What will be on next year?

The year of 2008, a much anticipated, shiny year, is just less than one month away though I still cannot count the remaining days on my fingers and toes. Soon, it will be the routine New Year resolution poking its head out of its hole.

For the Chinese who are interested in those big-picture things, at least two things are what they’ve been holding their breath for. One is the Olympics games and the other is the political spin-off of Taiwan’s elections.

People like me have been expecting much from and doing much for the big event.

Times’ China Blog reported very unlikely awards presented to Beijing for its improved air quality and cleaned transportation system. To me, these awards are as laughable as when someone tells me he thinks it a good idea to present an award to North Korea for the world’s best fed people. The only plump figures I could see from TV and Internet photo reports about DPRK are Kim the Big Belly and his swine-faced son who had been turned around and asked to go at a Japanese airport.

In Beijing, if you have the luck to enjoy a day of clean air or fresh-looking streets, it might be because it’s rained or blown hard enough, or the Beijing municipal government tests its control over the city’s transportation system by house-arresting even or odd numbered vehicles on an even or odd number calendar day.

Taiwan’s Chen Shui-bian has gone berserk. This Republic of China President is impatient to get rid of his China tag and install in its place a Republic of Taiwan or Formosa. This lawyer-turned politician has very tanned complexion and shifty eyes. Every time I saw him jerking his well-groomed head and brandishing his fist in his public speeches, I recalled Germany’s Adolf Hitler. His manipulative control over the government on Taiwan stirs up everything there. His Democratic Progressive Party and his opponent Kuomintang seem to be busy with presidential elections year after year and the people they may or may not represent are also busy with fighting each other. The people of the Republic of China don’t seem to think they are Chinese. At least these are what the media has painted the island to be.

A question in the air is: what will become of China if Chen’s recklessness cannot be contained on the island?