Saturday, April 01, 2006

Taiwaner of the Week



The Chinese Alligator

With all the controversy over Pandas not being allowed into Taiwan, I was surprised that this little story went unreported. Chinese Alligator lizards debut at Taipei zoo.I was also confused as to why the Panda hating Chen Shui-bian could accept alligators and not pandas? Alligators are slimy and dangerous while pandas are cute and cuddly. Did Annette Lu secretly go to Beijing to make a deal to get these endangered little gators? How could the KMT (who really love endangered species) have missed the boat.

I was shocked to find out that these are ABC or GBC alligators. While ethnically Chinese these little guys were born in Nurenberg, Germany. So I guess they aren't as important as an endangered mainlander animal like the Panda. They may also face descrimination like other ABCs in Taiwan. It did take some time to get the little gators into Taiwan. Taiwan finally alllowed the Chinese Alligator lizards when the Nurenberg Zoo finally agreed to export them to Taiwan and not Taiwan, Province of China Bejing should take note. It was that easy, not very difficult at all. We can all learn from the Chinese Alligator.

Update: Big Ell and the China Post have been had. This story doesn't appear to be true. Read the comments for a more detailed explanation. Thank you Echo!

6 comments:

Sunrise said...

www.poohat.blogspot.com

LINK ME YOU WANKER!!!

Anonymous said...

Did you overlook the way that Chinese government play this game?

Transfer of endangered speciese needs the liscence, which is signed between 2 sovereignty countries.

Chinese government said, ok, to make it easier, we don't need to go through all those complex processes.

What will it end up with, if Taiwan gives in and accepts it ?? A transfer of panda BETWEEN 2 PROVINCES in the same country !! That's the whole trick !

With the situation so tense, and especially facing >800 misiles from Taiwan, I believe everything between two sides is political.

Besides, the so-called "Chinese Alligators" are not from China after all. It just happened to have the name !!!

Anonymous said...

Btw, Ell, I'll have to challenge the authenticity of the news that you quote (
Alligator lizards debut at Taipei zoo
)

First of all, Taiwan media didn't broadcast it.

You should have known how Taiwan media works by now. If there's such a news, they would have used it to attack the government.

Secondly, searching over the net in English (keyword: "Chinese alligator" Taipei) returns nothing relevant; and searching in Chinese results in only two posts that were written by the same person: [1] [2]

These 2 articles were published 4 days before the one you quoted. It's well possible that the news you quoted used these 2 as their source.

Now, check out the [1]. The author 張瀛之 attached the photos he took. The animal inside the photo is clearly not alligator. He claimed that "Chinese Alligator" is not an alligator but a lizard. He actually translated the name to "Chinese Alligator Lizard" in chinese. Any quick search over the net will reveal what he said is a lie.

I don't know what you think about this. It's well-known to Taiwanese that Taiwan media is good at fabricating news story for particular political propaganda. To me this is a very typical one.

If you can read chinese, you might want to check this out: 與媒體對抗. There are tons of reports for fabricating news.

Anyway, do a little research before you side with news like that. Taiwanese have a saying: "News have to be read up-side-down" Whatever news says, it's quite possible that the truth lies in the opposite.

Anonymous said...

Ell,

(1) The photo that the Taiwanese reporter showed was "Alligator Lizard", not "Alligator"

(2) The photo that you showed is "Chinese Alligator", not "alligator lizard"

(3) I can't find any info on "Chinese Alligator Lizard". Obviously this term doesn't exist until chinapost used it for this news.

Big Ell said...

Echo: Thanks for the information I posted an update. I do understand how the Chinese government works. I was just trying to be sarcastic. I know why the government won't take the Pandas. I also understand the sovereignty issues. My point was that all things were resolved when they the licensing was between two governments. i am also gald that you challenged my authenticity. Someone should and i usually don't. I guess I shouldn't use the China Post anymore. Mind you they do have some funny stuff even if it isn't true.

Unknown said...

Echo, It's the Gentle Rant here. I occasionally sit in as moderator on these forums. While I applaud your positively anal fact checking skills, I would caution you on the use of multiple exclamation points. They can be taken as rudeness and have always been one of the initial signs of brainrot. You should probaly book a little 'quality time' with your favorite 'counselor'. Same goes for poohat's triple usage at the top, but that's something we all already knew about. By the way, I was employing sarcasm, as well!!!?!!?!???