Pictures from the “Separatist” march yesterday

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Pictures from the “Separatist” march yesterday

Lately, to be honest, I haven’t been paying a whole lot of attention to Taiwanese politics. There’s just too much going on in the American political circus right now for me to tear myself away.

Yesterday, though, after work, Fanfan and I had a couple of hours to burn before a shindig at some friends’ house, so we stopped in Ximen (西門) to see if there were any movies out that were worth our valuable time.

Much to my surprise, upon emerging from the glossy, plastic mouth of the MRT, I realized that the Anti-Ma, “seperatist” protests were taking place right across the street. So, I hopped across the street and started snapping pictures and vids of the surprisingly large number of people taking part -- estimates I saw in the Liberty Times (自由時報) downstairs put the number at 300,000.

Of course, as many of you know, I’m quite interested in generational differences here in Taiwan (and elsewhere), so it was only fitting, I thought, to be standing at a crosswalk in Ximen, watching thousands of middle-aged Taiwanese men and women marching by, while hundreds of young Taiwanese kids breaking through the procession during every green light on their way to Ximen to shop, take pictures of themselves, and all the other things that people do at Ximen.

去台灣親中國馬上倒 means more or less, “~~Leave Taiwan~~Get rid of Taiwan, kiss China, and immediately turn everything upside down.” 馬上 (literally “on the horse'”) means “immediately” or “right away.” It’s a pun that’s become quite popular since 馬 [ma3] is President Ma’s family name.

The Chinese at the bottom of this “Ma You Suck” fan says “ROC, get out of Taiwan.”

美國人的爸爸就會親中賣台 “The American’s father is just going to kiss China and sell Taiwan.” I don’t particularly understand this one. Ma’s father was from Hong Kong, right?

馬賣台得金牌 ~~“Ma sale of Taiwan merits a gold medal”~~ “Ma sells Taiwan, earns a gold medal”

Fanfan actually left and went to wander around Ximen for a little while because, she said she didn’t like the tone of a lot of the people’s chants and signs. This is probably a good example of one of them (on the left). It says: "Fuck the nine schools of thought government”