The windier it is, the more determined I am to go on

I started blogging not long after the DPP lost the presidential election in 2008. I did it because I was worried that it would become increasingly difficult for the Taiwanese to be heard as freedom in Taiwan and the sovereignty of Taiwan gradually disappear. Over the past 3.5 years, what I worried would happen happened. I did hope that Tsai would win and make some changes but she didn’t.

Last night (14^th Jan), a number of people phoned into the Talking Show and talked about possible vote rigging or at the very least poor vote counting practice in their local polling stations. Bear in mind that most of the polling and count staff are KMTers or KMT supporters.

An observer said that he had arrived 4pm sharp to observe the vote counting but no one was allowed in for 15 minutes and no one knew what was going on inside. This is illegal but when he questioned it, a police man came to keep him outside.

Some said that they had witnessed the staff in their local stations being very quick to rule papers not clearly marked between DPP or KMT as a vote for KMT.

An officer was caught to rule an ambiguous one invalid when it was supposed to be counted as a valid one for the DPP legislative candidate. When challenged, all the staff ganged up on the observer who caught them red handed. Luckily, the observer refused to budge and insisted that they consult the guidelines and physically turn to the page with that particular rule in.

A woman said that she went to observe but got ordered around by the officer as if she was an assistant. She did not get to observe at all. She did not argue at the time because she did not know the rules or what to expect. She wished that she had been given more information beforehand.

The above stories do make people wonder the fairness of this election. I am not suggesting that the results would have been different if the above did not happen. The point is that they shouldn’t happen. The margin by which one loses matters as well. More importantly, everyone who has made the effort to vote deserves to have their ballot paper handled properly.

There was a song written in Taiwanese by A-hsiang (阿翔) for Frank Hsieh when he lost the 2008 presidential election. The title could translated as ‘the windier it is, the more determined I am to go on’ (風越大, 我越要走). This title was taken from the poetry Hsieh quoted in his first public speech after the 2008 legislative election. Between 2007 and 2008, Hsieh was fighting an uphill battle with a lot of backstabbing and antagonism from within the party. A lot of supporters not only wanted the DPP to win but also really felt for him personally. I guess the writer was one of them. Although Tsai Ing-wen did not meet with the same kind of hostility during this election, she had to dealt with a lot as well. Anyway, it says:

Let’s hold each other’s hand and keep going.
We have lost but are not afraid.
God has seen our hard work.
One day, our children will know that Taiwan is our name.
Oh~  The windier it is, the more determined I am to go on,
regardless of any difficulty or suffering ahead.
The windier it is, the more determined I am to go on.
Wipe away those tears.
Falling down is no big deal
because we are the proud sweet potatoes*
* meaning Taiwanese

Where is Taiwan going from here? Where is DPP going from here? Will more DPP seats make a difference? Will freedom and human rights continue to disappear? We’ll see…