Latest / UK Column Radio / Is Taiwanese Public Opinion SHIFTING on China Reunification?

Transcript

Is Taiwanese Public Opinion SHIFTING on China Reunification? · UK Column Radio

0:01
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Silk and Steel
0:04
Podcast. I'm your host, Carl Zha.
0:06
Today we have a very special guest, a returning guest in
0:09
fact, Shanghvi, all the way from Taiwan.
0:13
I, I invited Shangyu to come to the show because I wanted to
0:16
find out what is going on, on the grass level in Taiwan.
0:21
But for my audience, for my, especially my newer audience
0:26
would not, might not be familiar with you, Shang.
0:28
You could you do a very brief introduction of who you are,
0:32
what you do. I like to think of myself as
0:38
just a guy on the ground over here in Taiwan, like you said, a
0:43
guy, but also because of my understanding of the West and
0:47
how to communicate with Westerners.
0:49
I feel like I'm a piece of the puzzle that kind of provide some
0:52
information that is otherwise left out in Western mainstream
0:56
media regarding this region, Taiwan, the mainland, the rest
1:00
of, you know, the cross Strait relations history and all of
1:03
that. Because I think it's sad to say,
1:06
but a lot of the English voice, English language voices you hear
1:10
coming from Taiwan are extremely filtered.
1:14
You got, you know, news outlets like Taiwan Plus or Taiwan today
1:18
or whatever it's called Taipei Times.
1:20
And they're all essentially controlled by the ruling party
1:25
right now, which is the Democratic Progressive Party,
1:27
which is actually extremely unpopular right now in Taiwan.
1:32
So to count on them to provide an accurate understanding of
1:35
sentiments on the ground here in Taiwan is kind of not the best
1:39
approach. So my role, I believe, is to try
1:42
to help and fill the gap. I do acknowledge my own biases.
1:46
I am pro Chinese reunification. But that aside, I don't try to
1:52
pretend that oh, everyone agrees with my views or whatever.
1:55
It's like I present my biases, but then also present the facts
1:59
on the ground for, you know, people, you people in the
2:03
audience to come to your own informed conclusions.
2:08
And also, I think the more I share, the more people
2:11
understand. Wait, The more you try to
2:13
understand Taiwan, the more you realise you just don't
2:17
understand it so. I just say, say the same thing
2:21
about mainland China. You know, I, I still, I, I, I
2:25
would never claim the title of China expert for myself because
2:29
China is such a large country that the, the more you learn
2:33
about it, the more you realise, the more you don't know.
2:37
And, and there's always like different facet that you, you
2:40
have not experienced or, or, you know, just not, you just don't
2:44
know. And the reason I want to talk to
2:47
you actually is because I remember, you know, before when
2:51
I talked to you, you always said, yeah, you're kind of the
2:54
lone voice in the woods by, you know, being pro unification in
2:59
Taiwan. And, and in a way, you do do not
3:02
represent the mainstream view. But now I do think there is some
3:07
sort of a shift because I just recently interviewed Angelica
3:11
UN, who was Taiwan Base Energy Journal energy reporter.
3:17
And I saw her political transformation on Twitter
3:20
because she used to be a big supporter of the DPP of the
3:24
ruling party and their agenda versus the mainland China.
3:28
But now, now she's coming around to a more nuanced view on the
3:33
issue of reunification. And then there's also the the
3:37
big Taiwan influencer, Jim Boss, who has millions of followers
3:42
who recently did the big flip and now he's a big supporter of
3:48
unification. Can't say I was surprised
3:50
because I still remember a couple years ago when he gave a
3:53
big rant when he said oh fight those commies on the beach, on
3:59
the street because they don't realise how bad things are here.
4:03
Like our youth, we don't have any job prospect.
4:06
We can't afford the houses because they're so expensive.
4:10
So the only thing we have nowadays is to be able to ship
4:13
post online. And if you communists come here
4:16
and take even take that last thing away from us, we will
4:20
fight you to the death. And when I saw that, I was like,
4:23
dude, bro is so close. He's so close.
4:27
And sure enough, he, he, he finally flipped.
4:31
And he, he now he's travelling all around mainland and telling
4:35
people in Taiwan, you know, what impressive development has taken
4:39
place. Now.
4:40
Do you think Jim Boss and Angela Ohm, are they also outliers or
4:45
do you think they actually represent some sort of ground
4:48
shift in Taiwan public opinion? I will break the 2 apart.
4:52
Angelica was born. I want to give away her age.
4:56
Let's say she was 8 years old when Jang Jinguo died.
4:59
Let's just put it that way. So she was born in.
5:01
She's in my age, she's just closer to my.
5:03
Age. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
5:04
And then she left Taiwan when she was pretty young, like I
5:09
think towards the end of elementary school.
5:12
And then I mean, she came back briefly and work, but then was
5:15
also like in Los Angeles for a long time and talking to her.
5:19
She didn't limit herself into like Chinese or like local
5:23
Taiwan communities in California, like, for example,
5:26
you know, over there, like Diamond Bar Irvine, like
5:29
Alhambra, those places. She was kind of more in American
5:34
circles. So she in a way she was kind of
5:36
estranged from Taiwan's development, although she always
5:40
possessed the reading and the language skills.
5:43
So her moving back to Taiwan during COVID was a process of re
5:48
reintegrating. And I think before then a lot of
5:51
her politics were mostly guided by her Western politics.
5:56
And then it's like what's expected of Taiwanese American
6:01
of a certain politics in America.
6:03
So it's not like she really had she really followed closely, you
6:08
know, the drama that was going on internally in Taiwan.
6:12
And what was what's, what sets her apart for me is although I
6:15
grew up in America, like my TV at home and the family, like
6:19
almost whenever it was on, it was tuned to satellite TV
6:23
channels, like broadcasted straight from Taiwan, like all
6:25
the news, the political talk shows and everything.
6:29
So from a young age, I was always following it, even if
6:33
only passively for a certain amount of time.
6:36
Her changes are more reflective of her re re evaluation of the
6:44
situation as well as her being a part of just witnessing the
6:50
changes of sentiments over here in Taiwan.
6:53
Whereas so I think somebody like her becoming more pragmatic
6:57
about cross Strait relations and being, I don't want to say as
7:02
she's like actively pro reunification.
7:04
I think she's a realist and thinks that all good options and
7:07
with some sort of negotiation with Beijing.
7:12
Whereas someone like me, it's more like, well, I mean, from
7:15
when I was a little kid, I was listening to Liao and like
7:18
listening to him talk about it. And to be fair, a lot of things
7:22
he said back then, nothing's really changed except back then
7:27
when Penn Sapien, the first DPP leader, became leader in 2000,
7:32
there was this hope among many people in Taiwan.
7:34
Oh, we got a true son of Taiwan as our so called president.
7:38
And he's going to fight for Taiwan's independence.
7:41
And we Taiwanese are brave and we're going to fight.
7:44
We're going to defend ourselves and all that.
7:46
A lot of people repeated the slogans because they felt good.
7:50
You know, that's at the end of the day, that's what it was.
