Business is Hopping in Monga (艋舺)

I posted a couple of months ago about the controversy created by the film Monga, in particular, the local government's financial contribution to it and some politician's objections to how it portrays the crime-infested borough which is Wanhua (萬華) AKA Monga: http://patrick-cowsill.blogspot.com/2009/12/monga-film.html

The Taipei Times had an article on it a ways back: "Although Taiwanese movie Monga (艋舺), sponsored by Taipei City’s Department of Cultural Affairs, will not be in theaters until next year, content from trailers for the movie has already raised controversy...."

"Qingshan Borough (青山里) chief Lee Chao-cheng (李昭成) criticized the movie, saying organized crime was only a small part of Bangka’s history. 'It took us many years of hard work to get rid of the bad impression that people used to have of the area, but now [the movie] is restoring that image.''' 

Lee also said "All residents — young and old alike — are opposed to it" (Taipei Times, Dec. 1, '09).

Talk about grandstanding. This guy Lee hadn't even seen the movie as his comments came months before its release. As it is, Qingshui Temple (清水巖) and Bo Pi Liao (剝皮寮) Street, almost completely dead a month ago, are now wall-to-wall with visitors who want to see the area in which Monga (艋舺) was filmed. The exact part of Monga, as I reported in past posts, was revitalised just for the shoot. The streets look great. There are a couple of new museums. 

 

Bo Pi Liao (剝皮寮) Street

Anyway, I don't think all residents "young and old alike," are opposed to Monga. Surely, the people who own the shops and restaurants, plus the street vendors - people who were standing around with nothing to do a couple of months ago - are not cursing the local government's investment. Finally, myself, also a Monga (艋舺) resident, is not opposed to it. I say money well spent.

Note: Today is 2/28 Day, a holiday in Taiwan. Starting on this day, 53 years ago, KMT invaders from China went on a murdering spree here. Is it me, or is it being brushed over in recent years? My friend Grace's father was taken away by the police at this time, in his underwear. She never saw him again.

Li Ao's Cell

Above is Li Ao's Cell, I think maybe from the early 1980s


We went to visit the Calaboose Jail for political prisoners in Jing Mei (or, depending on who you're talking to, Hsin Tien), Taiwan last week. Originally a school for military law, Calaboose was taken over by the Taiwan Garrison Command (Taiwan's secret police during martial law) in the 1960s.

The jail has housed many well-known political prisoners, including writers such as Bo Yang (柏楊), The Ugly Chinaman (醜陋的中國人), and Li Ao (李敖). It had two courthouses, an execution ground and profitable laundry. (Political prisoners were rewarded for their hard work in the laundry by being allowed to watch a communal TV at dinner. They washed everything from police uniforms to Chiang Ching-kuo's underwear.)


Calaboose - My daughter's down the hall checking it out




The sign above reads "fair and not corrupt" and was on the side of the Military Court, established by the Garrison Command in 1967. The courthouse was built by the Garrison's engineering unit, which was made up of political prisoners, and financed by the sale of property confiscated from these same individuals. Trials at the Military Court were said to have been conducted swiftly, with verdicts that were often based on the word of the accuser. Appeals were possible, but also risky as lighter sentences could be stiffened or even turned into the death penalty at the whim of a single judge. Before-and-after shots of the political prisoners executed by order of this court are now shown inside as part of a video display. Needless to say, it just goes on and on.

The First Court, built in 1977, is parallel to the Military Court. The eight individuals blamed for Kaohsiung Incident (高雄事件), when Taiwanese took to the streets to protest martial law, were also tried and convicted inside. They were Huang Hsin-chien (黃信介), Shih Ming-teh (施明德), Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文), Lin Yi-hsiung (林義雄), Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Chen Chu (陳菊) and Lin Hung-shen (李勝雄). These guys, and their lawyers, including Chen Shui-bien (陳水扁), Su tseng-cheng (蘇貞昌) and Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), became the who's who for the democratization movement in Taiwan and later the DPP government, the first non-KMT government in 55 years.


BTW, the jail also housed Wang Shi-ling (汪希苓), the person Taiwan pinned the murder of the writer Henry Liu on. The museum claims Liu was an American, but I remember reading that he had a green card. Anyway, this was enough for the US to put some heat on the Chiang. Liu, who lived in Sacramento, California, was just finishing off a book on Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). When Liu couldn't be enticed by bribery, Chiang's youngest son Alex ordered the hit through his gangster buddies in the Bamboo Union. I think it's fair to say that the son was operating on his own initiative, though, even if he did receive help later on in covering it up. Alex had his hands in all kinds of unsavory business. He died young; and people have written that it probably had something to with drugs.

