Translation of a June 12 Facebook post by Chung Fei Fei (link) my wife, a third-generation waishengren, shared with me and agreed with. Though the author seems more comfortable with verbal abuse than I am, his point about the intra-waishengren class divide and the betrayal of the old soldiers by the elites is solid.



As a “taro-sweet potato” (the child of one waisheng (外省) (S.tw: immigrant from China during or after the KMT-CCP Civil War) parent and one bensheng (本省) (S.tw: ancestors were in Taiwan before then) parent), ever since I was little I’ve seen too many instances of my Dad using unbearable words to scold the bensheng identity of my Mom, and I’ve also seen my Mom give double back in retaliation against my Dad (my Mom never told my Dad to go back, because she still needed him to look after the family, so she used more frightening psychological torture). But now they’ve grown old together, and every evening they watch FTV’s (S.tw: pan-green station) 8:00 news, because even though they vote for candidates of different parties, they’ve been tied together by too many things over the years, such as me, their dissolute son. This is the reality on our island, and like the sunlight, the air, and the water, it’s undeniable. If everyone wants to be this serious about fighting between cats and dogs, my mother and father could be first in line in being sent to jail for breaking anti-discrimination laws.

What I can’t understand is not this video that’s spreading around on the Internet, but rather why so many people in this society are this angry and advancing this many agendas about what looks to me, no matter how many times I see it, as a verbal fight between two old people scolding each other in the park. This is clearly community gossip down on the level of the provincial government mailbox.

All you who are angry, tell me, do you feel this veteran grandpa is the victim of injustice? But these veterans passed through war and the big time. How could they be knocked down by a few lines from this woman? I guarantee you this old veteran is kicking himself over losing the argument, and thinking about that year in Building 2 of the Taipei Veterans Hospital when everyone got together to verbally bully some young nurse like she was a pack animal! That’s the drama I’ve seen from my childhood through to my adulthood.

The important point for you all who feel hypocritical sympathy or have an agenda is why you have this easily seen this veteran grandpa as the whole picture, and used his image and symbol to represent everyone on this island who has feelings for China?

As the son of a 93-year old soldier who’s never received a lifelong pension, I’m very clear that in the 20-plus years my father sold clothing at a stand in Shilin Night Market, the only thing he received from the bensheng there was copious assistance, care, and warmth. What’s made him the most bitter, the most aggrieved, and the most ashamed, has always been the class system established among the waisheng group through allocations of the massive vested interests in the military, civil servant, and teacher networks, because he was at the very bottom level of this system of vested interests. Only after I went to university and compared myself with bensheng classmates who came from farming villages in central Taiwan did I even recognize that my family was part of a vested interest class.

Behind the status of an old soldier, the most humiliating imprint made on him is the knowledge that his fate has been sealed by his social class, and the sense of tragedy that his secular faith has been betrayed. For example, eye-popping tattoos like “Kill Zhu, Pluck Out Mao” (殺朱拔毛) and “Oppose the Communists, Resist Russia” (反共抗俄) would absolutely never appear on the bodies of high-ranking military officials. Only soldiers at the NCO level and below would foolishly believe in those teachings written on his body (because those tattoos are actually the promises the upper class has made to him, like a creed written on human flesh). Only when he’s close to death does he realize that all that’s left is that foolish faith he’d held onto.

The people now jumping out and suddenly caring about old soldiers are in fact the group with an agenda. It’s only that group of high-ranking waisheng civil and military officials and their scions (I apologize for being so frank, and for giving in to the danger of considering that entire group to be uniform). That’s because those old soldiers are the only political assets remaining to them that still have dramatic effect. Obviously this group of military and civil service elites long ago gave up opposing the Communists and resisting Russia. I think everyone’s quite clear about that. The proof is this: Back when Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英) said (S.tw: link) “Soldiers’ standards are poor; those old soldiers deserved to be tricked,” this group of justice figures we see now didn’t leap into action to advance their agendas.

So all you who don’t understand what you’re seeing, do a little less fighting for fake justice. It’s disgusting. That bitch may have gone home and abused her Indonesian maid too, just like that grandpa may have once despised his aboriginal wife. In abuse of indigenous and new residents, these two (that is to say, all Han in Taiwan) could be equals.

#JapaneseGQDoingA5PageSpecialReportOnTheSanxiaVeteransHomeIsWhatICallCool

#IKnowYokMuMingWillOnlyBringMoneyToTheMainlandAndWontBringMyFather