2016 has sucked. And Christmas 2016…wasn’t wonderful. I’m going to leave it at that, just as an explanation why I found myself lying awake in bed at 5 a.m. on December 26th with no urge to do anything but distract myself. The day just happened to be the very day that the marriage equality bills were set for review in the Legislature, and two large protests, for and against, were set to begin in the vicinity that morning. So I decided to go take a look before heading into work.

I took the subway to NTU Hospital Station (I would have named the station after the park but I’m weird like that), so I approached the Legislature, as I usually had during the Sunflower protest, from the west. This meant I first encountered the anti-equality protest site. As before, they were doing their best to resemble a Klu Klux Klan rally, uniformly dressed in white, mostly wearing masks and sunglasses, and reluctant to be photographed. I couldn’t help but wonder what the point of showing up was if you didn’t want anyone to see you: The shame’s baked right in! I decided to make my way into the crowd to see if there was anything interesting or (especially) bizarre. I could feel disapproving stares, but thankfully nobody stopped me, and I didn’t speak to anyone. The guy on stage was spouting anti-democratic rhetoric, lies, insults and outright slander that I won’t bother repeating. A man in red was talking with police, and another man, tall and bearded, silently lifted sandbags into a truck alongside the sweaty driver. I had no idea at the time what the sandbags were for.

Members of the Christian clergy were again quite visible among the leadership; men holding inaccurate pie charts that would make a statistician wince talked to the media (no, 50.75% is not actually 3/4 of the pie). The crowd, while mostly middle-aged people, seemed to be seething like an angry toddler. A couple of protesters, bizarrely, wore aboriginal garb, the only note of color in the scene besides the man in red.

The police had formed an empty no-man’s land between the protests, so I had to walk around the block and up Linsen to get into the pro-equality protest site, which had only one entrance (the anti-equality site was open at one end). The mood there couldn’t have been more different from the first site; young, spirited, optimistic, creative. Never have I seen such a clear distinguishment between Taiwan’s sordid, authoritarian past and its democratic, diverse future. The broadcasts of the speeches on stage included a sign-language interpretation. Nobody wore masks, unless you counted the guy dressed in an animal costume. It was a welcoming scene.

Behind the stage, facing the no-man’s land where only a handful of police stood in the street, a group of mostly bears stood three-deep, the first row standing at parade rest, the two lines behind them seated. Every so often they would rotate the lines. When I asked, one of them told me that they were all volunteers, to be on hand in case the anti-equality mob decided to attack. They would be there as long as they had to be, they said.

Such fears were not unjustified; as I left the area to go to work (bumping into Larry Tsung, an old co-worker from my newspaper days in the subway), the anti-equality crowd began an assault on the Legislature, throwing smoke bombs and rushing the wall, attacking police in the process. I saw photos on the news sites of both the man in red and the tall, bearded man leading the charge. Over a hundred people were detained, most of them incredulous at the reaction. “The law means nothing to me!” one middle-aged woman protested, “I only answer to God!” I wonder if she would like what she saw if she Googled that.

When I got back to the area in the afternoon after work, the subway station was flooded with pro-equality protesters heading home. When I reached the site, I was told that the bills had passed the readings in the Legislature, and the next step would be in April. They’d won the day, it seemed, and everyone seemed very happy at the news. I wondered what the reaction was at the anti-equality camp, and decided to walk west along Zhongxiao to take a look. A group of organizers at the subway exit were advising against this. “Please take the subway from here,” they were telling protesters, the message being: It isn’t safe. Those people are dangerous and will hurt you.

When I got to the anti-equality site, hardly anyone was around. It was a bit dystopian; the loudspeaker was playing sounds of an outraged crowd, but the sound was cutting in and out like a recording left on too long. Large screens glowered down on empty asphalt littered with trash. Someone got on the PA and said, “We will fight this to the end! Everyone, head to the Presidential Office!” I texted my friend J. Michael Cole, telling him where they were headed.

“I’m already here,” he texted back. Of course he was.

I had to leave, but the videos and stories that have made their way out of the protest in front of the Presidential Office have been dismaying; actual media reporters and other observers have been harassed, harangued, assaulted, and removed “for their safety”. The crowd seems to squarely blame the DPP for their loss, oblivious to the fact that some of the bills and support come from the KMT and KMT legislators. Then again, I would have liked to have seen more condemnation on the DPP side of the DPP legislators who have made attempts to thwart the process with their bogus “separate but equal” propositions. That aspect goes both ways, but there is clearly no moral equivalence here.

In any case, we’ll have to wait and see what happens. Of course there are larger issues at hand, both in Taiwan and worldwide. But it seems to me that this is a watershed moment, a tipping point. What we do next is important, because odds are that we won’t be coming back from whichever road we take from here.

This weekend has gone non-stop. It started Friday night when I piled my instruments onto the 650 bus to Liuzhangli so I could make a gig with the ramblers at Bob’s. And not just the Muddy Basin Ramblers, but famed bluesman Rambling Steve Gardner as well, who flew in from Tokyo for the Tiger Mountain Ramble on Saturday. We met Steve at the Yokohama Jug Band Festival a couple of years back, and we’ve stayed in touch, always prodding him to make a trip over. The gig was a riot, and Kat served up tasty meat pies, potatoes and pizza afterwards.

