Taiwan gets a little bit more modernMarch 31st, 2008 by Roy Berman |
 |
A ban on poultry slaughter in traditional markets will take effect on Tuesday as originally scheduled, National Science Council Chairman Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said yesterday. “Despite protests by poultry vendors who fear that the ban will affect their livelihood, the policy will go into effect on April 1, and all chicken, geese and ducks should then be slaughtered at licensed abattoirs,” Chen said. But as some complementary measures have yet to be completed, the government will postpone enforcement, originally scheduled for Oct. 1, for three to six months, he said. Chen, who concurrently serves as convener of a Cabinet bird flu epidemic prevention task force, said that preparatory work, such as setting up electric slaughter houses, disinfecting facilities at the abattoirs and launching a food safety publicity drive, is yet to be completed.
I may not exactly be in the habit of buying freshly slaughtered whole chickens at the market (or, for that matter, cooking) I am still mildly and inexplicably saddened at the fact that I will no longer have the opportunity should I once again live in Taiwan.
March 31st, 2008 at 3:34 am
“I may not exactly be in the habit of buying freshly slaughtered whole chickens at the market (or, for that matter, cooking) I am still mildly and inexplicably saddened at the fact that I will no longer have the opportunity should I once again live in Taiwan.”
And that, my friend, is how one becomes a conservative: irrational sadness in response to changes in tradition. Welcome aboard.
March 31st, 2008 at 3:36 am
I once read that it is the ageing hippies that are the “true” conservatives as they have not changed their ideas to meet the times…..
March 31st, 2008 at 6:22 am
Tell that to the” Dankai”babyboomers here,Jade.
March 31st, 2008 at 9:42 am
By that definition, everybody has a little conservative in them. And for that matter, by the counterpoint definition of a liberal as someone who wants to irrationally change something that works for the sake of change itself, everybody also has a little liberal in them.
March 31st, 2008 at 9:47 am
Jade, on that note I had a professor once explain to me that the reason people in Kyoto still vote Communist is due to their inherent conservatism. It takes a moment of thought to wrap your head around: “this LDP is just a fad!”
April 1st, 2008 at 2:55 am
Hmm. Not knowing much about Kyoto politics, of course, but the LDp has its roots in the Seiyukai, and that has its roots in Japan’s first PM, so that strikes me as the conservative fallback. Mind you, the Seiyukai were the party of the landowners rather than the urban bourgeoisie, and perhaps the influx of manual workers into Kyoto, plus the universities, made it a hotbed of Communist thought and support.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:59 am
I mean conservative in the sense of temperament and tradition rather than left/right political leaning. As in, they are so conservative that they continue to vote for the long-failed Communists even when everyone else has moved on, because they’ve been voting for them for decades.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:41 am
Yes, I know what you mean, which is why I referred to the age of the LDP via the Seiyukai. Of course the two are connected – they’d need to be Conservative to vote for the Seiyukai, and conservative to keep doing do (so if they weren’t Conservative enough to vote for the Seiyukai in the first place they obviously wouldn’t keep doing so). I was basically wondering why the people of Kyoto vote for the commies when there are older parties – though perhaps the name changes of the others confuse them….