All Hail The Chinese Speaking World's Most Powerful Woman

Today will be in the history books. I watched the first hour of  Tsai-Yingwen's inauguration with my 9th graders and caught her speech with my 8th graders. By all media accounts she has quite the monumental task at hand: keeping her constituents happy and not provoking Beijing. Unlike most other female leaders in Asia, she doesn't belong to some family dynasty. In fact the BBC said Taiwan is the best place to be a woman in politics, its so normalized now. As for Ma he released a comical, self-deprecating video, which won him a lot of praise, but was hardly original. He just copied Obama.

What was impressive about the ceremony wasn't what the new president was wearing (despite what Taiwanese news may say), but that the ceremony was bilingual. It felt more global. There was a whopping amount of repetition on how Taiwan values its democracy. My students were impressed by the air-force command's blue and red streams of smoke flying over the crowd, cameras were attached to the fighter jets. The ceremony was inclusive of aboriginals throughout the entire production. At one point they all sang a song,"Ilha Formosa" that was banned in 1979 during the White Terror years and some of the older generation in the crowd were crying, waving green flags, presumably victims or having family victims that disappeared or died during that dark time of martial law and suppression.

I was curious why was the person with the wild afro on stage holding the, "GET OUT" sign. Get out who? Ma? My extreme sports friend Erin explained, "I know the woman with the crazy Afro. Her name is Banai. She'said a singer/ activist who works on stopping nuclear waste from being dumped/stored at Lanyu, the traditional homeland of Tao Moot tribe. She's holding the "get out" towel for that cause. The guy beside her is a HaKa singer song writer called 林生祥. He sings in HaKa dialogue and promotes the love of land in his songs." 

My 9th graders

 Although I couldn't really understand her speech,  the English translation was made available immediately afterwards (My boss wasn't too impressed with the quality of the translation). I am impressed with her footnote on transforming the education system but I was hoping she would of gone further in her social safety nets section beyond just pensions. She brought up the recent slaying of young children but didn't say anything about the decapitated victim's mother's grievances of the gov't helping working parents. Overall, her speech was painstakingly comprehensive in its overview of what kind of policies she hopes to implement. I can;t help but feel hopeful for Taiwan.

The elephant in the room is China. What will they do now?  Beijing had already begun  their backlash even before she officially assumed office: they warned her to steer clear of peaceful independence (or else), less mainland tourists has already put a dent in the local market (some say), the whole Kenya drama where Taiwanese citizens were extradited to China, stealing diplomatic relations with Gambia, and increased coastal invasion simulations opposite Taiwan (read Tensions in the Taiwan Strait). Another risk is the same young voters who voted her in could also as easily vote her out (read Taiwan's Kids Are Not Alright).  What Beijing can't seem to understand is that Taiwan is a democracy and Ing-wen is a servant of the people. Just juxtapose the young, "Yellow" idealists, bent on change and national sovereignty with shady characters like the "White Wolf" who is pro-China, and already criticism from feminists that her cabinet is too male (I agree). She has quite the juggling act.Ultimately, everyone in Taiwan is crossing their fingers she can perform some kind of miracle with the market and stimulating growth.

As for the US, American "neutrality" is about preventing unification (Chinese superpower a done deal) and war (regional instability and US troops for sure). Sooner rather than later America will have to chose which side they are on. I have been all for normalizing Taiwanese sovereignty since my first stint here in 2001. Surprisingly, many of my Taiwanese friends- who voted for Tsai Yingwen feel less hopeful than myself. They are pretty grounded with their expectations. They believe she wont make Taiwan the worse for her leadership, and that's about it. I certainly hope she exceeds their expectation. Their apprehensions are partially based on the global community's lack of formal recognition.

Sweet Talker: Enter the World of Taiwanese Speech Competitions

Early the other Saturday morning, I had to get my daughter ready for her first (and last?) speech competition. We both didn't realize we had entered into this hornet's nest world of school and parent competitiveness.  The whole process started out innocently enough, from her class competition over a section of their reading book to a full on process of elimination,class by class,then school by school. Her class competition had to to be video recorded because last year parents accused the staff of favoritism (" How dare my little genius lose!")

Z with me and her teachers (my coworkers) after her speech

Since she is not a Taiwanese citizen she was grouped into an entirely different category from her classmate, into a larger pool, with older kids. On the contrary had it been a Mandarin speech competition, she would still be with her age group.

I was asked to write her speech (and her classmate's) which was basically her take on the meaning of Christmas using two poems, one about a pine tree and an acrostic poem. Her judges were a panel of 4 foreigners. I think being a foreigner for any period of time here, you either are teaching and preparing a student for one of these or asked to judge one of these. Much rarer it to parent a kid for one of these, yet I saw a whole bunch of western men married to Taiwanese women, with their kid in my daughter's group. It was my first time seeing any of them, but Yilan County is massive.

The parent room for her group

She had to use her precious lunch breaks (which she uses to finish homework) to drill her speech, over and over again. My coworkers also used their precious time to coach her. Memorizing her lines is not problem, she gets that down in 5 minuets whatever the language. She was nervous speaking  in front of judges. Its a new and unknown experience.

A photo from the screen in the parent room.

The competition itself was definitely a downer. We were  not all together  in some gymnasium or stage with an audience. I was ferried into a classroom with a  screen and ghetto sound system that had sound delay and echo and if I hadn't written her speech myself, would not understand or hear what she was saying. She was incomprehensible to anyone else other than the judges. The reason for this was last year, some parents complained that the microphone on the stage was too far away and affected their kid's performance (basically their kid lost). We all had assumed it would be like a conventional set up. She was so looking forward to finding my face in the crowd. I was bummed that the experience of feeding off the energy of the crowd, of being on stage was denied her .

I could tell she was nervous, she did not flash her heart melting smile even once. Later she told me when she arrived, they took her alone to a classroom where she remained for sometime, waiting. She cried. I think it cruel, like unnecessary solitary confinement-- at least have the competitors together, make it communal. She told me her knees were shaking, and I could tell by her eyes which radiated fear from the screen.

Afterwards when she finally found me  (her teachers and I were not allowed to see her until it was over), she cried. It was definitely not how we had expected it.The whole process seemed devoid of human interaction, relating. Parents weren't required to be respectful listeners in the audience, we were on our phones, eating breakfast drinking coffee walking in and out of a sterile classroom. Her saving grace was believing that even if she lost, she could teach people that Christmas was more than a consumerist or hedonist holiday.

In the end she didn't win, she didn't make the top 3, but she did get some sort of special recognition, that the other kids didn't get- probably cutest kid or biggest effort.

On that Sunday night I asked her what was the favorite part of her weekend, and it wast playing at the rad park across our street or our leisurely bike ride along the Yilan coast (see "Easy Riders"), but unbelievably it was her speech competition. She even said she wants to try for the Mandarin one next semester! " Are you sure?"I kept asking. We will see.