As usual, there were fireworks at New Year’s Eve countdown parties everywhere, brightening the night skies over Taiwan’s major cities. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China, some local governments spent huge sums of money on longer and more extravagant firework shows than usual.
The fireworks at Taipei 101 allegedly burnt up NT$60 million (US$2 million). Along with the fireworks at Dajia Riverside Park and Miramar Entertainment Park, all the fireworks in the capital on that night might have cost more than NT$100 million.
The fireworks were beautiful and spectacular, and they made people happy. However, what remains after the firework displays are over?
Indeed, the public needs some color and spice in their everyday lives to gain vitality and energy. However, looking at it from another angle, these marvelous fireworks that might help us temporarily forget our sorrows are in fact superficial political marketing that wastes taxpayers’ money. After a few minutes of excitement, we have to return to reality and the many cruel problems that remain unresolved.
Now that the mayors of the five special municipalities have celebrated their November election victories with champagne, the first thing they have to deal with is financial deficits that are already almost too big to handle, and that will grow even larger with the expanded administrations.
Other local governments are not doing any better. Of the central government’s allocation of NT$98.2 billion to local governments for this year, 62 percent is going to the five special municipalities. How can the remaining 17 cities and counties — that are already complaining about how poor they are — survive under such circumstances?
Even more bizarre is that despite their financial difficulties, many cities and counties spent big money on fireworks. Some of them have already sold off all their valuable land, and they still complain that they have no money to pay for school lunches. Despite that, they still had to compete with the fireworks in Taipei City. Since the fireworks at Taipei 101 lasted 288 seconds, they came up with fireworks that lasted 300 or 400 seconds. What was their intention, and what did all this mean? At most, they were creating a false impression of prosperity to fool the public.
There is an old saying about hitting yourself in the face so it swells up to make you look fat and well fed (打腫臉充胖子). This is a good description of what some of Taiwan’s local government heads have been doing. Perhaps the only difference is that they are beating the faces of the public instead of their own.
The first to suffer from the government’s fiscal problems is the public in general and the disadvantaged in particular, because it will be hard to push for projects to improve living standards and funds for basic social welfare will shrink, while taxes can be expected to increase. When considering these problems, even the most splendid fireworks, the most exciting countdown and the most resounding National Anthem will not be able to cheer us up.
Rather than pretending to be rich by spending lots of money on lovely but vain and polluting fireworks, it would be better to do something substantially beneficial for those at the bottom of the pyramid. It may be important to rejoice together with the public, but there are many other ways to celebrate the New Year’s countdown than putting on an extravagant fireworks show.
Hsu Yu-fang is an associate professor at National Dong Hwa University’s Department of Sinophone Literature.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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