First up is a radio interview with Super FM. The interviewer has a lot of questions for me about why I decided to switch careers from politics to entertainment. My cute answer is that the people are much prettier in Hollywood than in Washington DC. :) My real answer is that although I am trained to work in politics and policy, I did not feel fulfilled working as a government bureaucrat. I much preferred being creative. Acting, writing, and producing is something I feel very natural doing. It's also been a much more public way to work on Taiwan issues.
Next we have a luncheon at a very Taiwanese restaurant sponsored by the Super FM management and a number of well known Taichung politicians and personalities. The manager of the station asks me to do a short speech and urges everyone to buy as many tickets for opening weekend as possible. Then something interesting happens -- a bidding war starts with everyone who is there and suddenly everyone at the luncheon has committed to buying over 1500 tickets!!!
After that amazing lunch, we're off to a coffee shop / bookstore that is holding a small screening of Formosa Betrayed for about 25 college students. I'm asked to do a Q&A afterwards. It's one of the most interesting Q&As I've done in awhile. One older lady who is there is what is known in Taiwan as a waishengren -- that is, someone who's parents came to Taiwan with the KMT troops after 1945. She says that when she was growing up, she never knew about any Taiwanese history but was instead taught Chinese history, and that it was only after she was much much older that she realized that what she had been taught was pretty much, as she said, "all lies." She felt the film was a great introduction to this history for many people, including herself. She asked me a question about whether it was possible though for Taiwan to ever be really independent from China.
My answer to that was that every country, including the United States, is not completely independent of China. China is now the second largest economy in the world. It is the largest holder of foreign debt in the U.S. It has trade relations with every country, and is an economic superpower. So of course, Taiwan can never be completely "independent" in the economic sense of the word from China -- but neither can anyone else. I compared the China-Taiwan situation with that of the U.S. and Canada. Many people on the pro-"unification" side of the debate with regards to the China-Taiwan situation argue that since China's economy is so large, and that both Chinese and Taiwanese have a common language and similar culture, that eventually the two sides will have to unify into one country.
I said that the U.S.-Canada relationship debunks this argument entirely. The U.S.-Canada economic trading relationship because of NAFTA is the largest in the world -- dwarfing the economic trading relationship of China-Taiwan. Both the U.S. and Canada share a common language, and a common culture. Yet, there is no call for the two sides to unify. And one side is not threatening the other with thousands of missiles if it doesn't unify. The United States recognizes Canada as a country, even though it is much much bigger than Canada in terms of both population and economic might. It recognizes that Canada has the right to self-determination and it's own identity, and vice versa. That is the main difference.
In the evening, we have the Taichung premiere of the film. I give a brief introduction to the film, then head out to dinner. Afterwards, I come back to greet the audience as they're coming out. All of a sudden, I'm being rushed by everyone for pictures and autographs. The theater staff and my own staff escort me out cause we're "causing a scene" and the next movie has to start.
Now I know what it felt like for James Van Der Beek during his Dawson's Creek heyday :)
Till tomorrow...
-Will
Taiwan is different from China. =目
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