THERE I WAS babysitting for my daughter last weekend, fighting off her little terrors as they tried to perform a live skin transplant on my mutt Punkspleen.
In an attempt to calm them down (and to save Punkspleen from further torture) I reached for the remote control, flipped on the TV and switched to the channel run by the Empire of the Mouse. Instant silence.
Having calmed the brats down and taking five for a crafty Long Life on our modest balcony in the company of my eternally grateful pooch, I came back inside and was shocked by what I saw on the box: American teenagers -- you know the kind: tanned skin, immaculate hair, pearly white teeth -- speaking perfect Mandarin.
Dammit, I thought. I know learning Mandarin is becoming popular overseas these days, but these young whippersnappers' pronunciation was more biaozhun than mine.
But then I realized the show was dubbed. My eyes aren't what they used to be, you see.
In my youth, you had to learn English if you wanted to watch any of that foreign crap on TV, but these days it's all about convenience and catering to local tastes.
Speaking of which, during an ad break I caught a trailer for Bob the Architect. Yes, that's right, Bob the Architect -- the local version of Bob the Builder.
I know that many of my compatriots have an aversion to a bit of hard labor, hence the need to import thousands of our Southeast Asian neighbors to get their hands dirty and help the nation continue on its sacred mission to cover the countryside in concrete. But I couldn't help wonder why local TV chiefs decided to give working-class Bob a raise in social status.
Then I considered the reputation of our construction industry and it fell into place. "Bob the Gangster turned Politician" or "Bob the Bid-Rigger" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
It seems that TV execs aren't the only people obsessed with making things more convenient and easier to understand for us locals. Our hardworking politicians have also been busting a gut this week trying to convey how simple it is to vote using either the one-step or two-step voting process (depending on your political hue).
But seriously, how hard can it be to mark a piece of paper and put it in a box?
These efforts culminated in the Chinese-language press last week with a series of laughable line diagrams illustrating the ease of each camp's preferred method, with the Government Information Office's ad predictably making the pan-blue-backed two-step process look like a game of Atari Pong with the "tracer fire" option switched on.
The one-step diagram drawn up by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), meanwhile, had a quiver full of arrows and a confused-looking person with a light bulb for a head.
Funny ... I always thought a light bulb indicated a bright spark.
The KMT's diagram also depicted a "traffic jam" between the ballot pick-up area and the voting booth.
Now I know Taiwan is truly the land of convenience, but I was not aware that the Central Election Commission had introduced drive-thru voting to speed up the polling process.
All those arrows pointing in all directions reminded me of the opening credits of that classic British World War II sitcom Dad's Army (see it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyFNSKIgkFc).
And while we're on the subject of the French collapsing in the face of a stronger power, the smell of crushed nuts permeated the air in Beijing's Great Hall of the People last week as France's new "strongman" Nicolas Sarkozy, on a visit to Chicom Central, became the latest "world leader" to jump on Beijing's bullying bandwagon and kowtow to the God of Money. Sarko literally got down on his knees and ingratiated himself with his hosts, telling us that he "firmly opposed" our plans for a UN referendum.
But that crushed nut bouquet wasn't the chef out back rustling up a nifty gongbao jiding for old Nic to tuck into after recovering his nose from Commielissimo Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) dark passage. No, the nuts I'm referring to are the spherical ones old Hu had cupped in his hand as he squeezed the standard "telling off Taiwan" out of his Gaperon-guzzling Gallic guest.
Of course, little Nic's comments had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the US$30 billion in trade deals Hu had just stuffed down the back of his pants. No, dear reader, he was simply adhering to the French Republic's founding values of "Liberty, Equality and Frater -- nizing with dictatorial scumbags."
Whatever happened to China's aversion to foreigners meddling in its "internal affairs"?
Oh, that's right: It doesn't matter when interference concurs with oppression.
Wouldn't it have been great if, instead of their usual lame blustering, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs had taken a leaf out of the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney manifesto How to Win Friends and Influence People Through Subtlety and said: "We regret Mr Sarkozy's comments, but he should not meddle in our internal affairs at a time when his own country is in disarray. Paris is burning, people are dying in riots and there have been no train services for a week. So put your own house in order before you start dumping on us, baguette boy.
"And, by the way, from now on the French sticks and the Burgundy served in the ministerial canteen will be respectively known as Liberty loaves and Referendum Rouge."
Who cares if we upset France, anyway? It's not as if they're going to recall their ambassador or sever diplomatic relations. And they'll still need to buy PCs.
What we need are more allies like Gambia, whose "charismatic" President Yahya Jammeh is currently on a five-day trip to Taiwan.
He's a useful guy to have around because -- in case you didn't know -- he's a walking cure for AIDS.
According to the Feb. 20 report "Gambia's AIDS `Miracle'" on the Sky News Web site, all it takes is a few massage sessions with "a herbal ointment into the chest, a rub down with the cream, a splash on the face with another potion and a drink of a murky looking liquid," and Jammeh claims your HIV victim will be cured.
"[I've] already treated dozens of [my] people with traditional medicine, succeeding," he said, "where modern medical science has failed."
And just in case you were worried about how he fits his medical work into such a busy schedule, he only cures AIDS patients on Thursdays, while reserving Saturdays for curing asthma.
I hope a visit to Yunlin County is on Jammeh's itinerary, as a recent report revealed the number of confirmed AIDS infections there over the last two years totaled 599, a seven-fold increase on the previous two years.
Jammeh is just the kind of dependable diplomatic ally a country needs. He came to power in a military coup in 1994 and, according to the freedomnewspaper.com Web site, he had to cancel his last trip to Taiwan for fear he wouldn't be in power upon his return.
With a world-renowned statesman like ol' Yahya stepping up to plate for us at the UN General Assembly each year, it's no wonder nobody in New York takes us seriously.
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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