Family is so important. So I felt your agony when your senile father humiliated you on the verge of your gaining the KMT chairmanship and securing the presidential nomination. I was astounded when your daughters elected not to return from the US for the most important day of your professional life — your inauguration as president — and I was dumbstruck when your wife publicly criticized you during your Central American trip.
But, you see, with the death and destruction from the typhoon, the real vultures are beginning to circle. If you can’t rely on family to rally around you when you need them, how can you trust people in the political sphere?
It’s not too late. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: You know who your real friends are. So please be friends with us. Let yourself go. Be Taiwanese. We will forgive you.
May I finish with an anecdote? When I was doing military service, I spent some time on Kinmen. There I met a lovely lady, now long gone, who worked at the infamous “Vivien’s Retreat” bar and special services emporium. I won’t go into the nature of her work, other than to say she gave as good as she got and what she gave was as good as you’ll get.
Once, strolling along a mined beach at sunset, she said: “Darling Johnny, you may be too young to understand this, but take it from someone with haaaard experience. There’s much more to a relationship than being happy and stable. You gotta have the ‘connection’ — that thing about a person that grips you tight and makes you crazy. It’s worth fighting for, and it’s worth all the fights. If you don’t have it, you have nothing. And you will always be nothing. Now, lie down on the sand like a good little boy. I’ve got another 12 customers waiting.”
Mr President, some day soon, before it’s too late, you must ask yourself exactly what it is that you are connecting yourself to and if it is real — and tell us.
For now, from your friend, believe me when I say that your compatriots are waiting for you to wake from your China Redux reverie and embrace the hearts — and grime-caked bodies — of the only people that matter.
The alternative is a world of despair, disbelief and hate. And in that world, where even I will leave you behind, you will be in permanent solitude.
Yours, etc.
Dr Johnny Neihu IV, Esq.
Got something to tell Johnny? Get it off your chest: Write to dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com, but put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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