Though who travel on Taipei MRT will be familiar with the announcements for each station stop, spoken in Mandarin, Hoklo, Hakka and English. Recently though, the announcement for Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and other stations has been changed to a recording of Taipei Mayor Hau welcoming people to the station in Mandarin and urging them to enjoy the Lantern festival (the other language station announcements dropped to make room for Hau's message).
Fairly innocuous one might think except that it could also be regarded as a clever trick in raising the profile of the Mayor months before the next election for the new Taipei City municipality. Along with putting ECFA propaganda in people's utility bills, the KMT it seems have focused on mass communication, perhaps regarding the problems it faces in terms of low public support to stem from a lack of getting the message across rather than the& possibility that its policies, or message, may not have public support.
KMT spokesman Su Jun-pin said it is unacceptable to simplify the president's performance over the past one year or so to "doing nothing good," even if there is room for review. Challenging allegations that Ma and the KMT have just been carrying-out cosmetic reforms for publicity, Su said that if that were the case, there would not have been clean election campaigns in the last weekend's legislative by-elections, in which the ruling party won just one of the four seats at stake. Su, however, said the KMT will "humbly" accept all criticism and advice as long as it is rational.
- I've had my paper accepted for the 2010 NATSA Conference in Berkeley. Now to work out if actually going or presenting by teleconference is going to be feasible,
- Chinese writer barred from travelling again. Good job for those PRC reforms which are 'opening' up China.