7:53
They didn't want to. That was the more, you know,
7:55
Rage Against the Machine feeling because those are the people
7:57
that grew up during with memories of, you know, white
8:01
terror and martial law and political repression during the
8:05
KMT rule. And all the KMT was against
8:07
Taiwan separatism back then, but they were also anti communist.
8:11
And yeah, so there was, what I'm saying is it's it's a huge
8:16
reckoning back then that was an attractive message.
8:18
It was like the Rage Against the Machine thing.
8:19
Whereas like realism back then, like the messages at the outset
8:22
were more like, oh, that's we don't want to hear that, you
8:27
know, even, you know, the saying, Zhong Yanir, you know.
8:32
It's, it's the, so you're, you're saying people are just
8:35
going with vibes. You know they vote yes.
8:36
People were going vibes but The thing is vibes that works until
8:41
the vibes. This the the House of Cards that
8:44
pop up. Those vibes collapse before your
8:47
eyes beyond reasonable doubt. Then that's when you're for.
8:50
I think most people in the world, one, they go with the
8:53
flow and two, they like to learn things the hard way.
8:55
Or they don't like to learn things the hard way, but they
8:58
tend to learn things the hard way.
8:59
Because realising things before they happen and realising you
9:03
need to make changes to that you were wrong is not an easy
9:06
process for a lot of people to go through, in my opinion.
9:10
So yeah, that is a reflection of just the objectively changing
9:14
position. And I think that's the same with
9:17
Guangzhong. And in the case of Guangzhong, I
9:19
think it was just disappointment with Tangwin.
9:23
He was a huge Tangwin supporter before.
9:27
I mean we had to understand the context during which.
9:29
Let let me break. Let me break it down for my
9:32
yeah, annual audience. So Tai ING when was a former
9:35
quote unquote president of Taiwan who was leader of the DPP
9:40
party and and Guangzhang is a Chinese name for Jim Boss.
9:45
You know the big, big Taiwanese influencer because he's like a
9:49
Bill buff guy and. He actually owns gyms.
9:53
And he actually owns gyms, so he's a gym boss.
9:55
That actually sounds very similar to Angelica's own
9:58
transformation because Angelica was also a big Tying 1 supporter
10:02
because she thought tying 1 was a girl boss and a very cool.
10:05
Then she got disappointed when she find out tying one might not
10:09
be sincere about dealing with Taiwan's problems.
10:12
So so. Yeah, Taiwan is just very smart
10:14
and like knows how to play the game.
10:16
I do want to add though that Angelica's process, in my
10:21
opinion her her reasoning for liking Taiwan was the way that
10:26
her image was presented in Western media.
10:30
Whereas for people on the ground in Taiwan, a lot of it came from
10:34
the Mindjo years. Mindjo was the leader that
10:37
preceded tying when he was KMT and he pushed for closer ties
10:41
with the mainland. He was the first sitting leader
10:43
of the Taiwan area to meet with the the Chinese President Xi
10:48
Jinping. And there was a lot of fear
10:53
mongering going on, especially after 2014 when something called
10:56
the Sunflower Movement happened where people occupied the
11:01
parliamentary building and tried to.
11:03
And it will be blocked. A bill that would have further
11:06
integrated the economies on the two sides of the straight.
11:11
And the whole message was the KMTS is a puppet of the CPC.
11:17
If we elect another KMT leader, then we will lose our democracy
11:22
and we will reunify and then reunification will happen and we
11:26
must not let that happen. So we need to elect angry.
11:30
Let me ask you about Sunflower Movement, cause what you
11:33
describe sounds very similar to what happened in Hong Kong, just
11:37
a slightly less violent because that Hong Kong protest also
11:40
started with occupation of the Hong Kong legislature and and in
11:45
protest against a bill that would it basically is
11:48
essentially extradition bill. And and that the claim at that
11:51
they made the at the time was the same that the Hong Kong will
11:54
lose its unique one country, two sister China is going to impose
11:59
its rule on, on, on Hong Kong and getting rid of all the, you
12:03
know, the, the, the Hong Kong uniqueness.
12:05
By now, I think it should be obvious.
12:07
The 9/20/19 Hong Kong protest is basically a colour revolution.
12:12
There was a lot of CIA in foreign intelligence agency
12:17
involved, you know, NEDCIA, do you think the Sunflower movement
12:23
in Taiwan that's OK? So you think it is a colour
12:27
revolution? It was like it was a soft colour
12:30
revolution. It wasn't like total regime
12:32
change or anything like that, but it really altered the
12:35
political landscape. And we got to remember 2014
12:38
before 2019. In Hong Kong.
12:40
There was also another protest, Occupy Central in 2014, right?
12:44
The Umbrella, the Umbrella Movement, the Umbrella Movement,
12:48
the Sunflower Movement and also the Maidan movement in Ukraine
12:51
all happened in 2014. In the same time.
12:54
Around the same time that Hillary Clinton was pushing for
12:56
her Pivot to Asia strategy. It's a containment not just
13:00
against China, I'd say, but also towards Russia or any country
13:04
that could potentially challenge US and Gemini.
13:09
And I think a lot of a huge factor in that was seeing how,
13:13
you know, China was relatively unscathed by the 2008 financial
13:20
crisis, which signalled that there is a certain level of a
13:24
sovereignty and independence exercise by China.
13:29
I think that was a response to that and the Sunflower movement.
13:32
I mean, it's it's very glowy. You have these like student
13:36
leaders that came out from the middle of nowhere and then that
13:40
were just like leaders and all the sudden portrayed in the
13:43
media as these like A next generation of heroes and all
13:46
that. And now they all have like,
13:49
well, some of them, for example, Lin Fei Fadden, he's now in the
13:54
DPP pretty high ranking, right? He also had Freddie Lim.
13:57
Freddie Lim was not DPP. He there was a third party that
14:02
was born from the Sunflower movement that was like, oh,
14:06
we're centre left. We are for Taiwan independence,
14:09
but we are also against the right wing nature of the DPP.
14:13
But then when push came to shove, they always voted with
14:16
the DPP and it's kind of like their purpose, we call them,
14:20
which is like a wing party, which is it's kind of like how
14:23
the squad existed in America saying like, oh, we're going to
14:26
we're going to, you know, push the Democrats left.
14:30
But then when push came to of the opposite happened only the
14:34
whereas the squad was part of the Democrats, the new power
14:37
party that Freddie Lim was a part of was nominally an
14:41
independent party, independent from the DPP.
14:44
But now But then Freddie Lim, one of the one of those like,
14:48
like, you know, young activists later quit the the New Power
14:54
Party and is a part of the DPP now.
14:56
And he's now the representative of the Taipei's cultural office
15:00
in I think. Wait, is Freddie Lind the the
15:03
the heavy metal guy is? He yeah, that guy.
15:06
Oh, yeah, yeah, he was heavily, he was featured in in a lot of
15:09
the Western press, you know, like, oh, look at this cool
15:13
heavy metal guy, you know, like, and he's, he's a new face of
15:17
Taiwan and he got a lot of exposure in English.
15:20
Language. Yeah, because he's a tough guy,
15:22
right? Taiwan independence fighter.
15:24
Except he didn't do his military service.
15:25
Yeah. Right, of course.
