American education had taught them, it was definitely not respect for different opinions.

Keep in mind these were high-school kids whom felt that I didn’t have enough “pride” because I already didn’t like the fascist nature of the CCP or the historically despotic nature of Chiang Kai Shek. It was like being given a choice between the party responsible for the most deaths in human history or one responsible for the 3rd-most deaths without a choice for “neither”.

It just came natural to me to dislike governments that are most famous for killing; so it was difficult to fathom why they would support regimes that kill. The concept was bizarre to me. Otherwise at the time I cared little for politics.

Naturally I consulted my parents on what the heck I was supposed to call myself. It was confusing because before 1988 my parents insisted that I call myself Chinese, over American, especially when I was in Taiwan. That of course changed in the 90’s, adding to the confusion.

However after confronting my parents, the response I got was just as confusing; parts of my family think I’m Chinese, parts think I’m not, and so on. Worse, politically the whole situation was just as convoluted. I decided I had to make my own decision on my identity and eventually choose my politics as they were clearly intertwined. No longer would I let others take what should have been my job.

Really early on I realized that many of the old KMT cronies were responsible for things like 228, the White Terror, and the disappearance of many activists against their dictatorship. They were even worse in China apparently, prematurely ending the lives of over 9 million innocent civilians.

The Democratic Progressive Party seemed like the natural choice. Of course, as expected, they don’t know how to run things either, I think partly due to the fact that none have appreciated the way the US government works (which is a utopia in comparison) or a certain cultural immaturity towards lofty ideas like equality and good-citizenship if there even is such a thing.

Either way having known (in some cases grew up with) officials from both sides since childhood I do lean green. I mean I’ve met maybe 75% of all the minor-major presidential candidates since 1996 and generally felt far more impressed by the spirit of the Pan Green candidates but felt that Blue candidates were far better with words and definitely enjoyed far more wealth.

In the end, although the KMT parties were far nicer (and still are by the way) the Greens tend to love Taiwan for itself, not as part of a province or part of a long term goal for some sort of benefit. Nor were they as likely to be biased against you simply because they knew you had a different political opinion.

I think this is probably why in the end I’ve had a different experience from someone like Chris. Unlike him, I know that Taiwan is already a democracy and already independent. Its also why I think there shouldn’t be a debate for independence but a debate about when we should summon Captain Obvious to point it and end this game of CCP-Make-Pretend.

I also believe that like South Korea (and early America) our people need time to figure out how to mature as a democracy. The things we are going through are lightweight versus what went down in America in the early 1800’s or the crazy amount of corruption that still exists in South Korea today. In a way I think people need more perspective; you’re not going through the worst, however bad you think the situation is in Taiwan, its far better than what most of the planet is going through.

@Chris:
As difficult a time you’re getting being a foreign teacher in Taiwan, you have yet to see how hard it is for a foreigner to make a living in a Post 9/11 America. Highly religious Americans with the Mexican borderline situation and the wars in the Middle East may appear a thousand times more xenophobic than the KMT or DPP has ever been. Nor do I think you’ve realized how anti-American and anti-Democratic the KMT was, just read Formosa Betrayed,

19

I know that Taiwan is a democracy (and I do credit the DPP for pushing that issue in the early 90s). I also know it is de facto independent, and has been since 1949. However, the DPP are trying to push too hastily for de jure independence, rather than letting it come naturally and gradually as it inevitably will barring warfare. And instead of behaving democratically, the DPP are using strong-arm tactics to push their agenda.

The DPP is also trying to erase connections with its undeniable Chinese past, and is artificially re-drawing the long-faded lines between Taiwanese and waishengren as if they’re separate races, with the Taiwanese being the favored group this time. (Ask the Aborigines: the Taiwanese, Hakkas and waishengren are all considered one thing by them: Chinese.)

The DPP seem to be moving toward “Taiwan for Taiwanese (oh, and maybe Hakkas too) only; screw everyone else”. Take for example DPP legislator Tsai Chi-fang’s suggestion to corral all “Chinese” into a “Chinatown” in Taipei.

[quote]
@Chris:
As difficult a time you’re getting being a foreign teacher in Taiwan, you have yet to see how hard it is for a foreigner to make a living in a Post 9/11 America. Highly religious Americans with the Mexican borderline situation and the wars in the Middle East may appear a thousand times more xenophobic than the KMT or DPP has ever been.[/quote]

I happen also to be a strong critic of America’s xenophobia, and am dismayed that the US has taken such a great leap backwards in that respect post 9/11 under Bush. I also believe that two wrongs don’t make a right.

By the way, I’m not a teacher and I personally don’t have visa problems, but I do sympathize with the others who, say, teach kindergarten, as well as other foreigners struggling to stay here long term.

20

I lean green out of hatred for China, inspired by my fondness for Tibet.