Instead of getting a cell, Wang got his own place, a kind of Taiwanese villa with several rooms, a front yard, kitchen, etc. from which his wife could come and go. A few years later, he was transferred to more scenic place on Yangming Mtn. I don't know how the story ends. I think maybe he was pardoned for health reasons.

We went on a Sunday and were the only visitors. My wife figures either people are not interested right now in the general mood of denial that has slipped over the island or they're afraid of it. Anyway, here is address: 台灣人權景美園區　地址: 台北縣新店市復興路131號 or Taiwan Human Rights Memorial (Taiwanese People's Empowerment Jingmei Garden) at 131 Fuhsing Road, Hsin Tien, Taipei. Phone: (02) 2218-2436: http://www.thrm.org.tw/en/

Four Year Anniversary

Where were you four years ago, when President Chen was being sworn in for a second term of office? It suddenly occurs to me that I was in Ohio, piling stuff in the back of my Toyota for a honeymoon trip to New Orleans. On Monday, my wife and I took a day off from work to celebrate four years of marriage. We bundled our little daughter off to the babysitter's and then headed off for lunch at the Grand Fomosa Hotel followed by the afternoon matinee, where we saw Iron Man, based on a Marvel comic book I used to read as a kid. One thing that really struck me about our time off was all the other people taking a day off too. My wife kept asking: "Doesn't anyone have to work anymore?" The restaurant we ate in was packed (although with a little help from a lunch party hosted by the Belize government - I guess big wigs in town for the inauguration) and even the theater, at 3:05 p.m., was half full.

Today, when I returned to work, I was greeted by mayhem, as Ma was being sworn in as President across the street at Taipei Arena (see above cell phone pic). Although I'm happy to see Chen go (I'll work on this in later posts), I'm also a bit worried to see this American-educated president take the helm. Mainly, I'm concerned that he's in way over his head with the Chinese. As much as Chen's "us and them" attitude and constant picking on out-groups disturbed me, I think I could even be more uncomfortable with Ma's, or least his party's, insistence that we people here in Taiwan are Han Chinese. To me, that seems naive. Taiwan is made up of people from all over the place. At least one in five babies is now born to a "foreign" parent. And that's not even getting into the Aboriginal contribution to the Taiwanese blood-line. There also seems to be a bit of disingenuity going on here. I mean what are guys like James Soong, Lien Chan, Ma, and others, with their American degrees, houses, bank accounts, passports or green cards or what have you thinking when they're chatting it up with someone like Hu, Wen or one of these other odd-balls?


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BTW, some people are now questioning the double-standard in aid, why the government here is willing to give so much of our tax dollars to China for earthquake relief, NT$2 billion, versus a piddly NT$6 million for the Burmese, who are probably even in worse shape: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/05/16/2003412099 It's nice to see all of the Tzu Chi volunteers now out raising money for Myanmar. Just in case you're wondering, they're the ones wearing blue polo shirts and white pants, out on every corner, at every MRT exit and even at today's inauguration, shaking donation boxes and looking pleasant. I just looked up their Website: http://www.tzuchi.org/global/index.html

Old Military Housing Museum

The above shots are from the military housing museum in the shadow Taipei 101. 1.5 million refugees showed up in Taiwan in 1949 with Chiang Kai-shek after the fall of China to the communists. Many of them were soldiers. There are accounts of these soldiers squatting anywhere they could. They took over hospitals, where they burnt the banisters for wood, schools where they used the textbooks for toilet paper, in parks where they remained until the past decade, etc. Almost every old Taiwanese can tell the story of a home invasion in their own neighborhood. Some can even point out where the descendants of home invaders still live. The original occupants of these homes are pretty much erased from history.

I doubt this settlement was the result of a squat however. The neighborhood around 101 was rice paddies until 30 years ago. I'm guessing the soldiers were given the land during the land reorganization drive of the early fifties.

The museum is interesting. They've got lots of every day stuff on hand: old radios, books, kitchen pots and utensils, hat racks and so on. The apartments were pretty small too, about two-thirds the size of a single master bedroom in today's Taipei (maybe four pings).



The guides at the museum told me they grew up in this complex; their dads were soldiers from China. I asked one what these mounds were, but she said "we're trying to create the military houses as they were."