A-Liang & friends,
Hi gang! Here is the story I wrote. It printed on Taiwan International Community Page (page 8) in Taiwan News on Saturday, June 29 “‘Slanderous’ accusations anger artists, expatriates” and in Macroview Weekly on Thursday July 4 “‘Ludicras’ ‘fiasco’ angers Huashan artists, expatriates”. Macroview Weekly is a weekly newspaper for “overseas Chinese youth” and it is distributed as part of a Chinese-language publication in Chinatowns across the U.S.
Viva La Huashan!
By David Schnell
Staff Reporter
Last week sudden and unexpected announcement at a press conference by DPP councilors Wang Shih-chien and Yan Sheng-guan that foreigners had “invaded” Huashan Arts District had members of both the international community and arts circles reeling in anger and disbelief.
At a small, but very vocal gathering of persons from the international community and local artists circles, the issue was discussed and it was concluded that statements made at the press conference and subsequent reports on Power News television and the “China Times Evening Post” were gushing with falsehoods, exaggerated claims and outrageous implications.
One person at the gathering, Tim Chang, who was at the “Huashan On Fire: Drum Party” said of the council member’s claims that “nothing could be further from the truth.” When asked to compare the Power News report of the party with his recollection, he related that the event was not a “drug paradise” as the report had claimed.
To the contrary, the activity was focused on communal music-making and dancing. He stated with certainty that the number of participants was less than 200, rather than the reported 300 to 400 people. There were no more than 50 foreigners present at the event, he added.
“When I got home, I thought to myself ‘that was exactly the kind of scene I had been looking since coming to Taiwan.’ It wasn’t at all how (the council members) described,” Chang said.
“This is just horrible!” exclaimed one of artists at the gathering. Asked why, he explained that some male participants had removed their shirts, not to be indecent as reported, but to gain some relief from the bonfire on a particularly hot night. He went on to say that the report intentionally did not mention the gender of the “topless” foreigners involved to imply overt sexual expression, rather than personal artistic expression.
The group later viewed the Power News report recorded from televisions and pointed out the editorial intent of Power News. One experienced reporter of a well-known international news magazine, Adam Connors, found no coincidence in Power News following the report with a police raid on a local pub.
“They are trying to further reinforce the association of Huashan with drugs with this line-up,” Connors said.
On a popular Web site for “Taiwan’s global community,” over 50 internet postings described the event as “tame” and decried the claims made by Wan and Yan as a “disturbing,” “ludicrous” “fiasco.”
The general consensus at the meeting and on the Internet was that there were no more than half of the number of people at the event that the council members claimed and that the proportion of foreigners was vastly exaggerated.
Now the foreign community and organizers at Huashan Arts District are not just asking for second opinion articles in the English-language press, they are demanding a retraction — in Chinese — by their detractors.
