The Foreigner in Formosa

Happy 328th Birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach

"I wonder, did Bach swing like this?"

And of course, Happy Easter to everyone!

(Image from kimchee-icecream.blogspot.ca)

Mmmm...Kimchee ice cream...

Does David Kan Ting Take Pleasure In Innocent Chinese Being Mowed Down By Machine Gun Fire?

Honest question. Let's look at the evidence:

On the one hand, David Kan Ting appears to be a fan of Madame Chiang Kai-shek (Soong May-ling), whom he describes as, “the legendary Mei-ling Soong, wife of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who has been hailed as “the eternal first lady of China.” ✵

Soong May-ling herself was quite unequivocal on the matter of Tiananmen Square, describing the perpetrators as "dastardly Communist poltroons" and "demonic butchers" (The China Post, June 13, 1989 †).

So on the basis of this, I'd have to say, no, David Kan Ting of Taiwan's China Post DOES NOT take pleasure in innocent Chinese being mowed down by automatic machine gun fire.

But not so fast. You see, Soong May-ling is long dead-and-gone. And now, David Kan Ting has a new female hero. (A she-ro, if you will.) His latest idol de jour is Peng Liyuan, first lady ogress of China.

Peng Liyuan's reaction to Tiananmen Square could not possibly have been more different from Madame Chiang's. Whereas Soong May-ling seized the moment to denounce the Communist authors of this hideous crime, Peng Liyuan chose to laugh and clap and dance and sing at the deaths of thousands of Chinese at the hands of the People's "Liberation" Army.

(Peng Liyuan, entertaining PLA troops after the Tiananmen Massacre. Unlike Elvis, she don't look "all shook up". Thousands of Chinese murdered? Time to par-tay!
Image from the International Business Times)

So we come once more back to the original question: Does David Kan Ting of Taiwan's China Post take pleasure in innocent Chinese being mowed down by automatic machine gun fire?

Given Dave's rather eclectic choice of heroes, the best that can be said is that the answer is...inconclusive.

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✵ Contra to Ting, Madame Chiang Kai-shek has ALSO been hailed by Taiwan's democratic opposition as, "the most evil woman to wield any kind of power during that bleak 100 years [ie: the 20th Century] and that her influence on almost anything she touched was corrupting and malign."

But I digress. My goal here is not to investigate Soong May-ling's place in history, but to ascertain her attitude concerning the Tiananmen Massacre.

† Since the China Post does not have online archives extending as far back as 1989, this is a second-hand quote by Soong May-ling, from a source whose reliability is suspect (to say the very least!)

Nevertheless, the quotes are in keeping with another (more reliable) second-hand source, so I therefore regard them as authentic.

David Kan Ting ♥Loves Peng Liyuan - Butcheress Of Beijing

(or, “The Drivel Comes Just In Time”)

The main title exaggerates slightly: China's current first lady, Peng Liyuan, didn't personally butcher any Chinese at Tiananmen Square. That we know of...

No, she merely gave a big pat on the back and issued a hearty, "Job well done!" to the Communist stormtroopers who did.

The AP has the story:

A photo of China's new first lady Peng Liyuan in younger days, singing to martial-law troops following the 1989 bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, flickered across Chinese cyberspace this week.

It was swiftly scrubbed from China's Internet before it could generate discussion online. But the image — seen and shared by outside observers — revived a memory the leadership prefers to suppress and shows one of the challenges in presenting Peng on the world stage as the softer side of China.

(Elsewhere, a commenter saw this picture of Peng singing in front of the PLA after its merry massacre, and suggests she was either crooning "I've Got A Crush On You" or "Tanks For The Memories".
Image from the International Business Times)

Meanwhile, David Kan Ting of Taiwan's pro-Communist China Post earlier this week beclowned himself by breathlessly praising the bestial Peng. A sampling of quotes:

China's new first lady was as graceful and glamorous as a supermodel when she emerged from Air China's 747 jetliner...
--David Kan Ting, The China Post, Wed Mar 27, 2013

Peng Liyuan captivated millions of fans the moment she stepped into the international limelight. Wearing a smile and dressed in a simple black peacoat, she waved...
--David Kan Ting, The China Post, Wed Mar 27, 2013

She is the United Nations ambassador for health, working to stamp out the scourge of AIDS. It seems that she possesses every quality necessary for accomplishing the daunting mission before her.
--David Kan Ting, The China Post, Wed Mar 27, 2013
[Evidently, soullessness is now a UN job prerequisite. -- The Foreigner]

