Fieldnotes From History (46)—Provincial Elections-g

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (25 June 2011)—Le Tour de la France: The Shoemaker Works

[a] Multitudes 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] Fissures 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
This note starts to get more deeply into analysis and even opinion. No one ever said that fieldnotes should be free of the latter, but the former is always most welcome. In this case, it came time to get some perspective on the seemingly constant drumbeat in the media that elections such as these could "only" happen on Taiwan, and that the mainland was a place of backwardness, heavy-handedness, and bureaucracy. Remember that it was still three years before 1989; that year's events would show a fairly significant contrast between the two systems, but they hadn't happened yet. My only point in writing this note was to show the limits of "democracy" in a political entity that was still—if only technically—in a state of martial law. Difficult though it may be to see, there is not a political agenda behind these musings.

To this day, I tend to see the events of 1985 much the way I did back then. First, I felt that the elections were, indeed, significant, and showed a serious attempt to open the political system to groups that had not been represented in the past. Although Taiwan's democratic voyage has been a rocky one, it is very difficult to dispute that these first steps taken in 1985 did, in fact, lead to real structural and cultural change. Second, and in contrast to the first, I felt at the time—and still do today—that there was a strong tendency on the part of the press and people with whom I talked to overstate the dramatic changes these elections represented. They were mostly local, and they were limited. The temptation to draw great, overarching contrasts with the People's Republic, I felt, only detracted from the real significance of these events. Finally, and as I have mentioned, there was martial law. It hadn't gone away, yet almost no one spoke of it. This seemed disingenuous in the extreme, and I would point it out today just as strongly as I did then.

[c] Potential RF

Events have proven everyone "right" in one way or another. I am just about as comfortable with my analysis now as I was then, even though I would put emphases in slightly different places. The growth of democratic institutions in the Republic of China has been impressive, and is as strong as almost anywhere in Asia. Finally, the People's Republic, for all of the critiques heaped upon it from across the Taiwan Strait...has managed to make a place for itself in the world these days. You might have noticed it.

What does it all mean? This is history and culture, people. And I'm not Hegel.

Notes

[1] Comparison to the PRC dominated then much more than it does today in the ROC's internal media discussions. In some ways, the 1985 election brought all of the comparative rhetoric to a head, and resulted in a great deal of chiding of the PRC in editorials and news articles.

[2] The height of contrast-drawing occurred (as I have noted) three years later, in the wake of the events of Tiananmen in 1989. The groundwork for the "free" v.s. "forced" rhetoric that dominated news stories throughout 1989 (and beyond) was laid, I feel, in the very coverage I was assessing in these fieldnotes.

[d] Range RF

[3] I read the government-run 中央日報 every day during this stretch—it is the source of a number of my quotations and references in these notes. In fact, I regularly bought five or six newspapers during the elections. Yet it was only for the government paper that I got much response. I recall looks of incredulity-bordering-on-disgust on the faces of everyone from news stand operators to patrons in the coffee shops that were beginning to dot Taipei at the time. One person asked "why would you buy that piece of garbage?" I explained that I wanted to read and hear a wide range of opinions, including the government's. Most people just shrugged, but there was a good deal of skepticism about that particular newspaper.

__________________________________________

15 February 1986
Taipei
Elections in the Republic of China cannot really be compared with those on the Chinese mainland. Within their tightly controlled sphere, elections on Taiwan are free and open; those held on the mainland remain rigidly controlled at all levels. The Republic of China feels it has a right, and many would agree, to compare its democratic institutions favorably with those in the People's Republic. No theme is so prevalent throughout the year—throughout, in fact, the entire history of the Republic of China on Taiwan. The Nationalist government on Taiwan busily compares itself, its economy, and its election practices with those of its northern neighbors. Although some rhetoric addresses issues of world democracy and the ROC's place in it, most people I talk to (and the tone of most press coverage) feel that the only comparison which should be made is that between the “two Chinas.” 

The Republic of China on Taiwan holds free and fair elections, among the most democratic in the non-Western world. But elections on Taiwan are still not a “right” of the people. Elections are granted by the government; they are a privilege, and they are spoken of (especially in the Guomindang-run 中央日報) as incremental steps that might be furthered if people act correctly. The electorate is warned that its privileges will be withdrawn if it does not act responsibly, and this seems not to be an idle threat. Although it is not mentioned often in the press (and almost never in conversation), the island is still under martial law. Elections, while significant, cannot yet have the full force of "the people" behind them. This is the reality of martial law, whether muted in tone or not.

