The Saga Continues...

Michael Turton mentioned this blog's post on the Lindsey Craig fiasco and the '226 protests' that cropped up. Flattered.  The comments were good and all in all, I felt that something good got done.  Here's the comments I posted to his blog:

I have to agree with Michael—great comments on this post.   Whether people agree or disagree, there is much more balanced discussion here than anywhere else on the net.  My faith in humanity has been restored after reading the comments today!

The only reason I blogged about this in the first place was that issues of ‘returnees’ is an interesting one. As Michael said, this is a rarely heard from group, be it Chinese/Taiwanese from other parts of the world or ‘foreigners’ from Taiwan.  

In trying to understand the reason for such a backlash like the protest, did anyone look at the translation on the 226 protest site?  I think it ‘amps up’ a lot of Ms. Craig’s points and exaggerates bias.  I have to say if I relied only on that translation I might be a lot more angry as well.  

Also, if Trevor from Cornwall sees the intent from the article to push these ESL schools in Montreal, we should ask the same question about the intent of the Montreal 226 protest as well.  That their organizers could benefit from such solidarity perhaps might outweigh the reason for the protest itself. (See my comments re: the (legitimate) W5 protest and the creation of the Chinese Canadian National Council) 

Conspiracy theories aside, I agree with a number of other comments on here:  Ms. Craig’s article is (and originally was) a blog post.  It must have been a slow news day and it got pasted to the front page of the community section in Montreal during the weekend.  Now it’s receiving an inordinate amount of backlash from people with nationalist (over)sensitivities and politically correct agendas.

Another very in-depth look at the female perspective was published by Jenna at Lao Ren Cha (老人茶). A very good account--hopefully she won't suffer her own protest. The Gazette should have picked up her story instead.


LWB


UPDATE: Of all the comments I have read on this, one blogger named Julian seemed to hit the nail on the head quite well regarding Ms. Craig's article.  Generally, he had little to complain about in terms of the smells, bugs and road signs. Agreed.  However it was the negative work environments (which I hope to write more about), immigration and crazy bureaucracy that would have been much more worthwhile to bring to the attention of the Gazette's readers.  One can only speculate if the same backlash and protest would have ensued.  (I think it would have.)  I've posted his comment here as it brings things to a close for me, about the article at least:

When I move back home to Canada after 4.5 years here in Kaohsiung and Taipei, 90% of my memories about TW will be good ones. Any complaints I have won't be about smells or chinese or cockroaches, they'll be about shitty work environments, crazy bureaucracy, and bosses that fired me after I tried to legally quit and find a way to make an orderly transition between jobs. 

I think the reason people are so eager to rip on her is that her complaints seem so silly to people who have lived here for years. Road signs, really? It'd be like a Taiwanese person moving to Montreal and being shocked at a few inches of snow. Plenty of people have had horror stories about dealing with bosses or police or immigration here, her complaints are just..... wimpy.