Quiz #2

These are getting fun (while staying predominantly pointless nonetheless)

You Should Be a Film Writer

You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

"Governments should be afraid of their people."

So says the bold anarchist/revolutionary V, in the recent movie "V for Vendetta."

The film itself while mediocre (overly simplistic and rushed) made me think:
How do democracies begin to fail (what are the parameters of democratic failure)?
When do citizen stakeholders lose a stake in "their" governments (are governments owned or hired)?
When do governments become severed from the people in which they are meant to serve?
Is anarchy really a completely separate state from "normalcy"?

I ask these questions in the light of recent scandals in Taiwan which have been connected to members of the First Family. These involve widespread incidents of insider trading, the purchasing of key positions in government and of course, kickbacks. The purpose here is not to pass judgment on these crimes, and their impact on how I view the current government's ability to run the country, but rather to take another view on how the government itself has viewed itself in this whole matter.

Vice-President Annette Lu said last week that while these scandals have hurt the people's trust in the government, she believed that the judiciary, by acting as a means of dispensing justice to the above crimes could restore people's faith in the state. I think Lu and others like her need to get off their high horses! It's a disturbing discourse: Pro-independence, anti-corruption/anti-martial law, human rights activists brought on Taiwan's democratization-->They come to power by defeating a corrupt, alien regime--->Scandals are linked to members of the new ruling party and First Family-->Taiwan's democratizers (despite resistence from annoying stone-walling opposition parties who can never be rid of their corrupt past) are now Taiwan's self-annointed corruption busters.

This illustrates a diseased governmental mindset. It's analogous to: "The brain is hemorraging, but at least our immune system tells us that there's something wrong! This proves that everything is a-ok, because we can admit that something is wrong! Wahoo!!!" Vice President Lu and those in the government who share the view that "at least we're uncovering these scandals now whereas in the KMT-era (in that bygone age where everything was corrupt and Democracy Did Not Exist and Life was Generally Bad) nothing would have been done at all" need to get something straight: Stop using the past as a means of advancing your pathetic attempts at justifying your botched efforts to create a New Era in Taiwanese History!

Sure, we're thankful of democratic insititutions and a (scandously) free press that does tabloid muck-raking, but what you need to do is move beyond this point. Your administration is ending in two years. You have always blamed Beijing and its "Fifth Column Pan-Blue Chinese Pigs," and now even Washington for your failures, but why haven't you considered the apathy to which your agenda has been received in your own backyard? Even the sacred breeding grounds of Taiwanese democracy such as Chiayi-city and Ilan County have turncoated in your second term. Why can't you realize that your pompous self-narration of Taiwanese democratic evolution has failed ulimately to give tangible means for Taiwanese citizens to compete in an ever competitive international market?

What are you afraid of? Fear the people Now and you will not cower because of tomorrow's History lesson or the screetching tires of SNG news van.

Above all: Get off the aloof-country bumpkin victimization discourse and remember those people who rode upon high hopes that you'd do Something Different back in 2000.

Quiz: Worldview

Cultural Creative 88% Postmodernist 75% Existentialist 69% Romanticist 56% Modernist 50% Idealist 44% Materialist 38% Fundamentalist 13% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

"You scored: Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational."

I credit/blame the years spent studying history and politics for the above results.

My laboratory

This week marks my 6th month of service at Feng-shan Elementary School.
Already, it's a half year of my life that represents the shaping of my character in the most profound ways.

I've had unprecedented interaction with many different people and personalities. I've come to better understand the issues and problems that beset a small, rural community in terms of education policy, and other social/economic issues. I don't think an opportunity like this happens everyday. Each time I learn something new, whether from success, setback or even grave defeat, I try to remember it and even cherish this feeling of discovery.

Fengshan has been my laboratory for great experiments. My times in Taiwan are much like a clean slate---virtually an unwritten surface. Today, I've written several of my discoveries down. They must be reprocessed at a later date, but they need to be addressed as well.

1) The kids are the mirror to the future. [This may sound cliche, but not so much when the fact is upon you 24/7]
2) Adults are children. Teachers are older children teaching younger ones.
3) Bureaucracy is the instutionalization of our hidden agendas and lack of humanism.
4) Lack of humanism stems from looking into a cracked mirror for too long and blaming the distortion on others.

Principal X reminded me one day while driving me to class: "Just as I am acting out my part as school X's principal, so to are you acting out your role as an alternative service conscript. The way you choose to act is up to you." Thus, I am considering how my role can be evaluated in terms of observations 1) through 4).

Elaborations from the laboratory continue tomorrow.