Downloadable tune lets us laugh at him some more

While I did my best to leave the TV turned off for most of the day on Thursday, one thing that came to my attention was a song parody (Big-5 Chinese encoding) which uses the melody and some of the words to Taiwanese singer/guitarist Wu Bai's "Sa Diu Li" ("Crush on You") and turns it into a tune about Lien Chan's self-contradictions and embarrassingly childish behavior.

(Lien's starting to seem like the "Donald Rumsfeld" of Taiwan.)

For those who may not be familiar with the story which has inspired this parody, in last Saturday's presidential election in Taiwan, Lien lost to incumbent Chen Shui-bian by less than 30,000 votes just one day after a failed assassination attempt on Chen. Lien had also lost the election to Chen in 2000 but had teamed up with the third candidate, James Soong, in the hopes that their combined votes would exceed Chen's. Apparently it didn't work, as polls showed the opponents running neck-and-neck just before the election, and after the votes were counted all hell broke loose. Accusations by Lien led to riots between his supporters and police, and an "immediate recount" was demanded. Because they are either ignorant of the law or have no respect for it, Lien's supporters have been making noise in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei 24 hours a day since midnight Saturday in a face-losing effort to get what they want -- and get it now.

The lyrics of the song parody were written by someone calling himself "A-Lan" ("Bigmouth") and sung by "A-Hsing" ("Scent of Blood") in Taiwanese (Hokkien) and one Japanese phrase sung twice. It includes two samples of Lien Chan speaking after Chen Shui-bian was shot (last Friday afternoon) and one (and a half) from the riot-inciting speech he gave his supporters after learning that he had lost the election (Saturday night). Let me translate the samples for those of you who don't understand Taiwanese or Chinese:

3/19 (the eve of the election)
* (Speaking in Taiwanese) "People should maintain a calm and rational attitude about today's events." (Scotland on Sunday version: "I must sincerely call on everyone to be rational and cool-headed.")
* (Taiwanese again) "It's impossible for just one violent act (the assassination attempt on Chen Shui-bian and his V-P Annette Lu) to affect our election." (Boston.com's paraphrase: Lien condemned the assassination attempt, insisting that it would not weaken Taiwan's democracy or influence the election's outcome.)

3/20 (election night, after the votes had been tallied)
* (Speaking Mandarin Chinese) The narrow margin, under a cloud of suspicion, has brought about many, many doubts, giving everyone a common impression, and that is: this has been an unfair election!. (BBC News version: "This slim gap has been achieved under clouds of suspicion. ... It's not a fair election.")
* (Lien gets a little help from his friend Kuo Su-chun, both speaking Mandarin) Invalid election! Invalid election!

What a difference a day makes, as they say. Could it be any clearer that what we have here in Lien is a two-faced, sore loser?

Some more history of this may be helpful. When Lien Chan lost the 2000 election, he blamed former president Lee Teng-hui (under whom Lien served as V-P) for his loss, and Lee was forced to step down as the KMT chairman after week-long riots in the capital Taipei. Lee had already taken several steps toward a more democratic Taiwan, and he later became an ardent supporter of Chen Shui-bian. This time around, Lien can't accept the loss either. Since he'll never blame himself, he blames "rigged" voting (where the ratio of staff at polling stations is 60:40 in his favor), an excess of "invalid" ballots (which increased greatly in number this time both because of an alliance to cast such ballots as a "protest" and because of recent laws the KMT helped to pass!), the "dictator" of democracy, Chen Shui-bian (for getting shot and not dying?), video footage of 2 little girls helping an older, visually handicapped relative to vote (the evidence, supposedly inaccessible, being conveniently handed over to his side to be put on TV), and probably bad feng shui! (Not really, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did make such a claim.)

Start with my March 19 post "Assassination attempt on Taiwan's president, vice-president," and work your way upward to get a more linear idea of the recent events surrounding this election. Contained within, you'll find things about the assassination attempt, smiling "sympathizers," magic bullets, illusory blood, "faked" photos, media whores, lies, damn lies, and statistics, crybabies, more media whores, the failed referendum, calls for an annulment, riots (where a truck was used as a weapon in one), Florida 2000 tactics, John F. Kennedy, passing the buck, abusing the international media's lack of understanding of Taiwan's situation, impeachment studies (or secret meetings with Beijing authorities -- you decide), unsubstantiated rumors, bin Laden, Saddam, peaceful DPP rallies, historic riots of the KMT, unlawful local languages, leadership abilities and the opposition's lack thereof, countering some of the rumors, Chen Shui-bian's contributions to Taiwan's democracy, the events leading to his wife's paralysis, opposition balking when their demands are met, "predictions" vs. "warnings" vs. "(thinly veiled) threats" (when spoken by fucking liars), and so much more.

If I have the time and energy tomorrow (and an assistant translator!) perhaps I'll translate the whole song and post it on the blog.