Mass rallies, Wild Strawberries

The first rally I came to hate took place when I was a fifth grader. Japan’s invasion army, under General Tomoyuki Yamashita, conquered Singapore right after the empire’s 2,601st founding anniversary thanks to an unconditional surrender by the British force defending that fortressed island, which was described as “unconquerable.”

All of us schoolchildren were told to march past the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan waving Japanese national flags under the blazing early spring sun. All my classmates save me — almost all of them Japanese, and I believed I was a Japanese, too — were jubilant because each of us was given two “manju (buns with bean-jam filling)” which were not easily available because food-rationing was in force throughout the whole of Japan, including Taiwan as its colony, and a soft tennis ball as a sop for our painful participation in the forced march.

Incidentally, that founding anniversary was a government-sanctioned historical hoax, the Office of the Governor-General is now the Office of the President of the Republic of China, and most of the British prisoners of war were shipped to Taiwan for hard labor.

After Taiwan was restored to the Republic of China, all of us junior and senior high school students were required to rally and march on every auspicious occasion like Youth Day, Double Tenth National Day, or ah yes, President Chiang Kai-shek’s birthday. On one of his birthdays, we were ordered to rally at the Armed Forces Stadium, where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs now stands, to celebrate it by taking a vow to join the Anti-Communist and National Salvation Corps his son Chiang Ching-kuo wanted to found to please him (that organization has survived as the Youth Corps). I was a Taiwan University senior majoring in English, and assigned to a seat on the highest tier of the basketball arena, surrounded by a number of Chiang’s security guards. As the Gimo entered the arena, everybody stood up to give him a standing ovation. I, of course, had to stand up, but did not shout “Long live President Chiang” because I was certain none of the security guards would spot me as a silent protester in the rousing din, albeit I had to raise my right hand lest they saw me as a non-conformist opposed to the longevity of their adored leader. Those were the days when Taiwan was under the reign of white terror and security guards were duty-bound to report any political dissident under the slightest suspicion.

1|2|Next Page>>

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos Respond to this email