There’s another dragonboat activity down at the ri…
There’s another dragonboat activity down at the river today. I was woken up early this morning by loud “Zamfir Plays Love Hits” music blasted by loudspeakers on the other wide of the river at an incredible volume. I went downstairs to find two of the non-incumbent candidates for village chief out by the road, where they were looking to shake hands and exhort people to vote for them. The election is on the 10th of this month.
There are three candidates in the elections. The incumbent is Mr. Zhang Jian-liang, the son of the guy who runs the restaurant across from Rosemary’s Kitchen, where they play a lot of Bollywood flicks on the VCR. The other two candidates are both women, Mrs. Li-Xie Shu-zhen and Mrs. Hong Li-mei. Mrs. Li has a kind of art studio shop, but I’m not sure what the purpose of the place is. Mrs. Hong runs the local convenience store across the street. I’ve talked with both of them. Both Li and Zhang are KMT, while Hong is independent with seemingly no broad political connections. Hong often has a mouthful of betelnuts, while Li comes across as more of a politician, more cultured, but when I went to speak to the candidates about issues, I found neither of them had any concrete plans or ideas.
With the loud music blaring across the river at 8am on Sunday morning, I thought I’d see what they both thought of it and go from there. There was no question of seeing what Mr. Zhang had to say on the subject; obviously he was ok with the problem as he’s already in office.
The first one I approached was Mrs. Hong, who immediately said someone should do something about the noise, that this was a residential area and it was too much, too early. Fair enough.
When I asked Mrs. Li across the street about her stance on the issue, she gave me a blank look and asked “What noise?” When I explained, she said, “What do you think?”
“I want to know your position on it,” I said.
“Well, Taiwanese people love ‘re-nao’,” she said, hesitantly. “So it’s natural to have such loud music, just like they do during Thanksgiving in America!”
Well, I guess I have my answer.
