DPP lawmaker Shih Ming-teh (施明得), who has enjoyed considerable face time with the media during events marking the 20th anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident, has apparently not always been able to bask in the limelight as a media favorite.
In fact -- as one Taipei Times reporter recalls -- 20 years ago, the now-suave, bowtie-sporting Shih was not just famous, but notorious.
As a man who had once spent a month on the lam, with the police after him on sedition charges, most of Taiwan's newspapers portrayed him in 1979 as a ruffian, and he was even the butt of jokes on TV variety shows.
Our reporter recalls a sketch from an old variety show on CTS, called "Tsung Yi Yi Pai" (
The sketch involved two strangers -- a man and a woman -- who meet in a park and are obviously attracted to each another.
The man asks, "What's your name?" and the woman tells him.
She then asks him "What's your name?" -- to which he replies, "Shih Ming-teh."
After which, according to the comedy sketch, the woman screams and, waving her arms wildly, flees the scene.
Nowadays, of course, what with Shih's playboy reputation, the punchline might arguably have the opposite effect.
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