A Blog Post for the Sake of Making a Blog Post

For the past week or so, I've been thinking that I need to post something on my blog. Not so much because there was something specific I wanted to talk about (though there are always things to talk about), but simply because I have only made one post this month, and I'd like to be a bit more consistent (usually I manage three posts a month, occasionally only two or as many as four). But up until last week I was busy working on my paper on Taiwanese aboriginal songwriter BaLiwakes, which I presented at a conference that was held in Taidong last week celebrating the hundredth anniversary of his birth (I suppose I could just post the paper itself, but it's in Chinese and anyway I still plan to eventually start a blog devoted specifically to music, which would be a more appropriate place for it). Since returning from Taidong I have been occupied with several translation jobs. Actually it's not true that I didn't have anything to post about; I'd like to do at least a cursory survey of the many books I've read since my last post on my recent reading, but that would take too long. So here it is, the end of the month, and all I can do is this little place filling post.

I suppose I could comment on the recent elections in Taiwan (they took place this past weekend), but as my only other post this month was on election results (in the US in that case), I don't really want to talk about them at length. Still, in the absence of any other quick topic coming to mind, a brief overview of them can serve. The election was for the mayors of the major urban centers of Taiwan (Taipei, Xinbei City [as Taipei County is soon to be rather pointlessly renamed], Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung), city councilors in those locations, and neighborhood heads (in Taiwan the smallest administrative division is the li, which is essentially a neighborhood). The results were mixed, with the DPP winning only two of the big races as opposed to three for the ruling KMT, including losses by their two heavyweight candidates in Taipei and Xinbei, which despite generally leaning toward the KMT (particularly true of Taipei) were considered to potential DPP gains. On the other hand, their candidate in Taichung came closer than expected, and they won easily in Tainan and Kaohsiung (the latter was particularly a relief, as the KMT candidate had the gall to criticize the incumbent mayor for inviting the Dalai Lama and allowing a film about Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer to be shown at a city government-sponsored film festival). They also elected the same number of city councilors as the KMT (130) and actually received a substantially higher share of the popular vote.

Results were mixed in other ways. A number of the worst candidates in the city council races lost, but a fair number got in (in our area a candidate with known gang ties running as an independent took the third of three seats after a massive advertising campaign that exceeded those of all other candidates in the area). None of the Green party candidates for city council came close to winning, but on the plus side they got more votes than in the past, and our local Green party candidate managed 7.5% of the vote, not too bad considering unlike the above-mentioned gangster-type (or to a slightly lesser extent the KMT and DPP candidates) he didn't have billboards, campaign flags, banners or ads on buses all over the place. He actually got almost half as many votes as the KMT candidate squeezed out by the gang-connected independent candidate (the other winners being another KMT candidate and a DPP candidate) and far outdistanced the other independent candidate (who didn't advertise much either, though he had a few flags up). So while there's still probably a long way to go before Taiwan starts electing candidates with little money but real principles like those of the Green party and a few independent candidates (not the gang-connected ones, obviously), maybe it'll happen someday.

A final interesting point about these elections is that some, particularly in the DPP, believe that the shooting the day before the election of the son of former KMT leader Lien Chan may have influenced the results in the KMT's favor (Lien Shengwen was shot in the face while campaigning for a KMT candidate; he was not injured as seriously as might be expected but a bystander was killed). Whether this is true or not is hard to say for certain, but since the KMT has often claimed the pre-election shooting of then-President Chen Shuibian in 2004 influenced that election in his favor, it's not unreasonable for the DPP to make the same claim.

Looks like the above summary of the Taiwanese election will have to serve as the main theme of my second post for this month. Hopefully I can make up for my slacking next month, and also get in one or two posts that aren't related to elections (three in a row is a bit much).