After hauling my ass out of bed Saturday morning, I put on some Rambler-approved clothes and again hauled my instruments out and took the subway to Ximen, where I stashed them so that I could proceed unhindered to the Marriage Equality event on Ketagalan Blvd. Even though it was just starting, huge streams of people were joining from all directions. It was difficult to get into the crowd; I haven’t seen that many people there since the Sunflower protest, so I mostly just walked around the periphery. Suming gave a short speech and sang, and there were other performers with the MCs on the stage.

It was heartening to see so much love, hope and idealism, a real contrast from the previous anti-marriage-equality protests, which were mostly driven by hate and spite as well as stacks of cash from American Christian groups. For one thing, the anti-equality protests were much smaller than reported, even though the churches bussed entire congregations up to Taipei, and populated mostly by middle-aged people; so many of them were dressed in white and wearing masks that it was alarmingly similar to a Klan rally in all but name; “Straight Power” was pretty much the theme, and people there would throw their hands up in front of their masked faces when I raised my camera to take a shot. A good 10-20% of the protesters were actual Christian clergy, priests and nuns in full garb. One tall Western priest stood by one of the “praying” priests, and I managed to not enunciate my hope that he would get deported for taking part in the protest.

But that would never have happened, as the Christians (who claim homosexuality is a “foreign influence, oblivious to the fact that Christianity is much more of a foreign influence than homosexuality ever was), carted in an Australian woman who has some kind of personal vendetta against her parents, Katy Faust, to actually address the Legislature on what she clearly knows nothing about. The appropriately named Faust has no expertise on either homosexuality or Taiwan, yet not a single lawmaker saw the obvious violations of the actual law that her visit incurred. The media hasn’t really been on board with Reality either, e.g. articles like this from Focus Taiwan, which calls the event a “concert” that only “thousands” attended, even though official estimates run from a quarter million and up, and highlights claims of “bullying” of Christians on the subject.

As I was wandering around the East Gate and up the road toward the Presidential Office, it occurred to me that these people, not just the people at the marriage-equality protest, but other similar groups like the Sunflowers, et al, are the very people who were targeted by government forces during the White Terror period. Forward-looking people, people with inspiration and ideas for the future. In the awful times after 2/28, all of us would have been on those lists.

And who would have been writing those lists? The people who showed up in white robes and masks to protest equal rights.

I would have liked to have stayed longer, but I had to go retrieve my instruments and head over to the Tiger Mountain Ramble, where we were playing in the late afternoon. The mountain road was apparently so difficult to navigate that my cabbie shushed me when I tried to tell him where the place was. “Don’t talk to me!” he said. “I’m trying to concentrate on these GPS coordinates!” He found the place despite this.

The ramble was a little behind schedule when I got there, putting my stuff away and greeting friends. The cloudy skies threatened rain, and someone had started a bonfire. Steve presented me with a lovely gift: His photobook, from his days as a photojournalist on the theme of the American South, specifically the people of Mississippi, entitled Rambling Mind. It is a beautifully printed, large-sized book, one of only a handful left from the print run. The photos inside are wonderful as well…it’s a real treat, and I’m so happy to be able to add it to my collection.

It started to rain as we climbed the metal steps of the mobile stage and began our gig. It was a raucous affair, and most everything went right. There was much dancing in spite of the rain, which got heavier as we played. Afterwards we had to slog through the mud to get back to the storeroom, and everyone was huddled around the former temple for shelter. I was tired after a day of walking around as well as the show, so I packed up and headed down the mountain on foot, pulling my cart behind me. I met one of the other bands on the way, and they said some very nice things about our show, and I returned their compliments.

This morning (Sunday) I had to head out again, this time to lead my photography students on a walk around Keelung. We met up in front of the train station at 10 a.m. to find a large gathering of Indonesians, including dancers, martial artists and singers, as well as stalls selling food and attire, and a stage. It was all very festive; I bought three nice new hats, but we couldn’t stay long; we had to catch a train to Keelung.

Of course it was raining, because Keelung. We got off at the brand-new train station, which is worlds nicer than the awful old station, which itself was…much more awful than the old Japanese station. Some people were a bit peckish, so we had some food at a breakfast shop where the owner told us how to get to the big KEELUNG sign at the top of the hill. “You go up,” he said helpfully.

So we went up, following alleys, complimenting one household in particular on their delicious-smelling curry rice and dodging the scooters that would occasionally charge up the steep slope. One of these was a Gogoro electric scooter, with no less than two people on it. Impressive.

We paused at the big KEELUNG and then proceeded up to the platform at the top of the hill, caught our breath, and then went back down again, this time taking a different, more circuitous route. Eventually we found ourselves back to the main road behind the station. We crossed over the old blue pedestrian bridge that’s been there forever, and walked towards the Miaokou market, where vendors were hauling their stalls out into the rainy streets. It’s always difficult to lead these photowalks because I remain a firm believer in the benefits of solitary ventures. “I’m just showing you this place and some of the possibilities,” I often find myself saying. “You can come back on your own sometime and really see it!” It might seem odd for me to be telling this to native Taiwanese people, but they almost always have never really been to the places I take them, or, even if they have, they never really noticed what was there. I think it works; several of them have come a really long way in their photography, which makes me happy. And after this rather fucked-up year, I appreciate such things more than ever.