The Warlords (投名狀); Radio Taiwan International Speech Competition Fiasco

So I think "The Warlords" lived up to the hype. I saw it last night and it was amazing, 很感動。An extremely intense movie.

There were definitely some parts that were overly dramatic and corny and sometimes on the verge of comical (i.e., when Takeshi Kaneshiro kept saying, "大哥是對的”). But overall it was a very passionate, brutal, EPIC film on so many levels. I would describe it as "300" but with substance.

The only thing is most of the females in our group did not seem to like it. They said the movie had too much violence, murder and betrayal. I thought the movie was gruesome, intense, and moving. It definitely got the testosterone pumping in my veins. I felt really pumped up afterwards. The themes of brotherhood really resonated with me as well.

There were also lots of great Chinese quotes that used 文言文, so I don't remember them but I'd like to learn them and then say a lot of the phrases at applicable moments in real life haha. I'm definitely going to see it again with my good buddies next time since I saw it with my classmates this time.



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I was wondering whether to post this but I might as well. So against my better judgment I decided to join ANOTHER speech contest despite the previous horrendous results. In my case, 上一次當，學一次乖 doesn't apply. Well, I didn't even think about it until on Saturday I woke up at 11:30 AM and basically missed my entire makeup class (9-12 class on Sat.) so I was laying in bed and remembered that the deadline to apply for the Radio Taiwan International Chinese Speech Contest (aka "Mandarin/Holo Taiwanese/ Hakka Contests [sic] for Foreigners") was that day, January 5th. I thought well it's only 3 minutes long and it's at Shida, plus I could use all the economic vocab terms that I had been learning in class, so I might as well redeem myself for the last speech contest (The topic is "If i was president of Taiwan" or "如果我是台灣總統.") So I faxed my application out as well as e-mailed the information just in case.

I forgot all about it. Then this morning I get woken up by a call from some random lady. She asked if I was 華裔 (hua2yi4), a person of Chinese descent, and I said yes. Then she redundantly asked if my parents were 華裔 I started to say they were American citizens but she seemed to not even want to listen and just said well no I'm asking if they are ethnically Chinese or Taiwanese and I was like of course you dumb bitch (not quite as colorful but the same spirit). Anyways at this point it was clear what she wanted to say. She continued to ask a whole bunch of other questions but it was obvious what she was getting at. I also told her that I had already participated in a Chinese speech competition at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall but she said they had different rules. If I really cared I could have pointed out that nowhere in the rules does it state one cannot be of Chinese descent, since the competition is for foreigners and clearly American citizens (despite their ethnicity) are foreigners in Taiwan. Furthermore, I'm studying Chinese at an institute for learning Mandarin Chinese for chrissake (師大國語中心). So obviously, I'm not proficient in Chinese.

I also told her that I'm not the only ABC (American-born Chinese) to have signed up for this contest since there are a lot of ABCs at Shida. Plus, they never said in the rules that participation is restricted based on race. Eligibility requirements are 3 fold: 1) Foreign workers, spouses, or students who have lied in Taiwan for less than six years 2) Those currently employed Radio Taiwan International are not eligible 3) Participants can register as individuals or groups

So clearly, nowhere in the rules do they bar foreigners of Chinese descent. I didn't bother to tell her but most ABCs can't even speak Chinese. She didn't even ask what generation American I was. I did tell her that a lot of 華裔 probably did apply though since I know at least a Thai 華裔 signed up as well. She responded by saying she will go through the applications and root out those with suspicious last names (non-Anglicized names) and call them to let them know they are barred from participation.

Anyways, I basically was like fine that saved me a lot of time and effort and went back to sleep....but then she called me back. At this point, I was pretty annoyed that she was going to waste my time with more bullshit (廢話 fei4 hua4). Her second call was obviously an attempt to cover her own ass since she probably realized how racist she came across (maybe I'm giving her too much credit I doubt she understands this concept of racism). Anyways, she said something about discussing the issue with her supervisor and how she will discuss it with Shida teachers and get back to me on Monday. At this point I had the urge to just tell her to shove it up her rear but I held my tongue and just said fine.

This is what happens when you let greed cloud rational thinking. Logic and experience told me that this would be a contest such as this but the money and encouragement from teachers and office workers at Shida helped suppress those thoughts. First place prize is 50,000 NTD, 2nd place is 30,000 NTD, and there will be THREE honorable mentions with each receiving 10,000 NTD. Now the odds of winning are extremely high obviously and that's quite a bit of money for very little work. That's what I get for being 貪心 (greedy).

So if she calls on Monday I'll tell her to go fuck herself. More realistically, I'll tell her that even if she allows 華裔 to join their crackpot contest, that obviously 華裔 will be discriminated against during judging (種族歧視 zhong3xu2qi2shi4, racial discrimination). So why would I go through the trouble of drafting a speech and memorizing it and dressing up for the event itself if such was the case?
Well I haven't decided maybe I'll just go with the former.

Yeah I'm gonna thank my teacher and a particular person at the office tomorrow for convincing me to join this speech contest.

I told my friend, Ted G., about this and he said he appalled and said he was going to boycott the contest but then later he said he would just win the contest and dedicate it to me, his 華裔 friend haha. I don't blame him it's a lot of money. Plus he's blonde and 6ft and quite large, so I think based on their standards he has a pretty good chance of taking first.