Friday, May 25, 2007

China Post, 我 愛 你

Woo doggy, Jethro! The China Post is pissed off! Really pissed off, I tell ya.' The Chen administration has been busy renaming things, replacing the word China with Taiwan in government services like the post office. But his latest attempt to rename the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to "National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall is just too much for the good folk at Taiwan's leading English-language newspaper.

(Before I go on, go out and buy this damn newspaper. Everyday! You cannot be without it. You want to know why the arms procurement package to replace things like its aging fleet of attack triremes and vertical ascent gyro-contraptions have been stalled for years? How Taiwan ranks near the top of the world list in terms of moss and liverwort diversity and density? Why a 3.83% unemployment rate is bad? Then read the China Post).

Let's skip past their perceptive revelation that because the DPP trails the KMT in the polls they are "beating their brains out cooking up new ways to turn the tide."

Glance at this one. Not too long, it could cause damage.

Historians have been divided concerning the incident sixty years ago. The argument will never be settled. That is all right. Many historical issues and events are shrouded in controversy. That's why we need historians.

A bit harder to ignore (but possible if you have read the Post before and become accustomed to their bluster) is their claim that, They (the DPP) justify the campaign with the excuse that Chiang was a "killer" or "murderer" and that he was responsible for the controversial "2-28 massacre" that allegedly occurred in 1947.

No, what I think really irks them is the DPP's language skills. Their research states that the word 'memorial" is "something designed to preserve the memory of a person or event. Therefore, democracy cannot be memorialized.

What a ridiculous name. The existence of having a "democracy memorial hall" will be an international laughingstock. The idea only goes to show the stupidity and ignorance of those behind the move.

Better start laughing at Hiroshima, then. And what about The Memorial? A golf tournament that memorializes memorializing? Okay, laugh at that one, then.

Taiwan is now commonly known as a democracy, so do we need a hall to "preserve" its "memory"?

Oh, if they would only read their own newspaper, they wouldn't be pitching this little fit.




1 comment:

Red A said...

Great - both parties will start renaming everything all over again.

I do have to say Democracy Memorial does seem a little weird when you think about it.

War on Corruption and Democracy Plaza is worse though.