Rio bum in Kenting

Well, first of all, I have to thank you all. There are more and more people from interesting places visiting this blog. I don't know how people from Cambodia or Venezuela know my blog. But....Hi, you guys!

I was busy doing my part-time translator job for National Geography Channel at night. So I failed to update my blog these days. Please forgive me. I didn't know some of you check the updates here so often. I put up some pics that I took just last weekend when I visit Kenting with some other friends. Kenting is almost my second hometown. I spent 1/3 year there when I was 20. That summer I worked as a waiter in Chateau, a luxury beach hotel in Kenting. Then I worked in Chez PaPa, an exotic French restaurant. I met lots of people at that time, learned how to make Latte, Cappuccino, Vodka lime, and all kinds of Belgium beers. I was a sophomore student of Taiwan University. It's hard for others to imagine a young NTU guy would do things like this. And....ALL BY MYSELF! I think I'm the kind of guy chasing my dream by all means.

Anyway, I visited Kenting again last weekend. It changes a lot. More shops and visitors. I change, too. I'm no longer the naive young man. I had several unsuccessful relationship. I got an MBA degree. I trained my body well. I traveled to many land that the naive young Pon would never know he will step on it ever.

Things change, people change too. Who knows what the old Pon would think of when he visit Kenting 5 years later?

弔詭的台灣式族群平等

最近台灣發生的一些事情，讓我不得不來抒發一下心裡的想法，各位看官看看就好。

就先不說咱們台灣一直號稱自己有多元文化，多族群的國家，在國際上看來，其實台灣就像日本、韓國一樣都是單一種族的地方，基本上都是由華人/漢人組成的國家，偏偏我們愛以出生地作為劃分，所以分出了外省人、台灣人、客家人等等基本上「組間變異小」的族群。

昨天王金平說了一句話，他說國民黨的「恩庇侍從體制」特徵之一，就是「以少數族群的政治菁英控制中央政權，持續統治多數族群平民」，所以他質疑外省馬英九選總統的正當性，加上民進黨三不五時就愛說外省人怎樣怎樣，外來政權怎樣怎樣，這讓我不禁思考之前在美國的所見所聞，跟各位分享拙見。

所謂族群平等、平權，就應該是指「每個人不論種族、出身、性別等，都有相同的權利」，白話一點說，就是不管你是黑人、拉丁人、亞裔還是白人，美國當作你是一個「美國公民」，給所有人一樣公民的權利，我一開始在美國時，老實說還是習慣用台灣的思維，看到韓裔的就一直稱他Korean，跟他聊韓國的事情，跟他說韓文，看到什麼人都會先分清楚他是哪一國人，但其實對方一直會說他自己是American，這常讓我自己感到不好意思，感覺我在用自己的小鼻子小眼睛來衡量美國這個大熔爐。尤其可能當我一直稱呼為Korean的朋友竟然連韓文都不會說，也沒有常見的Kim這種韓文姓，而是Colton這種光看字面看不出來的姓，我那時的窘境真的是直逼哈薩客的Borat！

回到台灣，如果說我們口口聲聲宣稱自己追求族群平等，還煞有其事的制訂了族群平等法，卻在潛意識裡認為少數族群不能領導多數族群，或我們不能讓某種族群領導，這真是匪夷所思、而且可笑至極，試問你所謂的平等在哪裡？在美國你敢說「我認為黑人不適合當總統，因為我認為少數族裔不適合領導其他多數族裔」嗎？，這實在令人心寒啊！