The trend of Taiwanese being “toyed with” and “bullied” into an “obedient people” was reversed by the rout the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) suffered in the November 2014 nine-in-one elections, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said.
Ko made the remarks on Sunday during a lecture at the Ketagalan Institute, which was founded by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in 2003 to nurture a new generation of politically adept professionals.
“I have performed genetic research, and personality is related to DNA. In animal experiments, when tame dogs are mated with other tame dogs, the resulting offspring were ever tamer,” Ko said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
“From the anti-Dutch rebellion led by Kuo Huai-yi (郭懷一) to rebellions during the Qing Dynasty and the Japanese colonial era, Taiwanese have stubbornly resisted colonial authorities, but in every revolt they were caught and culled, resulting in all the brave being killed, leaving only obedient people,” Ko said. “I am a mutated specimen; at least that is what I say to console myself.”
However, the 2014 elections “changed the story, as the nation began to recover its confidence,” Ko said.
Ko, the former director of National Taiwan University Hospital’s (NTUH) Department of Traumatology, said he left the hospital to run for Taipei mayor in 2014 because he wanted to “call young people into action” and “defeat the party-state system.”
“Taiwan’s confidence as a maritime nation must now be rediscovered,” because 400 years ago Taiwanese were pirates and brave immigrants, which in theory should have “suffused their bloodlines with the entrepreneurial spirit,” Ko said.
Ko said that during the mayoral race, he campaigned on a bicycle, and since taking office in December 2014 he has repeatedly taken on “difficult challenges and dared to do what has never been done in order to bring back confidence at a subconscious level” for Taiwanese.
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
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