Stickin' It to The MAN

So what do you get when you give a couple thousand Taiwanese from the South an evening in Taipei with tons of signs, mini-floats, and airhorns? An anti-government rally of course. They were protesting to support Taiwanese independence from China and opposition to the pro-China policies of the current President Ma Ying-jiu and accusing him of allowing in tainted Chinese products. Since his surname, Ma, sounds like a lot like the Chinese f-word there were a lot of creative signs. Most of the people there were Taiwanese, as evidenced by the speakers exclusively using the Taiwanese language and not Chinese

I actually saw the march/rally on tv while I was working on the LSAT in a coffee shop. So I decided to take the subway down to see it. I got there and walked around with this huge rally, which was fun. They were peaceful and pretty well organized with cheers and communal airhorn blows. The Taiwanese are huge on banners, so naturally, there were tons of little flags and banners. Of course, I was one of the few white people there. The rally was held by the opposition DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) so a bunch of their leaders spoke in front of the president’s residence and there was a huge made-for-tv spectacle with lights, cheers, banners, small floats, balloons, songs, and a huge beach ball modeled after the Taiwanese flag.

Most at the rally were from the south were the DPP has its strongest hold due to the large number of native Taiwanese there. These people want nothing to do with China and the recent tainted milk from China has only reinforced these feelings. It made for a fun rally to watch.