A bread vendor in Kaohsiung, surnamed Huang (黃), down on his luck and unable to find buyers for his wares, had a lucky break. He did not come up with a new technique, or hit upon a new flavor: He did, however, take a leaf out of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) book, and saw an upturn in his fortunes when he stole a snapshot of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), out of jail on medical leave, but apparently walking just fine.
The good old KMT, itself fallen on hard times, has been inspired by this turn of events and is relying on rather underhanded methods to drum up party morale.
The head of this century-old bakery, KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), bakes bread of her own, although it tends to the rancid and cannot really compete with authentic Taiwanese bread. The customers have been keeping away of late, and despite what Baker Hung does to lure them in, it seems that nobody has told her the importance of catering to local tastes. Instead, she has gone running to the competition, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), to see if, together, they can conjure up something more appealing to the local palate.
The thing is, her specialty — “one China” cake and anti-independence buns — have a fusty whiff about them that turns people off. Her wares are a bit stale, good only for offering to the ancestors, and who is going to want to buy that?
There are those who say that Baker Hung just wants to peddle her wares to the KMT’s Huang Fu-hsing (黃復興) special military veterans’ branch, but it is hard to see how even the Huang Fu-hsing would be able to swallow her offerings. After all, when they were dragged to Taiwan by the KMT, they came on promises of opposing the commie competition: They have no interest in Hung’s anti-independence buns. Just look at the tattoo they sport on their forearms: “Fight the commies! Retake the mainland.”
Just look at the motley bunch of assistant chefs Baker Hung has amassed around her. These people have taken stuff right out of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) Little Red Book. They have openly referred to the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party as one big “internal contradiction among the people,” saying that they constitute a “contradiction between ourselves and the enemy.”
With all that smoldering enmity behind the moldering breads, who wants to buy what she is selling?
The Taiwanese business leaders in China are even blinder. They are in it only for the money. They say that the Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce supports the “real” KMT, without even knowing what that means.
What is the real KMT? Is it a combination of the KMT of Republic of China (ROC) founder Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) and the CCP, or the anti-CCP, anti-Taiwanese independence KMT of former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國)? Or how about the KMT of former premier Lien Chan (連戰) and former KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), who sold no bread, but did sell Taiwan’s sovereignty down the river by surrendering to the CCP? The KMT’s wares no longer taste of the fight against the Chinese communists.
Baker Hung is hoping the natural flavor of “not unifying with the communists” will recommend her moldy breads to Taiwanese, but they only taste of the rank flavor of “anti-Taiwanese independence.”
The KMT she is trying to flog to the public is no longer the anti-communist KMT of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo. It has surrendered to the communists and the “real” KMT she is trying to sell is purely anti-Taiwanese independence.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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