The star of Peng Liyuan is rising, to the ecstasy of her people at home who have never felt so proud in their lives. Some bloggers described her as “elegant and magnificent,” while others gushed over her “talents and beauty.”
--David Kan Ting, The China Post, Wed Mar 27, 2013
[Tell us, Dave, for we really must know: Is she more elegant than magnificent...or more magnificent than she is elegant? Only a dedicated truth-seeker such as yourself can ever hope to be impartial enough to solve this baffling mystery. --The Foreigner]

It seems that the fever about Peng Liyuan is not going to recede any time soon, and rightly so.
--David Kan Ting, The China Post, Wed Mar 27, 2013
[Ting's got a fever, and the only prescription...is more Chinese corpses. --The Foreigner]

Now with the godsend [represented by Peng Liyuan's very existence], it's worth the long wait.
--David Kan Ting, The China Post, Wed Mar 27, 2013

Whoa, Dave, take a saltpeter or something. Not to run you down or anything, but I haven't seen analysis this objective since last week's hard-hitting expose on Justin Bieber.

In Tiger Beat magazine...

(To paraphrase an old Cajun, drag some Communist advertorial money through a trailer park, and you never know what'll turn up. Or get written down...)

David Ting began his slobbery fanboi column by humming an old Taiwanese tune from the '80s titled, "The Drizzle Comes Just In Time." (Drizzle being a good thing, Ting informs us, especially after a period of a long drought.)

Well, it might come as a surprise, but I, too, cannot help humming a tune from the '80s when I now think of Peng Liyuan. Granted, it's not nearly as famous as Ting's -- just some obscure song by a little-known band that never went anywhere. Maybe you've heard of it though.

It's called, Another One Bites The Dust.

Given that China's new first lady, Peng Liyuan, publicly supported the massacre of thousands of her own countrymen, it seems entirely appropriate. (And as an added bonus, it's even got lyrics about machine guns, bullets and dead men dropping like flies as well.)

Now THAT'S authenticity. (No matter how hard Tiananmen Massacre denialist Tsai Eng-meng tries to bluff fools into believing otherwise).

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Postscript: Other '80s songs which could serve as lietmotifs for China's bloodthirsty first lady ogress:

1. Hit Me With Your Best Shot -- Pat Benetar
2. Cold-Hearted Snake -- Paula Abdul
3. I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight -- Cutting Crew
4. It's A Sin -- Pet Shop Boys
5. Wipeout -- Fat Boys & Beachboys
6. What Have You Done For Me Lately? -- Janet Jackson
7. Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone -- Glass Tiger
8. Everybody Wants To Rule The World -- Tears for Fears
9. A View To A Kill -- Duran Duran
10. Eyes Without A Face -- Billy Idol
11. An Innocent Man -- Billy Joel
12. Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? -- Culture Club
13. Der Kommissar -- After the Fire
14. Back On The Chain Gang -- The Pretenders
15. Overkill -- Men at Work
16. Hard To Say I'm Sorry -- Chicago
17. Hurts So Good -- John Cougar Mellencamp
18. Stop Draggin' My Heart Around -- Stevie Nicks
19. Guilty -- Barbara Streisand & Barry Gibb
20. [Don't!] Do That To Me One More Time -- Captain & Tennille
21. Cruel Summer -- Bananarama

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UPDATE: One wonders what '80s song Fang Zheng recalls when thinking about Peng Liyuan?

Having been "liberated" from his legs by the tank treads of an "elegant" and "magnificent" PLA panzer, Fang no doubt bitterly remembers the Pet Shop Boys' What Have I Done To Deserve This?

No word yet from David Ting on whether Fang Zheng wore a pair of absolutely FABULOUS designer prosthetics to the inauguration of Peng Liyuan's husband. They must've been simply to-die-for though, right Dave?

(Image from The Independent)

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UPDATE (Mar 29/13): In his opinion column, Ting favorably compares China's first ogress to Raisa Gorbachev. A more apt comparison might be to Asma al-Assad.

Like Peng Liyuan, Asma too was the subject of journalistic puff pieces -- which were quietly withdrawn out of sheer embarrassment once her husband began massacring Syrians.

(Asma al-Assad: No longer a "Rose in the Desert" - but still a cute piece of tail in a skirt. Image from GulfNews.com.)

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UPDATE #2: All copies of Vogue's infamous "A Rose In The Desert" article have apparently been scrubbed from the internet, save for this one on a Bashar al-Assad fan-site run by an employee of the (ahem!) Syrian State News Agency living in Rome. As for the profile's author, Joan Juliet Buck, she regrets ever writing it.

Fun fact: an American lobbying firm was paid $5,000 a month by the Syrian government to get the obsequious Vogue portrayal published.