An inauspicious anniversary
Dear Johnny,
After doing some research using the Taipei Times search function, I noticed that your grand debut column was on March 3, 2006. On that day, about three-and-a-half years ago, you launched the “maiden voyage” of your column. And on that day, like the proverbial star of Bethlehem, you appeared as a guiding luminary in the perilously confusing and — at times — harrowing constellation that is the Taiwanese print media.
Do you realize that pretty soon we will be in the year 2010? That means that your loyal readership will soon have the privilege of reading your column for four years, if my decrepit mind, on the verge of dotage, is still capable of simple calculations. Tell me, do you still remember that day several years ago when you were a “cub” raconteur?
In any case, what else can I say but “congratulations” and “thank you.” Since March 4, 2006, you have been providing an invaluable service to the English-reading (and Chinese-reading) populace of Taiwan.
You truly have your hand “on the pulse of Taiwan.” And you display an uncanny ability to explain and shed light on a whole spectrum of social, political and cultural issues. In fact, in my book, what you have constitutes “genius” in that you easily establish connections and parallels between seemingly diverse and unrelated phenomena. You “weave a thread” where no one thinks of weaving and connecting issues and ideas.
In your first column, you provide the “panda-huggers” with a caveat — a warning or heads up.
On June 24, 2006, you wittily introduced your readers to that very bizarre — and, in my opinion, very dangerous — KMT legislator by the name of Chiu Yi (邱毅). The name sends shivers down my spine and twists my gut into paroxysms of abject nausea.
As you know, the bewigged one was recently elected to the KMT’s Central Standing Committee [Johnny’s note: He resigned after this letter was received].
Yes, the bug with a rug got himself a nifty ole promotion to the rarefied, upper echelons of the Kuomintang.
If that’s not enough to make a guy’s nut-sack shrivel and retreat into the abdomen, I don’t know what is.
Only in Taiwan, I say, only in Taiwan could this happen. I mean, this guy has a rap sheet longer than a donkey’s dong.
MICHAEL SCANLON
East Hartford, Connecticut
Johnny replies: If this letter isn’t enough to make my critics howl with derision and write expletive-filled e-mails lashing out at me (and Mr Scanlon), then I don’t know what is. So get typing and cursing, my worthy foes.
Yes, it’s nearly four years since this dodgy caper got up and running. The number four, of course, is rather inauspicious, so I don’t know what that may bring. Better take out some insurance. Or buy some property in the US.
Be that as it may, it’s been a trip. But to answer your question, I can barely recall the first column or the circumstances surrounding it. One of these days I’ll have to work out what it was called, search for it, read it and reminisce.
I do remember, however, that on the night I got into a drunken fight with a would-be Bamboo Union delivery boy who made some cracks about my Hoklo-accented Mandarin.
The delivery boy lost badly — as if it needed to be said.
Anyways, what can I say after almost four years in the hot seat? My colleagues keep telling me stories about meeting government/political/media types at cocktail parties, and these guys every now and then ask who I “really” am.
My colleagues could say “Read the column; all of the essential details are there,” but instead, the reply is usually “I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you.”
When I hear about such exchanges, I think: “Hmm, best not give these guys any ideas,” especially the KMT folks I make fun of.
In that context, the trail of waste that follows Chiu Yi looks mighty innocuous in comparison.
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