David on Formosa

A forum in Taipei yesterday titled “Democracy Building in Asia” brought together experts from Taiwan, the US and Asian countries. The forum was sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) and the Institute for National Policy Research.

In one of the opening speeches John Chiang (蔣孝嚴), a Vice-Chairman of the KMT and board member of TFD, said it was timely to have the conference in Taiwan now that there have been two orderly and peaceful transitions of power and this shows that democracy can work in Asia.

Lin Wen-cheng (林文程), the President of TFD, speaking in the afternoon said that democratic countries should be more pro-active in promoting democracy in their foreign policy. Taiwan is the only country in Asia that has established a national foundation to promote democracy in the region. Lin said that other countries, especially Japan and South Korea, should establish similar organisations. Read more »

The 2009 Taiwan Ethnographic Film Festival (台灣國際民族誌影展) took place from 2-6 October. I attended several sessions and saw an interesting selection of ethnographic films from Taiwan.

The first film I saw was Sing It! (唱歌吧！) directed by Shine Yang (楊智麟). It tells the story of how the principal of Dongpu Elementary School in Chiayi County forms a school choir. He trains the students to a high standard competing in national competitions and then they go to record a CD over the summer vacation. Most of the students in the school are Bunun and most of the songs they record are traditional Bunun songs. Read more »

The Ten Conditions of Love, documentary about exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer, screened at Da’an Park in Taipei tonight. It was part of an event  organised by Luo Wen-jia’s Movement magazine (二次黨外雜志) and the Taiwan Friends of Tibet (台灣圖博之友會) that saw the documentary screened simultaneously in five Taiwanese cities. The screening follows a controversy which earlier saw the documentary withdrawn from the Kaohsiung Film Festival. It was later reinstated in the film festival and also screened in Kaohsiung last week.

Former Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) attended the screening and is seen in the above photo with Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉). The outdoor theatre area had a packed crowd. And although some prominent members of the DPP were present the event was not like an election campaign rally. It was an occasion for everyone, regardless of which political party they might support, to come together and show that they valued the freedom to be able to watch this film.  Read more »

The Penghu casino referendum was held on Saturday. I went to observe the referendum as part of the team organised by Citizen Congress Watch (公民監督國會聯盟). I’ll first report on the observation of the referendum voting followed by some analysis of the results of the referendum and its political implications. Read more »

The Kaohsiung Film Festival is in the midst of a controversy over the screening of The Ten Conditions of Love, a documentary about the life of exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer. The Film Festival announced its plans to screen the documentary earlier this month. Since then there has been increasing pressure on the film festival to withdraw the film to avoid a potential loss of Chinese tourists in Kaohsiung.

The Ten Conditions of Love created a controversy when it screened at the Melbourne Film Festival in August. The screening went ahead in the face of loud protests and interference from China. Other Chinese films were withdrawn from the festival. These included the Taiwanese film Miao Miao based on a decision by the film’s Hong Kong distributor. Chinese hackers also targeted the Melbourne Film Festival’s website. I understand the Kaohsiung Film Festival’s site has also been subject to attacks.

Over the weekend the Kaohsiung City Government announced that it would withdraw the documentary from the festival in October and screen it this week to avoid further controversy. While some might be happy that people in Taiwan will still have the chance to see the documentary, others were indignant that Kaohsiung City Government had interfered with the film festival’s independence. Read more »

For the past week I have been involved in various activities of the Anti-gambling Alliance (反賭博合法化聯盟) in their campaign against the plan for a casino on Penghu (澎湖). The residents of Penghu will vote in a referendum on 26 September that will decide whether plans for the casino will be approved. If the referendum passes and a casino is built it will be Taiwan’s first casino. At present the lottery is the only form of legalised gambling in Taiwan. Read more »

On Saturday morning I met some friends at Taipei Station and boarded the Taroko Express to Hualian. In Hualian we met our driver and headed down the coast. Once beyond the city limits of Hualian the coastline has a lot of open space apart from a few small settlements. We visited this beach had only a handful of people on it. It was a pretty hot day so crossing the sand was scorching, but it was nice to cool off in the water.

Late in the afternoon we arrived at our accommodation, the Leader Village Taroko (立德布洛灣山月村). It is located in Pulowan in the lower part of Taroko Gorge. The location is truly spectacular and the cabins are very comfortable. Read more »

The 2009 Taipei Deaflympics began with the opening ceremony held at the new Taipei Stadium last night. Today the sporting events began and I went to see the cycling held at Taipei City Hall. The men’s 1,000 metre sprint cycling race began with heats in the morning and then finals in the afternoon. This event is usually held on a velodrome, however Taipei obviously lacks a suitable facility so competitors raced on the road in front of Taipei City Hall. Read more »