15:27
And it's funny how these guys always.
15:29
I mean, I mean, that's, that's classical politician.
15:31
I mean, that's, that makes he the perfect politician material.
15:35
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
15:36
So I mean, that's the context of that.
15:38
So that was a situation in the 20 tens because you know, 2000
15:43
to 2008, it was like the first DPP administration.
15:46
And that's when a lot of the whole revision of the curriculum
15:49
happened, when a new generation of Taiwanese were brought up to
15:51
not think of themselves as Chinese.
15:54
Before then, as much as the KMT and the administration here in
15:58
Taiwan was anti communist and anti Beijing, they still heavily
16:01
promoted a Chinese identity within Taiwan.
16:04
And I think by then Beijing's attitude is always, it became
16:09
OK, you're not. You guys aren't going to come
16:11
back to the mainland and overthrow us.
16:12
We're beyond that. What's more important now is we
16:16
all see ourselves as Chinese and we settle our internal dispute,
16:19
Chinese people to Chinese people, which is fine until you
16:23
have this group of people in Taiwan saying, no, we don't want
16:25
to think of ourselves as Chinese.
16:27
We're a separate country, We're Taiwanese.
16:28
That to Beijing is a is a red line because the attitude before
16:33
was, you know, the whole Taiwan situation.
16:36
It's complicated, but as long as it's in the hands of Chinese
16:38
people or people who think of themselves as Chinese, even if
16:41
there were, even if they're the worst of Chinese people, they're
16:44
still family. We can deal with it.
16:46
Chinese don't kill Chinese, right?
16:48
Don't go, then put that don't go, then the Chinese don't fight
16:50
the Chinese. Yeah, that was the.
16:52
Slogan So I mean, there was the 20 tens were were an awkward
16:55
time. And that was also when the DPP
16:58
like became woke washed like I think after but 2008 because the
17:04
DBP lost popularity because I mean, the previous leader
17:07
tension ABN was caught in a corruption scandal, took a lot
17:12
of took a lot of money and put them into an offshore bank
17:16
account in the in Switzerland. The DBP was kind of at a loss
17:24
of, you know, where we're headed and whatever.
17:28
So then that's when they really needed a rebranding.
17:30
And there was during that time tying Wen became their
17:32
chairwoman and then she under her leadership.
17:35
It was also the Obama years. So it was also like, OK, we want
17:39
to present ourselves internationally as this forward
17:42
thinking progressive, like world Party that yeah, LGBT, women's
17:46
rights, animal rights, we're anti nuclear because anti.
17:51
Nuclear, yeah. Yeah, so it's all of that.
17:55
And I think for a while it just their strategy was OK.
17:58
We just make people in Taiwan feel good about being Taiwanese.
18:01
We'll spend a lot of money to make Western media portray us
18:04
positively, and we'll feel good about it and we can be proud.
18:08
But here's the thing, vibes and feeling proud don't feed mouths,
18:14
right? At the end of the day, it's the
18:16
bread and butter issues that matter.
18:18
Not when your bread and butter issues are solved.
18:20
I mean, that stuff kind of works, but politics really
18:23
matters when you stop thinking about it with your heart and
18:26
people start thinking about it with your stomachs.
18:28
And that's kind of this what the situations become in the in the
18:31
past few years. As you know, everywhere in the
18:33
world, there's inflation, there's all these sorts of
18:36
issues. Now America's making us give up
18:41
like a huge chunk of TSMC and like Taiwan's economy is in the
18:46
large part propped up by TSMC, the, the company that fabricates
18:51
a lot of the chips and the devices that you're watching us
18:53
on right now. And especially with things like,
18:58
you know, Ukraine, the Ukraine situation happening and also
19:01
looking at the way the US pulled out of Afghanistan after like 20
19:04
years, a lot of people on the ground started thinking, wait,
19:07
is the US really that dependable 'cause I mean, in the past, even
19:12
like 20 years ago, people like Liao were just were just talk
19:14
about history. Oh, look at look at America and
19:17
Modin Diem and Vietnam. Look at how the US toppled this
19:22
democratically elected country, how it popped up that dictator,
19:25
how it did this, this, this. But to a lot of people in
19:28
Taiwan, that's like so distant in the past that it's just like,
19:32
it's, it's unrelatable. But then now you see this stuff
19:35
going on before our eyes and then it's like, wait, what has
19:39
Beijing ever done to us except expect us to refer to ourselves
19:47
as Chinese and accept our Chinese identities, which we
19:50
didn't have a problem with for the longest time until like
19:52
recent decades because of ideological conditioning.
19:57
And other than that, OK, they give us these very favourable
20:00
terms of trade. And because of this posturing by
20:04
lighting the the current DPP leader, his whole strategy is
20:07
he's just going to further develop his further double down
20:12
on his tough on China, his appearances.
20:17
What has that resulted in? More military drills over
20:20
Taiwan? More countries dropping
20:22
diplomatic ties with Taipei in favour of Beijing.
20:25
Not that that really matters in my opinion, but it's a it's a
20:28
bad look for a lot of people. And what have we gained as a
20:33
result of that? Well, has the US been nicer to
20:35
us? No, they're like strong arming
20:37
us with, you know, the TSMC still like the tech transfers.
20:41
And also when the tariff negotiation, we weren't given
20:44
like, positive treatment. We like to think of ourselves,
20:46
oh, we're in the same league as South Korea and Japan, but no,
20:48
we were placed in the same league as like, Southeast Asia.
20:52
Well, like some people in Taiwan like to think themselves as
20:56
Israel for United States in East Asia, but I'm like, no way
21:00
you're going to compete with Israel, man.
21:02
Israel is like a golden child. I see.
21:05
I think people on both sides of that argument like, like people
21:09
who are for that and against that have one thing wrong is
21:13
which is they're taking those words seriously.
21:17
And that's a first mistake because number one, number one,
21:20
number one, the US doesn't take money from Israel.
21:25
Israel takes money from America, yes.
21:28
Now, yes, in the past the US did support Zhang Kai Shek on
21:31
Taiwan, and then Joe Biden did pass that like military support
21:34
bill. But generally, it's not the US
21:37
that gives money to people in Taiwan.
21:39
It's Taiwan taxpayers spending billions every year to purchase
21:45
overpriced and outdated weapons from the US that don't get
21:47
delivered until years afterwards.
21:49
There's a difference. We pay, we pay a tribute to our,
21:58
to the, to our Suzan in the US and.
22:02
It's a protection money, protection money to the
22:04
Godfather. You can argue that AIPAC and
22:07
like all these Israeli lobbyists, have a have great
22:11
control over the US. You cannot make the same
22:16
argument with Taiwan, in fact. And Taiwan, no, this, no major
22:20
decision over here is made without the AIT, the American
22:23
Institute in Taiwan's approval. It's kind of like Korea during
22:27
the Lake Josen Dynasty. No major approval, no major
22:30
decision made by the king was passed without the approval of
22:33
Yenzukai, right? It's, I mean, you can, we can
22:37
decide little, little things like, OK, are we going to do the
22:42
10,000 New Taiwan dollar tax rebate, things like that.
22:48
Do we want to have nuclear energy?
