There seems to be a recent trend of politically correct activism in Taiwan recently, mostly by changing the name of public structures and areas named after former KMT Dictator and warlord Chiang Kai-Shek. I was fairly surprised during my Christmas break last year when I went back to Taiwan and found out that the airport had changed from Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport to Taoyuan (桃園 [the name of the area]) International Airport. Most recently, the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂) was officially renamed the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall (國立台灣民主紀念館). This comes as a bad decision for me in a very personal way, since I have to type an assload of extra characters now in Chinese.
However, It's refreshing to see this kind of change in Taiwan, even though it's only in name. Taiwan occupies a special niche in Asia, as it's basically been kicked around between several factions in even the last couple hundred years, including use as a piracy haven, Ming rebels, the Chinese mainland, Japan, the Nationalists, and now finally as a "independent" country.
It's interesting as your walk through urban Taipei, as it really not only retains it's Eastern flair, but also a cosmopolitan Western flavor. Taiwan is one of the few countries whose pop culture is not really unique to itself, but more heavily dictated by neighoring countries, mainly Japan, Korea, and China (HK in particular). Since this is mostly a gaming blog, I'd be remiss to point out that both Logitech and Acer reside in Taiwan, and that 2/3 of the world's computer components are produced in Taiwan, although this may change in the future as cheaper labor costs and factories move to China. So next time you pwn that annoying gnome warlock in WoW while drinking an ice cold beer on your couch, thanks to your l33t wireless mouse and keyboard....think Taiwan! ;3
Comments (1)
hmm... well, personally, i think it could have some positive influence, since with the name change and content change (in the displays), it essentially will stop commemorating a person who ruled during a dark time of violence and military oppression of the people.
people make such a clamor about corruption in the government now, which i suppose is one of the first steps to improving the situation, but i always wonder why they don't think about how when chiang kai-shek was around, you never would have even heard of all this (as well as stuff like 2-28, unless you were actually around when it happened and thus learned of it first-hand), and if you said anything that could be even loosely construed as opposing the ruling faction, you'd be taken to some dark, dank prison to be tortured, left to rot, and/or get killed off. the very fact that these things came to light, and that public discussion can take place over these issues, is already worlds away from the times when taiwan was controlled by the chiang regime.
oh, and a note about the airport name change... i *think* my parents told me that the change was just a reversion to the original name...
Posted by Connie Chen | May 21, 2007 5:30 PM
Posted on May 21, 2007 17:30