Peace Day and more festival fun
Trip Start
Nov 17, 2006
1
7
19
Trip End
May 09, 2007
Taipei,
Taiwan
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
On February 28th 1947, a huge uprising against the Kuomintang (KMT - currently the oppostion party) government was sparked. It resulted in weeks of bloodshed and thousands of deaths. The day is now known as "Peace Memorial Day", to commemorate those that died, and has also come to symbolise human rights struggles against corruption, repression and such.
Here's the short version of what happened (if you want to read more, type 228 Incident into google or wikipedia):
Taiwan was controlled by Japan for around 50 years, until it was handed over to the Chinese at the end of WWII.
01 - With Justice We Cure This Nation
Not long after, civil war started in China, and although the fighting didn't reach Taiwan, it wreaked havoc on the economy, massively inflating prices for goods. The government expanded government monopolies on various products attempting to calm the situation. On Feb 27th, 1947, officers attempted to confiscate black market from an old lady trying to sell them. She refused to hand them over, to the officer pistol whipped her. Not surprisingly, a lot of people around took offence to this government official beating up an old lady, and a big angry crowd developed. The officer fired a warning shot, which went astray and killed a bystander.
The next day, the army shot upon a crowd demanding the officer stand trial - many were killed. This sparked a wave of violence that swept over the whole island. Rebels seized control of government buildings, and the army went on a looting and killing rampage. The rebels demanded more Taiwanese autonomy and various other relaxation of human rights restrictions, but the KMT brought in a massive army from China itself to crush the uprising. The rebel leaders were killed or jailed, and martial law lasted until 1987. Until last year, school books could not teach the incident, and the KMT still hold a lot of information as classified secrets.
There's also a large park in Taipei to honour those that died (I've posted a picture or two in other entries), and this year there was a festival held in Taipei to raise human rights awareness and campaign for more to be done about setting about healing the atrocities of the KMT - one being release of information regarding the incident.
Called "With Justice We Cure This Nation", the festival was organised by local activists and youth democracy groups. There were lots of films about human rights volations showing (things like Hotel Rwanda and The Wind That Shakes the Barley), and speeches by various politicians and things (but obviously, we had no idea what was going on!). It did feel like a 'proper' festival though, which was great. I had felt a little let down by the lack of festival experince we'd had in Fangliao (it was fun too, just different fun). It was held in an old rickety stadium, and couldn't have been more different to Mystery Land! It looked just like every festival I've been to, with a real stage, and lots and lots of people around. There was a very different feel also - it wasn't really advertised in the English language media, so there were few foreigners (Mystery Land had been the other way around) - it was great! The Taiwanese are very cute sometimes - they don't really dance, just clap very nicely at the end, maybe shout a little bit. No manic shoving to the front, it was wonderful! But, this means no real characters either - noone wandering around in a bikini and a bin bag witha pair of pink wellies just because you can get away with wearing just about anything (or nothing even)! So, a crowd of reserved Taiwanese rockers, with a few crazy foreigners thrown in. A Taiwan take on one of my favourite things about summer in the UK, it was interesting to see.
The was a lot of diversity in the bands playing - some local, some foreign. Akiakane is a Japanese girl band, they were good, and Strike Anywhere also played. I think I fell in love with the singer, he was such a nice, passionate, and good looking guy! The highlight - MUSE!!! Yes, Muse played a random gig in Taiwan! Hooray, the opportunity to see a 'real' band. It was rather- I've been listening to this band since I was 16 signing along at the back of the band tour bus at school, and now I'm on the other side of the world in front of them again. Although it was a big gig, it was still far smaller than the crowd they get at home - so much bigger than the first Leeds show I saw. The crowd really were very polite - no one pushing and shoving like at home, but also no one dancing. We looked a bit silly I think - well, me especially, I was taking full advantage of this rare chance to dance to music I like. They played a lot of new songs, which I don't like so much - more glam than operatic these days. They played some 'golden oldies' (crikey, they really have been around for a while) too, which were so satisfying to bounce around to. One of the strangest things though - because no one really understands the lyrics here, there's very few people signing. Again, so different to home, where the wailing of the crowd is almost all you can hear at times.
So, exhausted and happy, I wasted time till the first train home. Hooray for 24 hour bookstores!