22:50
Do we? Yeah.
22:51
We, we, we can make decisions when it comes to stuff like
22:53
that. But then bigger, more
22:54
consequential things like if a leader in Taiwan was like, OK,
22:58
we no longer want to purchase weapons from the US.
23:01
We don't care about what you think.
23:03
I'm going to do my thing with Beijing.
23:05
You guys can just can just fuck off.
23:09
Yeah. Something, something will happen
23:12
to that leader. It might not be, you know, but
23:14
it could be, you know, some sort of grassroots movement popping
23:19
out of nowhere with these very well, very, very charming
23:25
student leaders with their images carefully curated,
23:27
leading some sort of totally organic protest and occupation
23:32
of the legislature, legislative building and stuff like that.
23:37
You know, stuff like the US can make that sort of stuff happen.
23:40
Well, no US politician is going to threaten to bomb Tel Aviv,
23:45
but you do have U.S. politicians say they will.
23:48
Yeah, yeah, TMC. They will bomb TMC.
23:51
So they will leave nothing to China.
23:53
The only country that's ever bombed Taiwan was the United.
23:56
States. Not many people knew about that,
23:58
but yes during World War 2 because at that time Taiwan was
24:02
a Japanese colony so US did carry out bombing of Taiwan.
24:07
Yeah, it also, it also sold weapons to Japan when they were
24:10
fighting China in the first Sino Japanese war, which led to
24:15
Taiwan becoming a Japanese colony.
24:19
So yeah, it's an it's an inappropriate comparison.
24:22
And I do want to mention now that we're talking about the
24:24
military, how a lot of the, the shifts in opinion is also a
24:30
reckoning with the power balance, right?
24:33
Especially after the, the, the September 3rd military parade in
24:38
Beijing attended by, you know, Putin and Marshall, Kim Jong Un.
24:43
It's the the, the like the submarine launched missiles,
24:50
capable of nuclear capable missiles and all that.
24:52
That's like the latest weapons. And there's an objective, a
24:57
reality to warfare, right? It's not just OK, Yeah, your
25:02
willpower is one thing, but the willpower in town, let's face
25:04
it, Taiwan separatists, they like to talk the talk, but if
25:10
you actually get to understand them, they will.
25:14
They will sell out their parents for like the most minor benefit.
25:19
They're they're opportunists like that.
25:21
They don't. They don't die for their
25:22
beliefs. I, I think there's a strategic
25:25
misalignment between politicians in Washington and politicians in
25:31
Taipei because America expect Taiwan to be Ukraine, right?
25:36
Fighting, fighting the, the Chinese communists to the last
25:39
Taiwanese, whereas even the most hardcore Taiwan separatists,
25:44
they want Americans to come in and to die and bleed for Taiwan
25:50
independence. So this, this is not going to
25:52
work. This is not This is why I never
25:54
believed Taiwan will be a Ukraine scenario, because
25:58
Taiwanese people fundamentally a lot more smarter than this
26:02
Ukrainian. You can, you can, you can say
26:03
people in Taiwan are smarter. You can say we're not as brave
26:06
as Ukrainians, you know, But either way, I think people in
26:11
Taiwan, when a gun is put to our head, we'll know what to do.
26:16
We'll do what's best for survival.
26:18
It's how it's how the people collectively survived, you know,
26:22
Japanese colonisation and then the KMD's white terror and all
26:26
of that. Cause OK, everyone brave enough
26:28
to resist back then, you know they didn't.
26:32
They didn't. Survive, Yeah.
26:33
I mean, I respect the resistant fighters against the Japanese,
26:37
but they ultimately didn't. We're not capable of
26:40
overthrowing the. You don't fight something that
26:42
you can't win. Let's just say that it's
26:44
admirable. It can be admirable, depending
26:46
on the cause. But at the end of the day, what
26:49
led to Japan's defeat? It was the protracted struggle
26:51
against Japan by the Chinese people, The and then also the US
26:57
involvement in World War 2 and all of those factors.
26:59
It wasn't just a little tiny group of, you know, brave people
27:03
in Taiwan. It's it got crushed way too
27:06
early on. And yeah, I mean, it's looking
27:12
at these objective realities. We're like, OK, see, you know,
27:15
I'm just going on YouTube and Instagram right now, and a lot
27:19
of my algorithms just stuff that people in Taiwan see because of
27:22
my geolocation and also just the content I consume.
27:25
Interestingly, you know, I talk about the owl a lot.
27:28
Just 10 years ago, if I shared or stuff from him or talk about
27:32
him, people would just be like, oh, you're being brainwashed.
27:35
He is. He is ACPC puppet.
27:37
He is, you know. By the way, I'm going to break
27:39
it down for my Anglo from audience again and a lot of
27:42
Chinese people know who Liao is. But Liao was a prominent Taiwan
27:47
dissident during the KMT era. He was in prison for his view
27:51
opposing the military dictatorship.
27:54
But when he got out of gaol, when Taiwan liberalised and and
27:58
democratised, Liao also became a fierce critic of the Taiwan
28:03
government because they especially he's criticising the,
28:07
the, the, the leadership under the Dunghui, etcetera.
28:11
He sees some leading Taiwan down a separatist path.
28:14
And, and so the is basically a very famous independent voice.
28:19
He is always like in opposition to the, you know, always
28:24
speaking truth to powers. He, he came to Taiwan when he
28:26
was 14, right? Because he was born on the
28:29
mainland. So like, he's not really like
28:32
Taiwanese either, but he lived in Taiwan for decades, right?
28:35
So he understands Taiwan a lot. But he also, I think because
28:39
he's not like a Taiwanese, he could look at things going on in
28:43
Taiwan a little bit more objectively as somebody who's
28:46
somewhat of an outsider, but also like, very integrated into
28:51
society here. And yeah, like back then he
28:54
would in the 90s and 2000s, he had like slots on TV late night,
29:01
like talking about whatever he wanted.
29:03
A lot of it was just live podcast him talking to a camera
29:06
about like random topics. Like I back in like 2000, he
29:10
was, he was like, he was calling out tying one.
29:12
Like tying 1 was like, oh, as a scholar, I am, I am Chinese.
29:16
I am culturally Chinese, but as a politically, as a politician,
29:21
I am not Chinese. I am Taiwanese.
29:24
And he was like, and he was just like, can your cultural identity
29:27
change because of the chair that's underneath your ass?
29:32
For politicians, yes, that is the That is the quality required
29:37
for a politician. Yeah.
29:40
And The thing is, he has so much dirt on both the the KMT and DPP
29:45
that he could say and do all sorts of crazy things and no one
29:48
really tries to do anything about it.
29:50
Like he ran as a independent to become a legislator in Taiwan
29:55
and he won. And then one day when they were
29:57
doing an arms procurement, I mean, he knew he wasn't going to
30:00
block it, but he wanted to create a spectacle and create, I
30:04
guess, discourse around the topic.
30:07
So we just went in when they were discussing the arms
30:10
procurement bill, like talking about buying weapons from the
30:13
US, puts on AV for a vendetta mask and just tear gases the
30:17
whole room and then. You know, you know that that's
30:23
A1 aspect I do like about enjoy about Taiwan democracy is is is
30:28
great political theatre. You know, like you, you it's
30:31
always entertainment. You know lot lot more lot more
30:34
entertaining than you know watching what what is that the
30:39
what what is that that U.S. cable show that shows all the.
