If you're like me then you're probably getting a little sick of rumor and gossip dressed up as journalism. All you have to do these days is yell "Sogo vouchers" in a crowded food court and some Apple Daily hack will come crawling out of a trash can to write an exclusive on what perks the first lady has been receiving from the ladies who operate the cafeteria cash register.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (
No, I'm not talking about an emaciated Taiwanese Linda Lovelace. I mean an informer.
A long time ago, my logic professor used to say that, "If a contradiction is true, then anything is true." In this spirit, I embarked upon an investigation to find this Deep Throat. The path I took was steeped in so much seediness and filled with so much danger that I wasn't sure I would make it out unscathed. As it turned out, the abyss looked back at me, but graciously it decided not to look too closely.
Certain semi-reputable media outlets have offered at least two possible names for Chiu Yi's Deep Throat. One is Liao Hsien-ling (
Chiu Yi's Deep Throat is best known by her stage name -- Chantelle Dundee, a transvestite stripper who travels frequently in the region, but who can be said to hail from Kings Cross, Sydney's red light district. After a few phone calls, it emerged that Chantelle had been invited (and paid) by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) to stay in Taiwan longer than she had planned on her "working holiday" and deliver a lecture on anything she liked.
My sources say the TFD was desperate for a non-Taiwanese speaker so that they could justify using the word "international" in their "International Symposium on Cross-Strait Graft." So through a strange connection or two, an invitation was duly issued, and Chantelle was delighted to oblige. The result: "Boobgate: The political economy of corruption, silicon and botox."
I don't think it was Chantelle's oversized larynx that had the exclusively male participants rapt; it was more the frilly hot pants, garters and carnations in her hair and the way she rubbed up against the lectern. Legislative Speaker and TFD chairman Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), when asked for his take on the guest speaker's suggestion that Taiwan could diversify and invest more in "smart boob technology," wouldn't go on the record -- as usual. But I can tell you with some certainty that he was rather impressed by Ms Dundee's portfolio, and invited her back for a private workshop with himself and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮).
But how did this connection come about?
One of my sources, who has a weakness for all things burlesque, ran into Chantelle during an impromptu, closed-door performance at a Combat Zone establishment last year. Also present was a TFD staffer surnamed Ouyang (歐陽), who had been drowning his sorrows and flirting with some older ladies of the night after being rejected for a position at the National Policy Foundation, the KMT's top think tank.
It was this smashed staffer whose job it was to seek out foreign speakers that would make the TFD look half-serious in its attempt to inculcate democracy around the world, and he had a deadline to find one. Bingo: Chantelle hits the lecture circuit after a few daiquiris and playing footsie under the table.
And this is where Chiu Yi fits into the puzzle.
Chiu was also rejected by the National Policy Foundation as being too intellectual for their purposes, a slap in the face that he did not take very well at all. I'm led to believe that Chiu attempted to storm the gates of their Hangzhou S Road headquarters with a sound truck and a dozen inebriated friends before the police whisked him away to a holding cell, wherefrom he was released after calming down -- and signing a few autographs.
Ouyang and Chiu met in the process of failing their applications, and struck up a friendship that involved sharing contacts -- and Chantelle ended up being one of them. The question is: How did a person with Chantelle's background get hold of information that is now rocking the Presidential Office?
I traced Chantelle to Phuket, where she was, as usual, mixing business with pleasure. And I have to say, Chantelle seems a lovely person on the phone. Her voice aside, which is like the sound of gravel weeping, she strikes you as a real golden-hearted woman who, as a minor poet once said, has been undressed by kings and seen some things that a woman ain't s'posed to see. The kind of person you could trust with your life, but not your girlfriend's wardrobe.
A lot of what she talked about was filled with cursing and Australian lingo which I tried but failed to understand. Yet, despite her voice becoming increasingly hoarse, some of it did make sense.
So why feed Chiu Yi with all this information?
"Darling," she laughed, "consider me a courier of love. I get the juice from someone who does me right, he asks me to help him out by sending an e-mail or two, and that's it. Bang."
Is the information true?
"How the bloody hell would I know? It's all in that ching-chong language. Can't read a bloody word of it. But I reckon it would make for a nice pattern on a painting. Like a Brett Whiteley [a renowned Australian artist who died of an overdose in 1992]. Or maybe a sash."
Where did the information come from?
"Come on now, Johnny, don't be too forward with me. I gotta keep a few secrets. You know that. But if I told you that it didn't come from a certain person who works in a certain 100-year-old building in Chinatown then I'd be lyin' through me arse."
OK, then how did the source come into the picture? Who was Deep Throat's Deep Throat, as it were?
"What, do you want to hear about all the pink bits as well? I can't go into that, love. But I can say that he's cute and he's cuddly and he's ready to please."
And how does it feel to have been labeled Chiu Yi's Deep Throat?
"I think it's bloody hilarious. I mean, if I did this kind of thing to people at home I'd end up in a witness protection program, or six feet under like Sally-Ann." [Chantelle was apparently referring to Sally-Ann Huckstepp, a prostitute and mother who was found face down in a pond in Sydney's Centennial Park in 1984 after going public on police corruption.]
Was there any concern that this information might not be true and might be used to harm innocent people?
"Look, I admit that what happens after I send the stuff is out of my hands. But hey, you Taiwanese are grown-ups, right? If it's bullshit then it'll come out. If it's not, then good riddance to the wankers who get what they deserve. If I'm only the messenger then why should people shoot me, right?"
Did you ever meet Chiu Yi?
"Yeah."
Did you have sex with him?
"Well ... I usually don't go for politicians, wherever they come from. Too much bullshit, too much big talk. And other than shaving regularly, they've got bloody awful hygiene. I prefer judges. They really like to bang their gavels hard after sitting on their arses all day with a rug on their heads and a frown on their faces."
President Chen Shui-bian
"Wouldn't have a clue. But I tell ya, Chen's sense of humor is as dry as a dead dingo's donger. From what I can make out, he's having a bloody big laugh at a lot of people. But let's talk shop: The man's as boring as all shit and probably hasn't cracked a joke in years."
You met [KMT Chairman] Ma Ying-jeou (
"I dunno, love," she said. "When he gets all butch and tough-talking it's like he's trying too hard. He needs to let go; let his feelings take him wherever he wants to be."
Then Chantelle's voice became a lot huskier.
"Get that spunkbucket of a man to give me a call, darling," she rasped. "Me and some of my girls could show that fella some fun. Fair dinkum. None of that cutesy, whiney, girly Taiwanese stuff. Trust me, I saw it all when I was there. I'm talkin' about thorough lovin'. Love from every angle. The lovin' of a real Aussie woman."
So there you have it. Chiu Yi's Deep Throat is merely a go-between for someone else; a shadowy man operating out of Sydney's Chinatown from a mysterious, century-old building. Johnny's on the case.
And as for Chantelle's request, I told her that I couldn't promise anything, but that I would do my best to arrange a private audience with the KMT's top man.
So how about it, Mr Mayor? Give me a call, darling.
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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