Every year, local governments across the nation decorate the streets with light installations to celebrate the Lantern Festival, with Taipei this year hosting the main event. However, one of the lantern displays in the capital has triggered debate and criticism.
The work is composed of major characters from the Chinese classic Journey to the West (西遊記). What was striking is its depiction of a white rabbit — to represent the Year of the Rabbit — sitting in a boiling twin-side hot pot surrounded by the Bull Demon King and Tang Sanzang. Many visitors found the “rabbit boiling” scene disturbing and appalling.
The installation’s organizer, the Chinese Artistic Lantern Association, said that the rabbit was “not being boiled,” but is “bathing happily in a hot spring,” and that the overall scene was meant to convey harmony and happiness. Nonetheless, a few days later, the rabbit was removed from the installation, with many Internet users joking that it had “finally been gobbled up.”
Another work that attracted criticism was a large installation near the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall depicting two large Chinese dragons perching on a gate. Many Internet users found it gaudy and said it was a classic example of “ROC aesthetics.”
The phrase “ROC aesthetics” originally referred to the style of buildings constructed after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) retreated to Taiwan. As most of the buildings were built in haste and without any attention to aesthetics, the term has come to refer to anything that looks jumbled, loud, tawdry and influenced by gaudy elements of Chinese culture. More often than not, it stands for bad taste and a lack of aesthetic quality. In short, an aesthetic fiasco.
These examples of ROC aesthetic catastrophes are a result of the extreme distortion of aesthetics, history and memory under the autocratic rule of the past KMT regime. Textbooks were filled with information about Chinese geography, history and literature. As a result, Taiwanese were more familiar with aspects of China than with the land on which they were born and live. Students are likely to be more familiar with scenes in Journey to the West than they are with Taiwan’s indigenous folklore.
The legacies and aesthetic catastrophes left behind by the regime extend to the marginalization of Taiwan’s local languages, an overabundance of political slogans, and numerous statues of former presidents Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) and Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) littered across the nation, as well as untidy, chaotic streetscapes.
Former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) is perhaps the epitome of ROC aesthetics, with his tawdry slogans, politically laden singing, as well as the horrendous lantern festival held during his tenure, with visitors comparing it to a “mourning hall” with its large lotus installations and a statue of Han.
For festivals, those in power are given the discretion and judgement to put the finest art on display. In this case, the annual lantern festival and the works presented should be reflective of Taiwanese aesthetics, ideology and history. Even though it is true that when it comes to aesthetics, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” the overall principle should be presenting aspects closer to Taiwan’s local culture, history and values, instead of focusing on Chinese cultural elements.
As Wendell Pierce once said: “The role of culture is that it’s the form through which we as a society reflect on who we are, where we’ve been, where we hope to be.” The lantern festival is not just a festival, but a vision and reflection of Taiwanese society.
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