30:42
Comments Daily Show. Not not Daily Show, man, I will.
30:46
I almost say ESPN, but that's a sports channel, though.
30:49
There's a like a another channel that that shows shows all these
30:52
like congressional hearing and stuff like that.
30:54
But anyway, forget it. No one watched that anymore.
30:57
No one watched. TV, Yeah, CNET wait, no, is that
31:00
not CNET something? I know what you're talking
31:02
about, but it. Yeah, yeah, you know, you know,
31:04
but TV is such twenty 20th century phenomenon, you know,
31:08
but young people don't watch TV anymore anyway.
31:11
The all the all genius I realised in the past I was like,
31:15
well, him running for election and stuff, it's not like he
31:17
really affected so much change. But what he did was he knew his
31:20
views weren't popular and weren't going to be organically
31:23
pushed. So he he was strategically put
31:26
himself in these positions where as a legislator, for example,
31:30
his use cannot be, you know, not mentioned, they have to be
31:33
broadcasted. So we just treated every
31:35
opportunity had as a stage to express his views.
31:40
So as a legislator, he will go in like kind of and try to
31:43
debate the people in the Ministry of Defence and just
31:46
pull out a Barbie. It's like, OK, this is a Barbie.
31:49
It costs this much money, but then you buy this what you need.
31:51
What do you need to do now? Oh, now you need to buy a
31:54
clothes for her. Now you need to buy them Ken.
31:56
Now you need to buy all of these things.
31:58
And he's talking about all of the hidden costs.
32:00
And then he's like, OK, well, you know, the reason why we are
32:04
getting weapons from America is because they want us to be their
32:08
line of defence by having, by using US, their line of defence
32:12
against the unfriendly world is all the way on this side of the
32:16
Pacific as as opposed to, you know, on the coast of
32:18
California. He's like, we are their
32:21
watchdogs. So why should we pay for
32:23
weapons? What kind of a watchdog pays for
32:25
its own treats, pays for his own kibbles, pays for its own
32:27
snacks? And I grew up watching stuff
32:30
like this. But back then, a lot of people
32:31
in Taiwan were like, oh, this guy's just a hater.
32:34
He's just this mainlander guy. He doesn't love Taiwan.
32:38
And I think now, now that that generation's gotten older,
32:43
they're looking back at these clips that are becoming popular
32:45
again. They're saying, wow, this guy
32:47
truly had her backs this whole time.
32:49
He was saying stuff we didn't want to hear, but it was stuff
32:52
that we needed to hear and stuff that would have put us in a
32:55
better position because he truly loved Taiwan and loved the
32:58
people on Taiwan, even as he sometimes said some not so nice
33:04
things about the people on Taiwan.
33:07
And you realise what Leon might have talked a lot of shit about,
33:11
you know, people in Taiwan to Taiwanese people.
33:14
But when he spoke to mainlanders, he was, he would
33:16
always explain, you think about it for 50 years you were under,
33:20
they were under Japanese rule and they were taught to, you
33:23
know, like taught this, this, this about China.
33:26
And then for another few decades, they were under KMT
33:29
authoritarian rule and they were taught to hate communists added
33:33
together. It's got a it's, it's, it's over
33:36
a century of ideological conditioning.
33:38
Can we expect all of this to be undone in just a few years?
33:41
No, it takes time. He'll try to tell these things.
33:44
So it's like at the end of the day, it's like, I don't, I feel
33:46
very few people on that calibre of recognition in Taiwan loved
33:50
this island and its people as much as he did.
33:53
And he was an anti, he was very anti US imperialist.
33:58
And I think now finally, finally, after all of these
34:02
years, it took the US showing its ass and also, you know, the
34:09
mainland China's military capabilities and economic
34:12
strength and all of that too reach a certain level of parity
34:15
with America for people in Taiwan to finally start
34:18
understanding these things. And that's what we're seeing
34:20
with Guanzang. See, Guanzang is not some sort
34:22
of intellectual. He's not some sort of political
34:26
commentator. He is just some OK.
34:28
I'm going to put it in the gym boss.
34:29
By the way, Guanzang is a. Chinese yeah, gym boss.
34:33
He, he, he was born to a, he was born to a poor family, didn't
34:37
receive that great of an education.
34:39
So he joined the military for a few years and then he was, it's
34:44
said that he was involved in organised crime before he to
34:47
survive before he, you know, opened up his chain of gems.
34:51
And then while he was doing that, he became a streamer.
34:54
And I think stream he, he rose to fame because of his own
34:58
unfiltered attitude on his dreams, talking about all sorts
35:01
of issues which eventually got into politics.
35:04
Because I don't know if you know this or not, but in Taiwan
35:07
nowadays when it comes to election cycles, candidates will
35:10
start looking at the famous streamers and Youtubers and all
35:12
that and try to get their get their endorsement.
35:15
So I think it's him being in that position.
35:17
It just kind of happened. And then he just saw a lot of
35:21
corruption going on under the DPP too.
35:23
I mean, like a few years ago, he got shot by these thugs and then
35:27
it was found out that those thugs had like connections to
35:30
the DPP. Wow.
35:32
And then they and then like the way that the DPP mobilised its
35:36
supporters to turn against him because he had the audacity to
35:39
support Cohenza in the 2020 election and 2024 election.
35:46
Cohenza. Now Cohenza.
35:48
Is a founder of the Third Party on Taiwan.
35:51
Right the now third party, the Taiwan People's Party.
35:54
Yeah, yeah. And he was, he was under
35:57
prosecution by the DPP until recently, right?
36:00
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he's, he's still under
36:02
investigation, but now he's finally out of gaol.
36:04
He was like locked up for a year.
36:06
What's it? What's your excuse for locking
36:08
him up? Investigating him for, for
36:12
embezzlement and corruption, even though they found, they
36:15
found no cash flow evidence, they, they were just like, oh,
36:19
we looked at this text message. We, we found this Excel document
36:22
on his computer that had this number on it.
36:24
So, and, and it's like, OK, you, if you're investigating this
36:28
stuff, it's been how long you look for you find cash or you
36:33
find records of bank transfers. If you don't have it, even if
36:36
it's somehow happened, you can't prosecute somebody for it's
36:41
it's. See, this is the kind of things
36:44
that's never get filtered down to the English language press
36:48
because that would totally go against the narrative how Taiwan
36:52
is this plucky young democracy standing up to the bad
36:55
authoritarian China. Then, you know, because then how
36:59
would you explain why is the Taiwan's current governing party
37:03
is prosecuting the opposition party leader under bogus, very
37:09
bogus claims and putting him on gaol under scrutiny?
37:13
I mean, like, like that. Well, actually, that's kind of
37:17
like what the the Biden administration was doing to the
37:19
Trump doing to Trump. The thing is also it's isn't it
37:24
curious? I went to a demonstration back
37:27
in January of this year about related to Cohen's and it was
37:34
attended by over 100,000 people. Nearly no coverage of Western
37:40
language media I. The way I found out is through
37:44
your tweet is through your tweet on XI was like, oh, there's a
37:49
big protest against the Taiwan government.
