Fieldnotes From History (43)—Provincial Elections-d

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (22 June 2011)—Seinfeld Ethnography: Chocolate Plus Utensils.

[a] Rhetorical center RF

Click below for other fieldnotes dealing with Taiwan's 1985 provincial elections:
Election 1         Election 2          Election 3          Election 4          Election 5          Election 6
Election 7         Election 8          Election 9          Election 10        Election 11        Election 12

Part of an occasional Round and Square series that follows the blog’s main theme (east meets west, round meets square, and past meets present), these snippets from my early fieldnotes are reproduced as they were written by hand—and then revised on an ancient desktop computer—during my first fieldwork stay in Taiwan (1985-1987).  All entries are the way that I left them when I returned to the United States in 1987—some nicely-stated and some embarrassing. Although the series began with my assumption that the entries can stand alone, I have found that separate comments and notes might help readers understand a world that is now, well, history. These are always separate from the original fieldnote.

The next several dozen entries in this series represent my memories—in the form of fieldnotes that were already well on their way to being letters—of Taiwan's provincial elections in November 1985. I had taken down what I call "jottings" at the time, and "now," two months later, I was ready to get a little bit more detail down in the form of fieldnotes. If you are somewhat unfamiliar with the five-stage process that framed my work habits even back then, it might be worth a quick look at the introduction to this series. Suffice it to say here that in Taiwan in 1985 I was working from "jottings" to "fieldnotes" most of the time. Every month or so, I would write a letter that made it all into a more sustained narrative. Even early on, I realized how powerfully the knowledge that I would be writing letters influenced my fieldnotes. You may see it, too. It has remained my method to this day.

[b] Flurry RF

Like many fieldnotes, these were "written up" (a term I dislike, but am occasionally willing to use) after the fact. I wonder if most students of anthropology know how common this is. The implications for research, eye-witness authenticity, and historiography are numerous. It is a reality that has never gone away for field researchers of all kinds, though, and I suspect that it never will.  

Comment

As I have mentioned in the previous entries for this "mini-series on Taiwan's provincial elections, all of these fieldnotes were written in a flurry of "catch-up" work. On the afternoon of February 15, 1986, I laid out my scraps of jottings, as well as an assortment of newspaper articles (mostly Chinese but with some coverage from the English-language daily) I had clipped and put into a folder two months before. I spread them out on a table and then began writing my fieldnotes. A few days later, I typed them all into my Copam Electronics computer before printing them out in divisible spools of dot-matrix cultural analysis.

This one was "easy." I had seen reports on filial piety as a campaign issue, and my only regret today is that I did not write more at the time. Still, as I have repeated endlessly in these posts, the whole point for me was to get beyond mere memory, folders of scrap paper, and assorted jottings. Even this little note allows me—even today—to think about how I might approach the issue in my current research. Without it, I would have forgotten. I can't think of a better reason to write fieldnotes.

[c] Toehold RF

Filial piety (孝) is one of the most esteemed virtues in Chinese life, and has woven its way as ideal and practice into all aspects of it. That it would become an issue in its own right in the campaigns is both obvious and a little abstruse. It played out, as you might imagine, in ways a bit different from an American charge of "my opponent neglects his parents." Still, even many of my friends in Taiwan found it to be an "odd" issue at the time, and had a hard time articulating for me just why they found this to be the case.

This latter point really should have been a field note of its own, but I never thought to write it down. That point is worth emphasizing here. Something I find more interesting today than the note below never got written. That is because then was then and now is now, and that little point has everything to do with the fieldnote writing process. Because I got a little toehold on the subject here, it opens up the possibility of burrowing further and further into the subject. Even so, we almost never can guess what will interest us two months, two years, or more than two decades later. Just planting a little fieldnote flag in the wilderness is usually enough to stake our intellectual claim to ideas many moons later.

[d] Linkages RF

Notes

[1] What I thought I was saying, and still do, is that negativity is almost "structural" in partisan, democratic politic contests. John Adams thought so, and so did Michael Dukakis. Abraham Lincoln was on-board with that sentiment, too. The manner in which elections get nasty is endlessly fascinating, though. It would repay close ethnographic analysis.

[2] Taichung is a large city in central Taiwan. The campaigning took place throughout the island, but the action in the newspapers tended to center on the major population centers of Keelung (Chi-lung), Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. I have linked a handy map for perusal of these cities.

[3] Note again that these fieldnotes are all over the place with pinyin and Wade-Giles Romanization. They are consistent within the system (I don't think you will find mistakes). Like Taiwan itself (then and now), though, my notes are a mass of unrelated transliteration systems. I think I have a fieldnote on that somewhere (seriously).

[4] Names are left here because they were widely reported (print, radio, and television) and a matter of public record for anyone interested in checking old news files.

_____________________________________________________

15 February 1986

Taipei
The political culture on Taiwan is markedly different from that found in the United States or Europe. Like all societies with elections, however, things got nasty at times. The election had much fare common to Westerners: accusations of misuse of campaign funds, infidelity, buying votes, and the like. But they got nasty in a peculiarly, and culturally-specific, manner.

In Taichung, opposition mayoral candidate Xu Rongshu accused her rival candidate Zhang Zuyuan of having an affair with a city council member who served as his campaign manager during the election. Furious, his alleged lover filed suit in Taichung district court; the candidate himself went to a Daoist temple to swear his innocence.

In something that, except for the free elections, could be taken out of the pages of a Chinese history book, an opposition candidate accused his opponent of failing to pay adequate filial tribute to his parents. Filial piety—respect, love, and care for parents—is one of the most exalted virtues in traditional Chinese society. Even today, such an accusation is very strong. The government’s candidate charged, in reply, that his opponent’s dead father had kept a concubine who gave birth to two children.

[e] Serenity RF

Click below for other fieldnotes dealing with Taiwan's 1985 provincial elections:
Election1          Election 2          Election 3          Election 4          Election 5          Election 6