[e] Overarching 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

Fieldnotes From History (45)—Provincial Elections-f

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (24 June 2011)—Beginnings: Argonauts of the Western Pacific

[a] Shrouded 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] Adrift 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
This was another "easy" fieldnote to write, but it is no less significant for me...for all that. You see, these snippets from various newspapers—almost all of them lost over the years—help me piece together threads of the situation that were "obvious" back then...and less so now. If my fieldnotes only contained my own analysis, I would be lacking at least a little bit of what I have now with these references to published material.

Don't get me wrong. There is a tension here. If fieldnotes amount only to a typing-up of quotations from newspapers, they will lack the analytical and interactive immediacy I will need from them in my later writing. I can certainly imagine a scenario in which quotation becomes too much of a good thing. I once knew a graduate student who, while reading a monograph, would type up many tens of pages of direct quotations as preparation for her eventual papers. Yes, I got the general point, but wondered what was lost in the process. Certain enthusiasts and raconteurs of the note-taking process (I am thinking of Jacques Barzun) go so far as to say that full quotations that are not "processed" by the writer's own mind are close to worthless.

In my own fieldnotes I have come to see it as one of the many little tensions between making a significant contribution to my understanding, on the one hand, and just pushing the pen across the paper (or fingers across the keyboard), on the other. In short, quotations need to be there to help, but too many just amount to busywork. Finding the balance is just one of the little "games" being played by the diligent note-taker, and I was just getting started in those days.

[c] Municipality RF

Notes
[1] It's hard to argue with the main point here. Concerns about international perceptions wove their ways through every aspect of the campaigns. This article (I believe it was from the main "government" paper at the time, the 中央日報 (Central Daily News), gets right to the point: "we" are being watched.

[2] Note the tone of the last paragraph quoted in the article. It is a golden opportunity to "show" people in the People's Republic what "genuine democracy" looks like. Remember that, at this time, martial law had not yet been lifted (that would come in 1987) and these elections concerned municipalities and a fledgling legislature. Full "top-to-bottom" voting on all offices was still some time away.

_____________________________________________________

15 February 1986
Taipei
These high-sounding, sometimes shrill, media themes overlay an additional, more ominous, warning that the elections were being watched very carefully from abroad. This belied the real need for elections on Taiwan: international legitimacy. The Republic of China is isolated diplomatically, and negative publicity is a fear that is echoed throughout the press.

          You should also realize that the 1985 election is being watched by free 

          people everywhere, including some election observers from the U.S., to 
          test the degree of freedom and democracy in the Republic of China ... 

          Clean, fair, and orderly elections without violence will heighten our prestige 
          in the democratic world, serving as a model of democracy, and provide a 
          sharp contrast with the lack of such elections on the Chinese mainland under 
          the Chinese Communist’s tyrannical rule ...

          The people of the Republic of China will have a golden opportunity to show 
          the people of the Chinese mainland that genuine democracy and free elections 
          are being carried out on this island bastion, where each citizen has a voice in       
          choosing mayors, magistrates, or legislators to serve the nation on his behalf.

[d] Genuine 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

Fieldnotes from History (44)—Provincial Elections-e

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (23 June 2011)—Displays of Authenticity: Passwords

[a] Official

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.

[b] Encounter RF

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.  

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
This fieldnote was also pretty easy to write, since it mostly came from information in the China Post, Taiwan's main English language newspaper. One thing I learned quite early on was that (like all writing) fieldnotes need a balance of new information and "context." Another thing that I have rarely encountered in the study of anthropology (the theme of this series might be Rare Encounters of an Ethnographic Kind) is a full-throated discussion of the little matter of context. It is one thing to meld "information" and "context" into an essay, a lecture, or even a letter. It is quite another thing to separate little chunks of culture into fieldnotes. Think about it. Almost anything you might "explain," from how to pay at the pump for your gas to the meaning of "triple-double" in basketball, requires you to go into a little "background." All writing, on some level, provides a balance between these two matters.

I won't go further into my reasons for keeping each fieldnote relatively brief, since I did that in detail the other day. Suffice to say that I was just starting to get the hang of it back then, and was trying as hard as I could to balance the need for new information about the sights, sounds, and ad hominem charges dotting the election landscape with examples from Chinese history and culture whenever I could. This note falls somewhere in-between. It is a "context" note that goes right to the concerns and even fears being voiced by powers beyond the ordinary citizen. "We have to get this right," the news accounts kept saying. "The world is watching."

[c] Audience RF

The latter statement was only partly true. Most of the world wasn't paying much attention. There was a small article in The Economist, and only the East Asian versions of Time and Newsweek provided information. In other words, the provincial elections in Taiwan were mostly a local—and even provincial—affair. As we'll see in the next few days, though, there was one more audience out there that loomed above almost all others. Addressing, arguing with, and tweaking it was a theme that dominated almost all election coverage that month. That audience? The People's Republic of China.

Notes
[1] The China Post is a peculiarly interesting source for audience-focused information on Taiwan. Reading the Post side-by-side with Chinese language newspapers was a cultural experience in its own right. It was not so much a matter of "good" or "bad" coverage as sensitivity to audience. The Post never forgot its international readership, and coverage of the election—as can be seen in the segment below—played to a diverse crowd that included Europeans, Americans, Asians from other countries, and (let us not forget) readers in Taiwan who could handle the language level of the paper.

[d] Control RF

[2] The "self-control" issue is worth underlining here, as well. This election—as well as subsequent ones (not to mention council and parliamentary sessions)—developed a following on the evening news all over the world. The tendency for democratic debate to turn to fisticuffs was something that worried many of my friends in Taiwan at the time, and that theme persists in the editorials I was reading. Saving electoral face, as it were, was a major theme in the coverage.

_____________________________________________________

15 February 1986

Taipei
As the election fortnight got underway, Taiwan’s newspapers—both Chinese and English—followed the government line, urging voters to be responsible and to keep in mind the importance of elections to the Republic of China. The uniformity of editorial opinion within daily papers was surprising in a society with a reasonably free press. Commenting upon the scope of the elections, as well as their importance, the English language China Post urged candidates and voters to exhibit self-control during the election season.

          The 1985 election campaign provides the opportunity to prove to free 

          people everywhere that we can practice democracy in freedom and 
          uphold our Constitution and democratic institutions. On the other hand, 
          we must also watch out for some sinister elements causing incidents to 
          mar the election campaign. In that regard, we should beware of Chinese 
          communists and pro-Communist elements stirring up trouble in various 
          cities and localities in the next ten days.

Speaking of voters’ “sacred responsibilities” (tellingly misspelled “scared”), the China Post ran editorials throughout the election period calling for responsible and just elections. Elections are sporadic in Taiwan, and the government’s—and newspapers’—emphasis during those ten days in November lay in educating the electorate to be responsible. “You should not permit yourselves to be swayed by any considerations except that of electing a person who is honest, capable of serving the nation patriotically and energetically and with unshaken integrity as a public servant,” urged the Post. 

[e] S(c/a)red 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

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

The Real Ideal (2)—North Dakota Property Taxes

One year ago on Round and Square (21 June 2011)—Middles: The Tempest
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Real Ideal."

[a] Proprietary RF

Ideal Estates and Wheeler Realers

I'll bet I know your answer to a basic question about the particular personality and cultural configurations of a distinctive American state. Seriously. I am pretty sure that I know how you'll answer this. Take a breath and consider:

Are North Dakotans realists?

[b] Spring RF

Just hold your thought for a while. North Dakotans live in a big state with three electoral votes. It has three percent unemployment, and is now the second biggest producer of oil in the United States. That's Texas big...almost. Now let's consider another basic fact of North Dakota life. I have mentioned it before on these pages, and it won't go away. It is called:

Forty below zero.

Forty below works with Fahrenheit and Celsius, and my pal Ray Bradbury might well have considered what temperatures like that do for civic behavior. In fact, he might have found that they seem to be quite good for it. Weather that cold keeps the virtues in and the riffraff out. Around the clock and twirling through the calendar, hardy immigrants from Scandinavia slowly ground out an existence on terrain that was frozen practically to the mantle in the winter, but brought forth fruitful bounty come summer and autumn. They came to realize that the thick, black soil of the Red River Valley—awash regularly with enriching flood waters—was the best in the world. They turned their stern, formidable fjord-traversing energies to cutting trees down to the horizon and picking many tons of boulders from the soil. It was smooth and fecund agricultural sailing after, say, a century of tilling and rock picking.

Pretty damned realistic, huh? Sorry. Darned. 

Well, or not... What kind of realist lives in a snowed-in sod hut for six months of the year and creates mammoth boulder piles amidst acres of dark black soil? This is a far cry from nature's bounty—from natural man, as Rousseau might tell it, dipping his ladle into the cornucopial delights of a world swimming with abundance. When you really think about it, really mull it over, that hardy-yet-reserved Norwegian just might be...an idealist. Who'd a thunk it?

[c] Property thrashes RF

I have been thinking a great deal about North Dakota realism and idealism these days, and have had a good chance to consider some actual numbers in these matters. You see, North Dakota had a primary election last Tuesday. Even as senatorial and house candidates received nominations and scores of municipalities held referenda on everything from zoning laws to engine-braking ordinances, a bigger issue—an ideological one making waves far beyond the shores of the Red River—was on the ballot. It had to do with property, and how much, if any, citizens were willing to be taxed.

If any? 

This sounds even more dramatic than Proposition 13. And it is true. North Dakotans last Tuesday had the opportunity to become the first state in the nation's history to abolish the property tax. None, gone, nada. You bought the farm (so to speak); now you really own it. "Government" can't ever take it away just for a little offense like not supporting your neighborhood schools and sanitation facilities in the form of a property tax. In rode Ron Paul on his shining Libertarian stallion, exhorting the voters to start something big that would reverberate throughout the countryside. Grover Norquist, the Thor of taxation Valhalla, weighed in, too. Numerous lesser lights added their voices from near (Bismarck, Dickinson, Wahpeton) and far (Sacramento, Corpus Christi, Trenton). Behind the din was a powerful, tympanic refrain: 

The oil money will take care of it.

[d] Black gold, Texas tea RF

 So there it was on the ballot. You own property and your very vote (combined with several hundred thousand others) could mean that you never pay the government for it again. Ever. They flocked to the polls last Tuesday in near-record numbers for a primary. This was big stuff...

...and now I repeat the question. Are North Dakotans realists? Your answer will go a long way toward understanding what we mean by these thorny little words, real and ideal. I am not sure that everyone will agree, even when I give you the next bit of information. I leave the rest to you. Feel free to comment. We are just getting started on this whole real/ideal business.

North Dakota voters rejected the measure by a 3-1 margin. North Dakotans said, in effect, "keep taxing us on the property we own." It might not be too much of a stretch to interpret the voice of the voters along these lines: "we need a little government out here in these parts."

Realists? Idealists? A little bit of both? Think about it. Fox and MSNBC haven't been very subtle on these matters. That's our job here on Round and Square.

[e] Votin' RF

Fieldnotes from History (42)—Provincial Elections-c

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."
One year ago today on Round and Square (20 June 2011)—Leaving the Fieldsite (Arctic Circle, 1964)

[a] Cleansing 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.

[b] Tumult RF

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. 

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
This fieldnote plays right off of its cross-indexed sibling, yesterday's note. Just to be certain that I am not misunderstood, I trust that readers will realize that I wrote many fieldnotes during my working sessions, and learned to "break" them in the manner that appears on these blog posts. I did not, it should be clear, write one a day. That is just the way that they are posted on Round and Square, allowing me to get into a little bit of the nitty-gritty with the various paragraphs of observation or interpretation.

This remains one of my favorite fieldnotes from that early research period in Taiwan. I don't mean to argue that it is "good" as much as that it contains a blend of observation, outside reading (newspapers), and even "reporting." O.k., the reportage was limited to a discussion with my sixth-grade English students from a little side-job I had taken on. Still, it gives a feel for the adversarial tumult of the election in a way that I have not matched in most of my other notes. 

[c] Practice RF

Notes 
[1] I had an exciting fortnight in November 1985 reading newspapers. All of them were filled to their maximum of eight pages (total) with coverage of the elections (before martial law was lifted in 1987, newspapers were limited to eight pages).

[2] I learned pinyin Romanization first, and was not terribly comfortable with the Wade-Giles system popular in Taiwan until I started graduate school, when I finally mastered it. My original fieldnotes have pinyin Romanization for most names, although I routinely kept the Wade-Giles form for cities such as Kaohsiung, Keelung, Taichung, Taipei, and so forth. Much of the text below came from my reading of the Chinese newspapers, and writing pinyin was automatic for me. It was harder to deal with English language materials, but my Wade-Giles was getting better. This accounts for some of the off-kilter Romanization.

_____________________________________________________

15 February 1986

Taipei
Far from being a dead practice, the 1985 election campaign was filled with reports of candidates going to temples, swearing off graft and corruption, and chopping off chicken heads. Jing Guokai, a government-endorsed candidate for mayor of Jilong (a city of 500,000 in northern Taiwan), brought four chickens and a stainless steel knife to a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Jilong. He asked his opponents to vow to avoid graft and corruption during the campaign, and to show their sincerity by beheading a chicken. His opponents declined, adding that the practice was a “bloody and cruel gimmick, designed only for publicity.”  

Mr. Jing went on with the ceremony, anyway. A newspaper photograph the following day had Mr. Jing standing erect, holding a small silver knife in the air, a chicken on the table in front of him. Over his shoulders was draped a banner with eight characters, meaning “Buddha is in my heart.”  There was, alas, probably more Buddha in the chicken’s head. His act of sacrifice, it was widely noted, violated Buddhism’s injunction against killing any living creatures. 

Interested in this practice, I asked my students if, after cutting off the head of a snowy-white chicken in a temple, a candidate could be believed. One said ‘yes’, six said ‘maybe’, and twenty-seven said ‘no.’  Two just laughed. 

[d] Sincerity, serenity 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