My friend told me he went through Banqiao Train Station yesterday and saw a store selling Nazi and SS paraphernalia. Anyone seen this?
Three or four years ago I would have signed, shaken my head, and kept walking. If I saw this today I would complain to the manager, take pictures, and contact Apple Daily, then ask the German rep office in Taipei to send some informational reading to the ignoramus selling this stuff.
hmmm, I donāt know if nazi paraphernalia holds the same taboo like in western countries. Iām not sure why, but I find most people in Taiwan pretty ignorant about history in general. I know they donāt even began to teach history until the 4th or 5th grade. I would just find it strange. Although I find Nazi war relics interesting, I have a fascination with the 2nd world war, modern day paraphernalia is just unnecessary.
Same in south America, some people over there associate the swastika with the European punk movement somehow. Personally I really didnāt realize how much people in the US are afraid/hateful of until I watched Nazi jokes on 30 Rock. There were a lot of genocides last century and is horrible and deplorable, but Nazis are specially bad for US because Israel got them by the balls. And donāt call me antisemitic for that, is just the way it looks to me. But I think you should do all those things you said, specially the go and see it by yourself.
I mean so what? The money is not going to found Hitlerās kickstarter or something like that.
Also Iām curious, what was the change of mind in the last 3 years? You became an activist? Or just had enough?
Are you sure it wasnāt Buddhist paraphernalia? Some of it can be very similar looking to the uninformed. Like the reverse swastika that is a Buddhist symbol.
I donāt know about the place the OP mentioned, but I know thereās an āAmericanā restaurant in Banqiao called Rockmill (岩ē£Øå) that has on its menu ē“ē²¹č¬ę²éŗµ (Long Live the Nazis pasta).
To be fair, a news report was done last year about this place, questioning the appropriateness of the name of this dish. The last line of the report was interesting. Perhaps underscoring the local lack of knowledge about history, the store operators felt this way: ååēę„č č¦ē¬ļ¼ē¶ęåŖę³åøå¼ę¶č²»č ę³Øęļ¼ę仄ę²ę³é£éŗ¼å¤ļ¼ęčرå°ē£é¢å¾·åęäŗč·é¢ļ¼ę°ē¾ęč§øę²é£éŗ¼ę·± (Basically: The operators only wanted to attract the customerās attention, so they didnāt think too much; perhaps because Taiwan is so far from Germany, people would feel less strongly about it).
The very last words of the reporter give some hope, though: ä½ęäŗåµęéęÆäøč¦ēØļ¼ęÆč¼äæéŖļ¼(But no matter how creative, itās safer not to use such a term!)
Dumb arseholes.
The flob discussion is always the same: āmaybe they were Buddhists!ā āItās not bad in Asia!ā and āWhy are Euros so uptight about it?ā
Try selling 228 Tshirts in London and see what the Taiwanese expats think about it? What? You wouldnāt do that because it would be unspeakably crass and obnoxious? Right then ā¦
All I see here is that weird inverse racism where Taiwanese people donāt have o ājoin inā with the rest of the world because theyāre too thick.
Hok, while I totally understand where youāre coming from and fully agree with you that the public display of Nazi symbols is a disgrace in any country, I donāt think contacting Apple Daily would have much of an effect. You probably know that using Nazi symbols is not per se illegal in many (or most) jurisdictions. If this happened in Germany or Austria, for example, then you could report the shop owner to the police because using Nazi symbols in public constitutes a crime under the local laws. Not so in Taiwan though, for apparent historical reasons, which is why not many people seem to care as much. So complaining to Apple Daily or the police will probably not help.
Iād be curious to know what you would do if you saw the same thing happen in your neighborhood in California. Would you also consider calling a local paper or TV station to report on it? Interestingly, Nazi symbols are also legal in the US and even Israel, which seems paradox: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%8 ā¦ Nazi_flags
Youāre antisemitic.
Weāve got a good conversation going here. In order:
TexMex ā you asked a great question. What happened? I just decided that there are things that are right and wrong on my moral compass, and Iām no longer willing to give Nazi sympathizers the benefit of the doubt. They are either outrageously ignorant or outrageously bigoted. I would honestly sit that shop owner down over a cup of coffee and explain why it is so truly awful to be promoting that particular brand of hate. If I saw someone in California selling imperial Japanese navy flags, Iād want to do the same thing. I pray that we wonāt see idiots 50 years from now waving Islamic State flags just for fun.
tango42 ā I didnāt see it. My friend is (sort of) ABC soā¦ Iām pretty sure heād recognize Buddhist stuff from Nazi stuff.
GC ā It is legal to show swastikas in Taiwan, and it should be. This is basic freedom of expression. But freedom of expression is not freedom from the consequences of that expression and it certainly does not mean that people who are deeply disgusted by that behavior need to just suck it up and move on. Apple and other media have reported on things like this before, like the Myriad-Year-Nazi-Noodles up above and the 2011 incident where Taiwanese soldiers dressed in Nazi uniform just for fun. Basically, I want the media to shame these people for not knowing a thing about history before they cozy up to a genocidal maniac. The more embarrassing the better.
Thereās all sorts of paraphernalia at Banqiao Station.
Naziās bad, everyone else good.
I grew up with a bunch of Nazi daggers hanging on the wall. There was also a big swastika (think it was German navy) and a bunch of other bits and pieces. Some were war souvenirs from relatives. Others had been bought in antique shops.
Big deal.
I donāt get the attraction of being constantly offended.
You could Google a bit?
[quote=āKiwiā]I grew up with a bunch of Nazi daggers hanging on the wall. There was also a big swastika (think it was German navy) and a bunch of other bits and pieces. Some were war souvenirs from relatives. Others had been bought in antique shops.
Big deal.
I donāt get the attraction of being constantly offended.[/quote]
Exactly
Start with maybe PTSD, inherited trauma, stuff like that? If you actually donāt understand and arenāt just being some knobjockey Gen Y-er ā¦
I actually donāt understand.
How many flags should we ban?
Swastika? Confederate? Turkey? Khmer Rouge? Soviet? PRC? ROC? The Black Tug Banner of the Mongols? The Islamic Black Standard? The St Georgeās Cross? The Union Jack?
Where does it start and end?
Exactly
It starts with the Swastika because it is a symbol of ultimate evil and if we arenāt vigilant it sneaks back into use and ignorant people rally behind it and we get to repeat history. Its got nothing to do with any pro-Israel Jewish lobby in the USA, that is irrelevant. Its got nothing to do with Boer concentration camps or H block prisoners or whatever else you want to trot out in a feeble attempt to argue other flags have evil overtones.
If you donāt understand whats wrong about selling nazi flags in a train station. Then itās really a waiste of time and energy to even discuss it. :loco:
Tonight my curiosity got the better of me, so I went over to the train station and had a look around. Now, that place is large, it has various stores, I didnāt look very thoroughly, it was getting close to closing time for at least some of the stores, and my powers of observation are not that good. So no dice on that for me tonight.
However, I was only in what I consider to be the train station proper; I may very well have underestimated the scope of the term āBanqiao Train Station.ā
I did find something by Googling and clicking, but Iām not sure that itās whatās being discussed, especially since I havenāt found a specific address (maybe itās staring me in the face, but I donāt see it), and I donāt know Chinese.
But anyway, hereās what I found by Googling and clicking, with some help (I thinkāI donāt remember the specific process) from Google Translate (just to be on the safe side, Iām going to say the links below are NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK):