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Johnny Neihu's NewsWatch: Shall I compare thee to a klutz?

By Johnny Neihu

Saturday, May 05, 2007, Page 8

Bad analogies are the latest scourge afflicting news coverage of Taiwan. In fact, you might say they're cropping up like kudzu on a runaway Kaohsiung-bound bullet train.

The inept comparisons began with our foreign minister, who tooted his own horn in an interview with CNA on St. Lucia's decision to dump the Chicoms and re-establish ties with Taiwan.

"It was a tough battle, just like the Battle of Iwo Jima," said James Huang (黃志芳), on the struggle to get St. Lucia back on board.

As Deutsche Presse-Agentur helpfully pointed out in its account of the Huang interview, the US used 110,000 troops to fight Japan's 22,000 troops on Iwo Jima as part of its Pacific campaign in World War II -- killing 20,000 Japanese in the process. Huang took a few flights to the Caribbean and cooked a six-course meal for his team after they sealed the deal.

Maybe slaving over a hot stove for a couple of hours puts Jimmy boy in mind of dying on the beach under a hail of gunfire, but NewsWatch doesn't quite buy the comparison.

Then there's the Orlando Sentinel's John Bersia, who had this to say: "Like bad Chinese food, the Beijing-Taipei flap over the 2008 torch relay leaves a funky, disappointing aftertaste."

Kudos to Bersia for getting "Taiwan" and "funky" in the same sentence. But the rest of his essay goes down like a half-eaten, reheated McDonald's Filet-o-Fish.

Opines Bersia: "The contentiousness between China and Taiwan -- after nearly 60 years -- has grown tiresome. No wonder some people throw their hands into the air and exclaim, `Why don't they simply duke it out, and let the winner take all of China?'"

This comment might have been insightful -- 50 years ago. Bersia doesn't seem to realize that these days Taiwan doesn't want all of China. We have enough trouble controlling all the crooked politicians, gangsters, brothel owners and corrupt local officials over here -- without trying to control all the crooked politicians, gangsters, brothel owners and corrupt local officials over there.

Bersia drones on, like a drunken mama-san singing Hakka folk songs at a KTV long past its prime: "If, because of war, China lost the ability to bring large numbers of have-nots to a higher standard of living each year, the Chinese people would stand up again -- this time, with their pitchforks aimed directly at the leadership that supposedly liberated them in 1949."

I'm sure the millions of dirt-poor Chinese in the neglected countryside would be interested to hear their standard of living has been soaring. In fact, the reason they haven't sharpened their pitchforks already is because they're too busy eating babies, too sick from all the toxic sludge pouring down the rivers -- and too brainwashed by a brand of hypernationalism whose centerpiece is the glorious reunification of the Motherland after hundreds of years of humiliation, blah blah blah.

What do you think would happen to a Chicom government that presided over the "loss" of Taiwan?

Why, you'd have hundreds of millions of pitchfork-wielding, toxic sludge-hurling, deer penis-snorting peasants marching on Beijing -- each one more enraged than a crocodile at the Shoushan Zoo.

Still, amid all the metaphorical malapropisms, there's one stroke of brilliance: the satirical TV show Quanmin Damenguo's running gag on the reluctance of Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) to be the running mate of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

The spots have Wang and Ma stand-ins lying side by side in bed, like awkward newlyweds, under a bedspread sporting a huge KMT emblem (sample dialogue -- Ma: "Why do you keep putting it off? It won't hurt that much." Wang: "You just don't care about my feelings").

That's the perfect image for the two KMT bigwigs, who are engaged in the most embarrassing political spectacle this island has seen since President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) dalliance with People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜)(thought we'd forgotten, didn't you?).

The latter was like a drunken one-night stand, in which the participants shudder in horror the next morning at what -- and who -- they'd done.

By contrast, Ma and Wang -- as the TV satire nails it -- are like participants in a forced marriage, one of whom just can't bring himself to consummate the deal.

What's the hold-up? Maybe it's Ma's smarmy air of superiority -- reverse Viagra if ever there was. Maybe it's Ma's unwillingness to play by the old, dirty KMT rules. Or maybe the proud, ambitious Wang just can't bring himself to let Ma be on top -- even though Wang knows he's only got a snowball's chance in Penghu of winning the presidency himself.

Whatever the case, Wang's frigidity is threatening to turn Ma's 2008 dreams into a nightmare for the KMT -- resulting in a come-from-behind victory for the DPP's little green engine that could.

You can almost hear Ma paraphrasing Andrew Marvell from here:

Had we but world enough and time

This coyness, Wang, were no crime.

For his part, Wang preferred a classic Chinese reference, using a line from Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義) when asked by the media about Ma's entreaties: "Zhudou ran douqi" (煮豆燃豆萁).

The reference involves a convoluted tale of two brothers and bean-cooking. Long story short, it was Wang's artful way of telling Ma: "Back the *@!% off."

Ma wasn't the only one looking for his Mr. Right last week. Former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and Top Chicom Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) were together again last week for their now annual tryst, despite the abyss between their two worlds and the disapproval of many of their respective countrymen.

Call it "Brokeback Zhongnanhai" -- it's like the movie, except with wrinkly old Chinese guys. And no romance.

Lien must have felt a stab of jealousy, though, when Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) pressed the flesh with Hu -- and then kept pressing. And pressing. If the handshake had gone on much longer, they might have had to rush Hu to that Kaohsiung hospital that specializes in reattaching arms.

But enough of all that. Seeing Taiwanese suck up to Chicoms makes me sicker than a whaleshark at a Georgia aquarium.

Heard or read something particularly objectionable about Taiwan? Johnny wants to know: dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com is the place to reach me, with "Dear Johnny" in the subject line.
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