new verse

a two-poem week, big news in these parts

[ok, not a big deal for my mate MC (http://www.peimic.com/; read the Thursday postings for his poetry) who manages at least two per day]

here's the first (second started, first finished):
(the second is here)

[title] Twelve seconds from Las Vegas

If I'd shaved off all the hairs from my legs,
or not paused to enjoy the sunrise;
If only I’d swum a little bit faster,
I’d be on my way to Las Vegas.

If I’d taken the spanner out of my bag,
or pumped more air in my tires;
If I’d crouched lower cycling into the wind,
I might be going to Las Vegas.

If I’d eaten just one more energy bar,
or maybe eaten one less;
If I’d tucked in tight behind runner seven twenty one,
I wouldn’t be twelve seconds short of Las Vegas.

fish of the day

cartoon in the Taipei Times:

new poem

(from poetry workshop in Didsbury Arts Festival)

Visitors must think you always wore trunks:
Pat's thin, young, athletic husband,
but you didn't of course, just on holiday,
and you weren't athletic and you weren't young
but you were thin,
so when the wasting disease came calling
you had nothing to give but yourself.

Married at 34 and a father at 37, 38 and 40,
you hardly played football with your sons
and never walked the Pennine Way
just swam from rocks once a year
your thin, white limbs dangling from the bright red trunks,
that elicit comments from Pat's fellow residents

She doesn't tell them these were working holidays:
one day of beach for six spent photographing
Northumberland churches
Welsh castles
or Ironbridge's iron bridge
black-and-white slides for your history students
who never saw the trunk-wearing you.

Photo after photo, coast after coast, year after year,
the same red trunks
the same black towel
with red, yellow and blue stripes
getting thinner and thinner
but never replaced.

Women in Taiwan Politics

sadly, my comment piece commissioned by Taiwan Today was heavily censored by GIO editors to become a fluff piece stating how good things are in taiwan and how well the ruling party is doing:


State of play: Women’s political representation in Taiwan
•Publication Date：09/24/2010
•Source： Taiwan Today
•By Mark Caltonhill

Taiwan’s upcoming year-end three-in-one municipal elections are poised to show the world that when it comes to integrating gender equality with democracy building, the country stands shoulder to shoulder with other progressive nations on this important issue.

With three female candidates having a strong chance of success in the contests, which are set to take place Nov. 27 in Taipei City and four other newly upgraded special municipalities—Kaohsiung, Taichung, Tainan and Xinbei— now is a good time to examine the political representation of women and, through that, to take a look at Taiwan’s overall democratic health.

Of the candidates, Kaohsiung City Mayor Chen Chu of the Democratic Progressive Party is the most likely to succeed. Chen’s political career goes back to Taiwan’s martial law era and includes a six-year jail stint for participation in the Kaohsiung Incident.

In comparison, Tsai Ing-wen, DPP mayoral candidate for Xinbei City, is a relative newcomer. She only joined the party in 2004, having served in the DPP-led government since 2000 and advising the Kuomintang administration as early as 1993. Nevertheless, in 2008 she was elected as DPP chairperson, the first woman to lead a major political party. Previously, Tsai followed an academic career after studying law.

Former Vice President Annette Lu, Taiwan’s highest-ranking female politician to date, has a background that combines features of those of Chen and Tsai. The daughter of a small businessman, she progressed from an academic and legal background to found Taiwan’s modern feminist movement in the 1970s.

This accomplishment is noteworthy as Lu’s efforts came at a time when women’s organizations were largely a matter of patronage of former first lady Soong May-ling and the KMT. Not surprisingly, this brought her into conflict with the authorities, drew her into opposition politics, and put her in prison alongside Chen.

But of greater relevance to the current overview of Taiwan’s democratic health is that Chen, Tsai and Lu have risen to the top of the political heap, occupying positions of power and influence that are felt in many sections of society. Their achievements are a testament to the strength of Taiwanese culture that tends to acknowledge and reward competency and performance irrespective of gender.

But the success of women in Taiwan’s political circles is not limited to the DPP. Politicians from the KMT such as Christina Y. Liu, who joined the Cabinet in July as head of the Cabinet-level Council for Economic Planning and Development, and Janice Seh-jen Lai, director-general of the Tourism Brureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, have garnered headlines for all the right reasons while performing their duties both at home and abroad.

Huang Chao-shun, the KMT candidate in Kaohsiung, is said to be another star in the making, and like Liu, has politics in her blood. Huang is the daughter of Huang Tsun-chiu, a former Control Yuan president, while Liu is the daughter of Kuo Wan-jung, Taiwan’s first female minister of finance.

Another female KMT politician making headlines over the past year is Lee Yong-ping, who recently resigned as Taipei City Deputy Mayor. Her background is unusual in having been a member of the DPP, People First Party and KMT.

With a record number of women currently serving in the Cabinet, statistics reveal the ROC ahead of the international curve. Eight women, or 20 percent, currently serve in the Cabinet, and 34 female legislators, or 30 percent, were elected in 2008. This compares with the worldwide average of 16 percent and close to 17 percent and 22 percent for the U.S. Congress and U.K. Parliament, respectively.

This above-average performance is due in part to provision in the ROC Constitution for quotas of female representatives. Following an amendment in 2005, women are guaranteed at least 50 percent of each party’s legislator-at-large positions, of which there are 34 out of a total 113 seats.

