Mayor Jason Hu has been invited to speak at the American School in Taichung (formerly known as Lincoln American School.) For those who remember his role in the infamous campaign flyer that contained pictures of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and the World Trade Center burning, I don’t need to remind you how disgusting this invitation is.
I am disappointed that the leading secular American school in central Taiwan would offer an invitation to someone involved in one of the most anti-American campaign ads in Taiwanese history. Completely and utterly disgraceful.
So what. From the other side, even Chinese in Taiwan have to put up with anti-Chinese manure from the DPP government and all those advocates of Taiwan independence all the time, and especially during campaigns, and they are not even waiguoren.
Chinese from the other side of the Strait who are not Taiwanese citizens ARE waiguoren, and are referred to as such my most Taiwanese people I know. Furthermore, there is no greater threat to Taiwan’s security than China, so they are deserving of some criticism.
If you have a chance, ludahai, perhaps you could flesh this out a little, or post a link or two for those who may be unfamiliar with this incident?[/quote]
Unfortunately, I don’t have a link, though I am sure someone on here must have one.
What happened 13 months ago was that a Lien-Song campaign flyer that was released by the Taichung Campaign office included images of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and the WTC burning on September 11th. On that, it said that Saddam admired President Chen.
Now, the director of the American School in Taichung has invited Mayor Hu at the opening ceremony of the Taiwan Model United Nations conference that the school hosts annually. There are six guest schools (five from Taiwan and one from Cambodia).
To me, it seems incredible that considering the ad that Hu was involved in last year that an American school could consider inviting him to speak at the TAIMUN conference.
I’ve got a vague memory that Hu denied any knowledge or responsibility for it afterwards (but how much credence do you put into a politician passing the buck?)
Hu is an inept mayor but he’s far from being a fool and he’s one of the most astute diplomats Taiwan has ever had. I spoke to his right-hand woman recently, who happens to be my ex-boss and got the “real” story behind that campaign ad.
It was done by an outside contractor and approved by lower-level campaign office staff who did not consider it sufficiently important to run it by a higher-level official. Hu did not know of it until it was on the streets and went ballistic, according to my friend.
His public actions and statements from that point on were dictated by the Lien/Soong office in Taipei, but Hu immediately fired the staff responsible and there were some extremely harsh words exchanged between the Taipei and Taichung campaign offices.
You are correct in saying that the buck stops with him – and it did, officially – but if you think Hu was behind that ridiculous ad then you don’t know Hu.
[quote=“sandman”]
You are correct in saying that the buck stops with him – and it did, officially – but if you think Hu was behind that ridiculous ad then you don’t know Hu.[/quote]
Did he apologize to Taichung’s American community for that ad? If he has, I haven’t seen it.
[quote=“ludahai”][quote=“sandman”]
You are correct in saying that the buck stops with him – and it did, officially – but if you think Hu was behind that ridiculous ad then you don’t know Hu.[/quote]
Did he apologize to Taichung’s American community for that ad? If he has, I haven’t seen it.[/quote]
He wasn’t permitted to. Lien and Soong didn’t want the alliance to lose face and they are both much higher on the food chain than he is.
By all means protest his invitation as a KMT stooge – I’m just providing a bit of back story.
I protest him attending because he should be doing the job he was elected to instead of campaigning for his next one. Just a few more months to fulfill that campaign promise to make Taichung ‘better than New York’. Just waiting for the blur of frenzied activity to begin we are…
[quote=“sandman”][quote=“ludahai”]
Did he apologize to Taichung’s American community for that ad? If he has, I haven’t seen it.[/quote]
He wasn’t permitted to. Lien and Soong didn’t want the alliance to lose face and they are both much higher on the food chain than he is.[/quote]
What a bizarre conception of honour and embarassment a person would need to have to feel that an apology for an obvious screw-up actually makes you lose face rather than gaining it.
I’m not disagreeing with your explanation here sandman – I have no trouble believing that Lien and Soong subscribe to this backwards notion of what constitutes saving face. I just find it a little childish is all…
[quote=“Hobbes”][quote=“sandman”][quote=“ludahai”]
Did he apologize to Taichung’s American community for that ad? If he has, I haven’t seen it.[/quote]
He wasn’t permitted to. Lien and Soong didn’t want the alliance to lose face and they are both much higher on the food chain than he is.[/quote]
What a bizarre conception of honour and embarassment a person would need to have to feel that an apology for an obvious screw-up actually makes you lose face rather than gaining it.
I’m not disagreeing with your explanation here sandman – I have no trouble believing that Lien and Soong subscribe to this backwards notion of what constitutes saving face. I just find it a little childish is all… [/quote]
You foreigners just don’t understand Chinese culture!
Well you foreigners really don’t, if you are still baffled.
Face isn’t honor and losing face is not embarrassment. It’s just a social lubricant. An abstraction layer, if you will. Get it straight.
[quote=“zeugmite”]Well you foreigners really don’t, if you are still baffled.
Face isn’t honor and losing face is not embarrassment. It’s just a social lubricant. An abstraction layer, if you will. Get it straight.[/quote]
You Chinese just don’t understand foreigner culture!
[quote=“zeugmite”]Well you foreigners really don’t, if you are still baffled.
Face isn’t honor and losing face is not embarrassment. It’s just a social lubricant. An abstraction layer, if you will. Get it straight.[/quote]
What a bunch of horseshit.
The only reason why Chinese give face is so that they can take it away from you at a later date.
[quote=“sandman”]
You Chinese just don’t understand foreigner culture!
He did get it straight. As a die.[/quote]
Nope. He’s wrong. And you are wrong. Parse his words again. That’s not a “backwards” notion of face. That is the notion of face applied correctly. Hence no reason to find it (Lien and Soong doing it) childish. And he did not mean that the notion of face (as he knew it incorrectly) is backwards, which is your incorrect interpretation. But he may find face backwards once he knows correctly what the notion of face is. And then we can disagree because face is just a social lubricant. There are no universal measure of “backwardness” for such things, unless you insist on measuring by Western cultural biases and proving handily you do not understand Chinese culture.
Hobbes reference:
[quote]What a bizarre conception of honour and embarassment a person would need to have to feel that an apology for an obvious screw-up actually makes you lose face rather than gaining it.
I’m not disagreeing with your explanation here sandman – I have no trouble believing that Lien and Soong subscribe to this backwards notion of what constitutes saving face. I just find it a little childish is all… [/quote]
[quote=“sandman”]He wasn’t permitted to. Lien and Soong didn’t want the alliance to lose face and they are both much higher on the food chain than he is.
By all means protest his invitation as a KMT stooge – I’m just providing a bit of back story.[/quote]
If he were truly a man of honor, he would apologize, regardless of what the stooges above him said.
I, for one, will not be attending his address tomorrow at the opening ceremony even though I am one of the faculty advisors for the Model United Nations conference.
I find the whole notion of “face” in this situation extremely childish. Lien and Soong acted like a couple of clods and couldn’t bring themselves to apologize for it, thereby making themselves even bigger clods.
Thank Christ they’ll never be in power here. Their fuckwittedness is scary, even in a couple of has-been losers.