37:51
That's how I found out, you know?
37:53
But then, but then you have like much smaller protests that are
37:56
in favour of the DPP. They get blown up and like
37:58
people in Taiwan are standing, are fighting for their democracy
38:01
and stuff like that. And it's like 5000 people.
38:04
And then it's, that's how that that's how much information is
38:08
controlled. And I don't blame people in the
38:10
West but a lot of times both pro and anti China people have a
38:13
very poor understanding of Taiwan because of the linguistic
38:16
barrier and what gets filtered through what ends up being seen.
38:22
You're talking about pro China western people right?
38:24
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pro and anti.
38:26
It's because of bad. Information.
38:28
I mean, a lot of them, because a lot of these people are, they're
38:31
not, they don't really understand Taiwan, right?
38:34
They're not. Yeah, yeah.
38:35
Yeah, physically tie to Taiwan or integrate into a Taiwan
38:38
society. So when they're talking about
38:40
Taiwan there, it's more like they're talking about
38:42
abstraction almost rather. Yeah, real.
38:46
Place, yeah. And then like a lot of the pro
38:48
China Westerners, when they speak of Taiwan, they're
38:50
speaking like it's like ideological teams instead of a
38:54
real place with like they. Still, they still think Zhang
38:57
Kaishi is ruling over Taiwan, which is iron fist or something
39:02
right? Like.
39:04
Like Chunk, if Chunkaishi came back to life and he saw the
39:07
situation here, I'm not sure he might be.
39:11
I feel like he might be a little.
39:13
He might side with Xi Jinping. It must be perfectly honest.
39:16
He will, he will shoot a lot of people.
39:19
He will shoot a lot of you. A lot of people will get sent to
39:22
the Green Island, to the to the prison.
39:26
Oh, Green Island's a tourist location now.
39:28
Very good, very good, very good venison.
39:31
Dude, if you come to Taiwan, let's go to Green Island.
39:33
You can go surfing in Green Island I think.
39:35
Oh really? It's a good spot.
39:37
Oh, I would totally. Go Oh, there's there's scuba
39:38
diving I. Don't I don't need AI, don't
39:40
need a visa, right? So it's a visa free for
39:43
Americans? Yeah, yeah, You don't need a you
39:45
don't need a visa like on Green Island is like a 45 minute boat
39:48
ride from the coast of well, I. I only I can come my my wife
39:52
though, can because she's she's just has a Indonesian passport.
39:57
So you just you can get a you. Can get a.
39:58
You can get her a visa somehow easily.
40:00
Probably OK. Really.
40:02
OK, yeah. And it's Green Island.
40:06
I, I found out when I was there, they were like, oh, be careful.
40:10
Some tourists just got washed away by the waves and like
40:13
drowned. So I was like, oh, and then I
40:16
thought, wait, that's why they put the prison here, because the
40:19
water, the way the Water Works, there's even if you somehow
40:22
managed to escape that prison, there is no way you can leave
40:25
the island. And the island, you can ride
40:27
around on a motorcycle in like less than an hour.
40:31
Yeah, very good venison though, over there, to my surprise.
40:34
They still have deer. They still have deer.
40:37
No, because they reproduce so quickly.
40:39
And I think decades ago, what the what the Hawaiian County
40:42
government did was, OK, Green Island became this penal island
40:47
with a political prison, but there were still local residents
40:50
that were there from before. They need to make a livelihood,
40:53
so let's give them some deer. They can breed them and do
40:55
whatever. But then back then, the locals
40:57
were like, we don't know how to breed these things.
40:58
So they just let them out in the wild.
40:59
And then they started multiplying a lot.
41:01
And there's more deer than people over there now.
41:04
Well, I mean, deer used to be the main export, main commodity
41:09
export from Taiwan. I'm talking about back in the
41:12
17th century. Like, like, like that was a big
41:16
trade of trading deer pal to like mainland China and Japan
41:21
and other places. It did it too well.
41:23
That's why there's no deer left over here.
41:26
Yeah, that's why I was surprised why I heard they're still deer.
41:29
They're all on Queen Island because, like, yeah.
41:32
OK, so OK, so so but OK, having said all that deep, you know,
41:38
besides these, besides the the the big influencer like Jim
41:43
Boss, do you think there's actual opinion shift on the
41:50
ground? Is there like a ground shift
41:52
among the Taiwan populace towards the current political
41:56
situation? I think it's subtle.
41:58
And the thing and the reason why I say that is even when like the
42:02
DPP was at its peak popularity, like more recently, most people
42:10
on the ground are just normal people trying to get on with
42:12
their lives. They're not going to be talking
42:13
about this stuff in public. And honestly, in Taiwan on TV,
42:17
you might see a lot of political debates or whatever.
42:20
But in in Taiwan society, it's typically not that polite to
42:25
just randomly talk about politics with people, right?
42:28
I mean, some people will talk about things and it is what it
42:31
is. But for the most part, people
42:35
are OK here, here, here's here's one thing.
42:40
For a while, like in the past, my parents generation when I was
42:44
a kid and when I was a little kid up until I'd say the 20
42:47
tens, the vast majority of the people in Taiwan refer to the
42:51
Chinese mainland as Talu, which meant the mainland, which means
42:55
the mainland. And here's the thing, if you
42:57
call it Talu, it's implying that, you know, the mainland is
43:02
a part of your country. So it's not like Taiwan and
43:04
China, but it's Taiwan and the mainland, right?
43:07
Then there was a shift. It became more mainstream, I'd
43:10
say in the 20 tens up until like recent years for everybody to
43:14
say like Zhonggu, when they refer to the mainland, Zhonggu
43:17
means China. So it's like they're China and
43:19
we are Taiwan instead of we are Taiwan and they're the mainland
43:21
and we're both a part of China, you know, so, and for a while it
43:26
was almost like it was, you almost got shunned if you just
43:30
kept on openly calling it like Taru.
43:33
But me being like me being me, I just could not bring myself to
43:39
call it like jungle. Cause like to me it's like
43:43
jungle includes us too. It's not just them.
43:45
So I always, always, always call it Talu.
43:47
And for a happy medium would be like jungle Talu, the Chinese
43:50
mainland right then. But then now recently on the
43:54
streets just out there, like most people are starting to call
43:57
it Talu again, which is I think it's you have to look for these
44:03
sorts of little signals. But also The thing is once you
44:07
leave like Taipei, because I think in most societies, the
44:13
people who are more like, you know, liberal minded and all of
44:17
that, they tend to be in the big cities.
44:19
Yeah. Once you leave Taipei, most
44:20
people are still like kind of more like traditionalists or
44:26
whatever. You in Taipei, a lot of people
44:29
are watching Netflix, but leave Taipei most people are watching
44:31
mainland shows just because of the cultural affinity that we
44:35
have with the mainland watching shows about like the the Qing
44:39
dynasty court drama between like the different.
44:41
Wait, it's not blocked? Are those mainland apps like ITE
44:46
those those service? Are those not blocking in
44:49
Taiwan? How do they access the mainland?
44:51
They're not, they're not, they're not blocked over here.
44:53
They're on blocked on certain government networks, but they're
44:56
not blocked for the average people.
44:58
And even if they're even if they were blocked, a lot of them get
45:00
re uploaded to to YouTube. And we also have those a lot of
45:04
people, especially outside of Taipei, like more rural
45:07
families. Oh, mine included because
45:10
because because I'm cheap. You can get those little boot
45:14
like, like Android boxes that like, get like all these, all
45:18
this like, like TV channels from like all over the world,
45:22
including like Taiwan and the Chinese mainland.
45:23
So we don't pay for cable. And then there's also like
45:26
streaming and all that. And yeah, there's a lot of
45:28
mainland stuff. Like I, I could right now if I
45:31
wanted to, I could watch CCTV live from my living room because
45:35
we got that bootleg box. Nice.
45:40
And they're just kind of openly sold.
45:43
And if you know where to look in Taiwan, yeah, it's not going to
45:46
be openly advertised like we got bootleg.
45:48
Box Is doan banned in Taiwan? It's not banned, but The thing
45:54
is it's not on app stores outside of the Chinese mainland.
45:58
So if. You're using.
45:59
IOS, if you're using iPhone, you're not going to get it
46:03
easily. And if you use Android, you have
46:05
to side load it. And then even then if you side
46:08
load it, you still have to have a mainland Chinese phone number
46:10
to make an account. Otherwise you can only view.
46:12
But I mean, I have all, I have all of that set up.
46:14
I mean I got. I, I got, I got registered at
46:19
the wing account when there was a time when they were
46:21
experimenting opening up because the, because a lot of the
46:24
Western people are Americans or flocking to the red note.
46:28
So I think that put pressure on the wing trying to experience.
46:31
So I got into that small window. I tested with my donation number
46:35
and I I got it. Just how long it takes for?
46:39
What is that? Oh, you got that's, you got a
46:41
ICBC card, so that's a Chinese bank card.
46:44
Yeah, you know how long it takes for somebody from Taiwan to get
46:46
it when they're on the mainland? Three hours.
46:49
Three hours, it's like 30 minutes.
46:52
Holy shit, you know it took me like that three hours because
46:56
you know my dad has is on AUS passport and like my cousin's
47:01
in. China.
47:02
Yeah, well my my cousin in China's like Oh no problem no
47:05
problem. I know the bank branch managers,
47:07
ICBC bank branch manager 3 hours tour.
47:12
Can I be perfectly honest? Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
47:15
I already have a mainland bank account with China Construction
47:20
Bank. I only got that one because the
47:22
card's pretty. OK.
47:26
And I was also curious because I got this, the construction bank
47:31
account in Beijing, big city. So they deal with a lot of
47:34
people from Taiwan, right? OK.
47:36
OK, let me, let me ask you a question because you have
47:38
travelled to mainland China, Yeah.
47:40
When you use WeChat or Alipay, which bank card do you associate
47:44
with your your Taiwan bank card or the the your your your
47:47
mainland Chinese bank card? First, my mainland bank card.
47:51
OK so so did have you tried use your Taiwan bank card before?
47:55
OK, I heard it's gotten easier now, but for a while in the past
47:58
it wasn't that straightforward. It was much easier to just get a
48:00
mainland account and I. See, no, what I do is.
48:03
I'll set aside money if I'm going to travel to the mainland,
48:06
right, convert it to R&B or what I might do is well, my ex did
48:11
her, her family did business on the mainland.
48:14
Even though she she's ADPP supporter for her like she grew
48:17
up on like R&B. Go figure.
48:19
But sometimes if I didn't want to get hit with exchange rates
48:24
because I'm her family was always travelling back and
48:26
forth, I would just send them Taiwan dollars and they would
48:29
just transfer R&B through Alipay on to my mainland bank account.
48:34
So it worked out. But if that arrangement doesn't
48:37
work, all I do is I just set aside, set aside cash, convert
48:40
it, and then once I get to the mainland, find an ATM and
48:43
deposit it into my Chinese bank account.
48:47
Nice. So well, I was just curious with
48:49
the ICBC one because I was in Yanji and there's like nobody
48:53
from Taiwan over there. And I was just wondering, OK, if
48:55
I try to go to this like middle of nowhere bank that's like
48:58
probably never dealt with a Taiwan compatriot before, how
49:02
long will it take? 30 minutes.
49:05
Oh, so, so for people who don't know, Yangji is right on the
49:09
border with Korea. It is like right across the Yalu
49:12
River And, and, and it's so you, because you went there, because
49:17
you know, you, you, you are doing a tour of the borderland,
49:20
right? And and and.
49:21
Among other things, I was oh, time for a quick plug.
49:26
I I was also vlogging. I'm talking about the history in
49:29
the region. So my first stop was Senyang.
49:31
I talked about the the birth of the Qing Dynasty, you know, Noor
49:35
Hass and Huang Taiji and all that went to the Mukden Palace
49:40
and the Bailing Park to kind of just show not just talk about
49:44
the history, but to show it and be like, yo, that's where Huang
49:46
Taiji's bury. You see that big mound And then
49:51
also did an episode on the the anti Japanese resistance
49:57
starting from the 1931 September 18th Muktan incident, 14 years.
50:03
All of that going to different sites like the the Muktan
50:06
incident history. Museum those videos on your
50:10
channel now on your YouTube channel.
50:12
One of them is the the first one about the Qing Dynasty is
50:17
available for patrons, but it becomes available for the
50:20
general public on Tuesday, November 18th.
50:26
Hold on, where do people to find these?
50:28
Like for your Patreon, for your Patreon?
50:31
Do you use Patreon? Is that is that?
50:33
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you can for.
50:35
People to find, to follow you, Where do they go?
50:37
OK for all of my links just go to a website called XTXY dot
50:43
show. Like show as in like like ATV
50:46
show STXY dot show all the. Links TXTXY.
50:52
STXY straight off the. STSTXY so I'll put the I'll put
50:59
the link in my show notes in the YouTube description when when
51:02
this video is uploaded so. Yeah, actually, no.
51:05
Let me just show on the screen what the website looks like.
51:08
It's kind of like a. It's kind of like a.
51:12
But but you do have you do have a YouTube channel, right, like?
51:15
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just easier to just do that
51:17
link. You can sure all of the links,
51:19
all of the links. See.
51:20
Straight talks OK got it and and and and you are also on Patreon
51:27
and all that OK good stuff. Follow make sure you fuck give
51:31
Shang you a follow like he basically give you the Taiwan
51:35
perspective but with a very unique Taiwan perspective
51:41
because. Now that I'm vlogging too, you
51:43
need to make your way over here so we can do.
51:46
Something too, I have, I have never this I have never This is
51:50
one of the provinces of China that have not visited yet.
51:53
And, and I, I will, I first let me to get my permission for my
51:58
wife. So, you know, I, I either go
52:00
alone or I had to bring my family.
52:03
So I'm going to have to talk to my wife.
52:05
Bring her, bring her along. Mike, the the problem is like
52:09
one of one of our babies too young, like the our youngest kid
52:13
is only like a year and a half and.
52:15
They have grandkids, they have grandparents.
52:20
We, we, that, that's actually a great idea because I brought, I
52:23
brought all my family to mainland China just recently
52:26
last month. And then I was, I was so dead
52:30
tired. I was so dead tired.
52:31
I was like so grateful for our babysitter here in Bali because
52:36
oh man. Won't your kids are like
52:38
10/11/12? No.
52:41
Then it's like perfect. No, no, no, my, my, my eldest
52:44
son is perfect. My eldest son is now like 4 1/2.
52:47
He's a perfect travel companion. Like, you know, like he's, he's
52:51
very, but the youngest 1, he just very, you know, he's very
52:56
clingy. He needs his daddy.
52:58
So he needs to be carried all the time.
53:00
And I'm like, my back is not what it used to be.
53:03
I'm not a spring chicken anymore.
53:05
So, so people have kids young. Please my advice in life, don't,
53:11
don't wait, don't be like me. Wait, wait until 48 to have my
53:14
second child. And you know, I'm almost 50.
53:17
It's it's killing me here. They're going to they're going
53:20
to think you're the granddad when they graduate from high
53:21
school, like your classmates would be like, hey, that's your
53:25
grandfather. Now where's, where's your dad?
53:27
I hear about him. You guys tell me so much stories
53:29
about him. Oh man, yeah.
53:35
So I'm, I, yeah, I have to, I have to tell my to ask my wife
53:40
for permission. But yeah, I always love to
53:42
travel to Taiwan because I heard there's some really good wave,
53:47
good surfing spot in in eastern Taiwan part.
53:50
I have, yeah, if you if it's just you and your wife, I got a
53:53
place for you guys to to stay. Now, if it's some kids, the
53:56
space might be too small. You might need to like.
53:58
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I, I think, I think I will going
54:01
to have to leave the kids. Kids at home, especially the
54:03
younger 1, is too much. Yeah, yeah, OK.
54:09
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I, I drive over here.
54:12
So if, yeah, we got, we got a lot of things covered.
54:16
We got transportation and all that.
54:19
And wait, why am I, why am I so blurry?
54:22
Oh, whatever. We'll figure.
54:23
Yeah. Why?
54:23
Why? Why, why suddenly it's like you
54:25
put in a philtre or something a little bit better.
54:31
OK, OK, yeah, Anyway, we, we, we can wrap it up because we're
54:37
already near the one hour mark. I'm going to have to do a follow
54:41
up show with you on your trip to mainland China because I.
54:45
Oh, you want to make that a separate episode?
54:48
Yeah, yeah, because we're we're almost at one hour now.
54:52
But yeah, if you want to do any plug right now, this is your
54:55
chance to do do your final plug. Plug I think today is like a
55:01
preview of the things I talk about.
55:03
I think it's a pretty good preview in the sense that there
55:05
was no episode prep. It was just turn on the camera
55:08
and start talking. So this is the stuff that like
55:11
kind of this is presented in a more scatterbrain format.
55:14
But if you watch my show on on YouTube, it's a little bit more
55:21
organised. I think the format's like, good
55:23
for if you're, like, doing things like washing dishes or
55:27
cleaning around the house, something to put on and listen.
55:31
And then now I'm starting to do on location blogs on both sides
55:34
of the Taiwan Strait. And yeah, that's a little bit
55:37
more. Gotta watch it to get the full
55:40
experience. But those episodes tend to be
55:42
shorter, like maybe 15 to 20 minutes as opposed to like an
55:45
hour or two. So, yeah.
55:49
And as I as the show grows, I should be travelling around
55:54
more. So you can think of it not just
55:56
like history, politics and current events, but also just if
55:59
you need ideas on where to go and China maybe a perhaps a
56:04
little bit off the beaten path, like I'm not going to be like
56:07
going to the same like. You're thinking about, you're
56:12
thinking about doing a, a, a like a leader tour service,
56:15
right? Like, because I remember last
56:18
time you talked. I mean, you want to.
56:20
We we can talk, we could talk about that a little bit later
56:25
when things are a little bit more, should we say?
56:29
We can talk about next. The the infrastructure is OK.
56:32
Let's just put it this way. I wasn't, I wasn't in the
56:35
Chinese Northeast just to vlog. I mean, think about what's in
56:39
the Chinese Northeast or near it.
56:42
North Korea, DPRK. I'm sorry.
56:45
Oh, oh, yeah, I didn't, I didn't go to, I didn't, I didn't go
56:48
into Korea, but I was, let's just put it this way.
56:53
You don't just you don't just go and have dinner and sing karaoke
56:56
with like North Korean, like North Korean friends just
57:00
randomly. You have to, you got to be like
57:05
got some business going on with them for the feds watching.
57:09
No, we weren't violating any sanctions.
57:13
Thank you. Thank you for putting that
57:15
disclaimer. No trade of goods was involved,
57:22
so therefore no sanctions were violated.
57:26
It is not illegal to have dinner with N Koreans in a third
57:32
country. Yeah, there's there's a lot of
57:34
North Korean restaurant in China for people who don't know, then
57:37
they. Oh yeah, yeah, but.
57:38
There's Korean staff, yeah. It's, it's there's some that are
57:43
completely North Korean run. Then there's many that are like,
57:49
it's like 5050 between like a local Chinese business and the
57:53
North Koreans. And I think because of the
57:57
situation in a political situation now, they get very
58:00
paranoid if you're like visibly foreign, like last time I went,
58:05
I brought along. You're like a white person.
58:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I, I brought my American
58:11
friend along last, last time. He lives in Hong Kong and he had
58:16
a few days off and he said he wanted to travel and I happened
58:19
to be going to the Northeast. So I was like, I want to come
58:21
along. I'll show you around the
58:23
Borderlands and also take you on a boat ride to see like North
58:27
Korea, as close as you can without, you know, getting into
58:30
Korea. He was like, OK, so we go to
58:33
North Korea owned North Korean staffed Cafe in in Dandong.
58:40
We walk in and the Korean waitstaff.
58:44
They were just like Tusson night Gordon and then I just I'm just
58:51
like I just told him, OK, stay here Canadian Jana da and then
58:56
they were like OK, and then they're just.
58:58
Like, OK, OK, OK, OK, let's save the the story for our next
59:02
episode. Teaser This is the.
59:04
Teaser this is the teaser. This is the teaser so so so
59:06
follow Shang Yui. I'm going to put the link in the
59:09
description below. Check out check out his Patreon,
59:12
check out his YouTube and in next time we call Shang Yu come
59:16
back, we're going to focus more on his trip to mainland China
59:21
and and and I I bet he has a lot of stories.
59:24
So, so stay tuned for that. Actually, thank.
59:27
You next time the show we can I we can do it for my show.
59:32
I upload it and then also make you a collaborator so then your
59:35
audience sees it without having to subscribe to me too.
59:38
OK, so I I'm doing this right now.
59:43
I know, yeah. For UK column, so I guess UK
59:47
column is not platforming. So really what I do is I put the
59:51
the show there first. So if that's OK with you.
59:54
Thanks guys. Thanks for tuning in.
59:56
Until next time. Thanks.
59:57
For having me on bye bye.