Hopefully, as the 2012 legislative and presidential elections draw nearer, the KMT and DPP will broaden their nets to promote more female politicians. This will enrich the electoral process and continue transforming relations between men and women by promoting the equal distribution of power and influence between the sexes.

Finally, with regard to women’s participation, perhaps some initiatives for family-friendly practices in the Legislature—such as sitting during school semesters and office hours—will allow women to have political careers without sacrificing the right to marriage and children. Such a change will undoubtedly be a boon to Taiwan’s overall democratic health.

Mark Caltonhill is a U.K.-based freelance writer. These views are the author’s and not necessarily those of Taiwan Today. Copyright  2010 by Mark Caltonhill

new poem

非知天命

記得我在十歲的時候:
長得像十歲
行為像十歲
愛玩像十歲
跟人相處也像十歲

從那時候開始我仔細地數:
所以我今年應該算五十

[Chinese is 'original'; but here is an English version

On Being Fifty

I remember being ten
looking ten
acting ten
playing ten
relating to people as a ten year old.

I have carefully counted the years since then
which must make me 50 now.

religion vs wider society

China Post editorial:
(the last with a VftH connection for some time)

This Buddhist tradition does animals more harm than good


Earlier this month, some non-indigenous birds were discovered in Miaoli County and, after successful capture, were transferred to a local zoo. By coincidental timing, also this month, the Executive Yuan released for public discussion the pre-draft version of a proposed law covering the release of animals into Taiwan's aquatic environments.

Although this legislation will cover academic researchers and commercial enterprises, its primary target is without a doubt Buddhist practitioners, some of whom practice the “release of living beings.”

This religious activity started in earlier times as a benevolent deed by which devotees went to local markets, bought wild animals, fish and birds that had been caught and were destined for human consumption, and returned them to their forest, river or lake homes.

This is in line with Buddhists' belief that all animals, from the lowest bug to the smartest mammal, are part of the same cycle of endless life-death-rebirth, and therefore are capable of eventual enlightenment. Saving them from the pot was thus considered an act of compassion to another living creature and so, like vegetarianism, was said to earn its practitioner karmic merit.

Unfortunately, somewhere over the intervening centuries, the reason behind this well-intentioned act has become largely forgotten, and today's “release of life” is at best an ossified part of religious ritual. At worst, it is concerned more with seeking personal merit and enhanced karmic standing than with any benefit to the animals involved.

On the contrary, environmentalists and academics argue that such indiscriminate release is detrimental to animals. Many of the species used in such rituals today are captured for release and not for consumption, or are reared specifically for this purpose. Unavoidably, these processes result in the mistreatment and even the unintentional death of many creatures. Moreover, once for-profit commercial interests are involved, animals' living conditions become even less of a priority.

Most worryingly, species have been too-frequently released into alien or inappropriate environments in which they have little or no chance of survival, and even less chance of meeting their own kind for companionship and reproduction. (It should be noted, however, that there is no indication that the above-mentioned birds came to be in Miaoli as the result of Buddhists' actions.)

Such mistreatment of and disregard for the lives of animals are the inevitable results when religious rituals become divorced from the ideas behind them, or are exaggerated following social and economic changes over the centuries.

The proposed legislation will require all individuals and organizations, whether academic, commercial or religious, to apply for permission before releasing animals into the wild. They must state the species to be released, as well as the location and time.

Of course, progressive Buddhist organizations are among those taking a lead in this regard, and others are quick to respond to social and media criticism. Dharma Drum Mountain, whose late founder Master Sheng Yen put environmental protection at the core of his teachings and practice, initially instructed its followers to be careful only to release animals into their natural environments. More recently DDM further advanced its policy to recommend abandoning the practice of “releasing life” altogether.

Not all Buddhist groups are so forward-looking, however, and some go so far as to misrepresent environmentalists — criticisms including other issues such as pollution from burning incense and joss paper or noise pollution from religious parades and festivals at all hours of the day and night — as attacks on their religious traditions.

But this is to divorce religions from the societies that gave birth to and nurture them. Taiwan's religions thrive because they provide for a variety of social needs. Certainly, some of these are related to their rich traditions and claims to continuous transmission through countless generations of sacred teachings and ancient wisdoms.

But in fact, many so-called traditions are not actually very traditional. There is no mention of this current issue of “release of life” in the teachings and life of the historical Sakyamuni Buddha around 500 B.C., for example. In fact, the practice is an interpretation “in the spirit of the Buddha” which seems to have really taken off only in the Ming dynasty around two millennia later.

Appeals to traditional precedent without any attempt to take on board new knowledge sometimes merely represent a clinging to ignorance and even an attempt to use the name of religion to resist change.

But all Taiwan's main religious organizations have prospered because, in addition to meeting people's needs for tradition and ancient wisdom, they have also developed and adapted as social conditions have changed.

Indeed, like Dharma Drum Mountain, they are often at the forefront of change, and represent the ideal marriage of thousands of years of humankind's learning with the latest discoveries of science and humanitarian philosophy. And when it comes to “release of life,” science and humanitarianism clearly indicate it is now time to act.

does this work

another chapter heading photo
but is it too close



and a farmer watering her crop in Kinmen's afternoon heat: