Chapter 23 1998
In the summer vacation of 1998, I did two things.One was to take the transfer exam and get into Soochow University.Compared with the cultural university I studied at, one is on the mountain and the other is on the bottom. The advantage is that there is no need to reverse the car.Another thing worth mentioning is that I went to Chenggong Ridge.
Chenggong Ridge is a place name, a small hill near Taichung.But strictly speaking, I went to participate in the "Chenggong Ling University Training Camp".It turns out that Chenggong Ridge is a military base, and every boy in Taiwan has to serve in the military.In the past, as long as you are a college graduate, you are a second lieutenant reserve officer for compulsory service. With the evolution of the times, there are more and more college students, and later they become master students, and then doctor students are pre-officers, and now they are college officers Only those who pass the above examinations after graduation can be appointed as pre-officials.The only thing that remains the same is that college boys must go to Chenggong Ridge to receive a month of military education during the summer vacation before they can be qualified as pre-examination officers.In the past, participation was mandatory for a period of two months, but later it became free for one month.Of course, if you take part in the pre-examination or fail to pass the exam, the month in Chenggongling can also be deducted from the month of military service in the future.
Because basically everyone signed up, so I followed suit.That year was the last year of the Chenggong Ling University training camp.In previous years, every college training camp was on the news, but this year's summer vacation was the last one, so of course it attracted special attention.
That morning, we gathered at the station. Students from different schools arrived at the meeting point. After the roll call, we boarded the special train and headed straight to Chenggong Ridge.When the car arrived at Chenggongling Station, before it stopped, I saw a non-commissioned officer wearing a camouflage uniform standing in every other car on the platform. When I got off the car, I heard the song In the familiar "Song of Success Ridge", a group of college boys blindly followed these camouflage uniforms and left to take the shuttle bus.
When you get off the bus at Chenggong Ridge, you will see many signs saying "Follow me".As soon as the number of people behind each sign was full, that group of people left, and many people they knew in the car were also divided into teams.Afterwards, haircuts, physical examinations, clothes, etc., all in a hurry, and the monitor yelling and urging, the children who have always been pampered and spoiled are terrified. "People from Taipei City, so many things were screaming at the beginning.
In the first few days of training, the schedule was very hasty, and the students had no thoughts of their own at all. It seemed that after their hair was shaved, even their IQs became lower. Anyway, you can do whatever the monitor asks you to do without having to think about it at all.In the first few days, I mainly taught soldiers etiquette and manners, which is what the mainland calls military posture.Next, do some shooting preview, gun disassembly, target shooting, teaching of spear stabbing, throwing grenades, etc.It was the hottest time of summer, and it was miserable.
In addition, every Thursday is Juguang Day, when all Taiwan troops stand in front of the TV and watch the "spiritual teaching" on TV.It was a rare day when classes were held indoors. On this day, the entire company gathered in the "Zhongshan Room" (collectively referred to as the cultural and recreational rooms), watching the beautiful hosts, promotional short films, military news, and mentally handicapped short dramas in the program.Everyone watched with gusto, but the monitors and platoon leaders were already asleep.
Teaching and singing military songs is also a key project.More important songs such as "Army Army Song", "Heroes in the First Class", "Whampoa Army Soul" and other songs, there will also be military song competitions between companies.But in Chenggong Ridge, there is a unique "Song of Chenggong Ridge" that can only be sung here, as long as every student who comes to Chenggong Ridge to participate in the college training must be able to sing.
In the middle and late stages, the trainees will go to the combat training field fully armed for squad combat practice.The combat training field is actually in the wild, but there are many simulated terrains such as trenches, walls, grassy hills, etc. The squad leader will teach you how to use the terrain and features here.Before this, the trainees had to memorize some formulas and formulas of the combat coaches, and when they were actually on the field, they ran to the terrain while repeating the combat essentials.
However, college boys are still very naughty, and they will do spoofs in this kind of venue, for example, they will learn from the American soldiers in the movie and shout: "Saigon! Saigon!" and then make a shooting posture, and finally pretend to be shot, and lie on the ground weak Said: "I... I... I... really want to go back to Alabama..." It can be seen that the influence of the previous two years was too deep.
However, the squad leader is also a compulsory service, so it is impossible for everyone to be so lean, so sometimes after the squads are taken away, when they meet some squad leaders who are dawdling, they will take the squad soldiers to a relatively hidden place, and they simply don’t go to class, and everyone just Start chatting and farting.It was only at this time that I realized that this little laziness turned out to be so happy.
In fact, these education squad leaders also had a hard time holding this college training camp, because they couldn't demand like ordinary soldiers, and they were afraid that something would happen to the junior college babies, and they would be reported to the newspaper again by accident, so everything was well protected.For example, it is stipulated how much water you must drink every day, do you call home regularly to report that you are safe, and ask every day if you have normal bowel movements and other trivial matters.In the first few days when I went there, because I was in a hurry, several students didn't have a bowel movement for a week, and they accumulated a lot of stool.The squad leader was shocked when he heard this, and immediately sent them to the infirmary.Higher-level officials also attach great importance to college training.Once, while training in the field, an officer suddenly came to inspect. The deputy company commander was shocked when he saw this, and immediately rushed over and ordered three people at random: "You, you, you, go and have a bowel movement." The whole company was shot dead on the spot.
When at Chenggong Ridge, students also have to stand at night sentry.Because it is for you to experience military life, it is impossible for you to take a real gun, just a wooden gun, with one person on each side of the company headquarters, and one shift every two hours.Because the entire camp is built on the mountain, the buildings of each company are facing east-west, and the east side is on the slope of the mountain. It is always said that the east side of Chenggong Ridge is particularly "cloudy", and the squad leader will talk to you vividly. Said that if you want to go to the toilet at night, don't go to the toilet on the east side, otherwise, you will be responsible for what happens. The words "responsible for myself" are still said in a dark way.So, whenever I stand at the whistle next to the toilet on the east side in the middle of the night, I always want to poke my head in to see what is there, and I always hope to see something.It turned out that nothing happened.Later, when I actually joined the army, I realized that there are always these legends in every unit, and it’s not just that the squad leader scares the recruits, fearing that the recruits will run away at night.Instead, standing on the west side of the post, you can see the night view of the entire Taichung City in the distance.
The climax of the Chenggong Ling University’s intensive training is also a well-known subject - "Shocking Education".That is to say, the students are fully armed, carrying guns, and crawling through the barbed wire fence about 25 meters long. When crossing, there are machine guns above their heads, and gunpowder blasts in the open space next to them. This is a course that simulates the battlefield situation.When it is time to cross, the monitor will lead the climb in front, and the students will follow behind, moving forward wave by wave.And when it was my turn, when I got down and started to climb, I didn't know anything, I just grabbed my gun and crawled forward, I was so nervous, it seemed that I didn't even hear the sound of blasting machine guns, I just remembered to climb me The guy in the front farted, and I almost died of smoke instead of fighting in it, and the sand from the blast was all over my mouth.In fact, when I climbed to 15 meters, I almost died and couldn’t climb anymore, but the barbed wire fence was too low, and my buttocks couldn’t be cocked and I couldn’t crawl on my knees. I thought it would block the back, so I still tried my best to climb. Go out and get sand all over your body.
After climbing out of the barbed wire, there was an open space of more than ten meters, and everyone shouted "Kill..." and rushed forward.At the end of the rush, there was a small hill, lying down, and began to shout the slogan "persuade surrender" after the squad leader.But everyone was as tired as a dog, so they could only cry weakly.
The end of the "Shocking Education" is also the end of the training of Chenggong Ling University. The remaining few days are just going out on business and attending the closing ceremony, which is very easy.
The whole process of the training closing ceremony is to show the posture of holding the gun, that is, the elbow is held at 90 degrees, and the gun is leaning on the shoulder. It is different from the gun on the ground at the beginning of the training, which means that the trainees have been trained and have arm strength. .Even so, holding a rifle that weighs about 7 kilograms for nearly an hour will still make people exhausted.How did I know at that time that after a few years, I would be a soldier in the guard of honor, and I would be fine for two hours holding that 13-jin salute gun.Participating in the college training, because everything is handled as a recruit, so each of them received more than 5,000 yuan as a second soldier's salary at the end of the training.
The college training was over, and the students were sent to the station by the squad leader to take a special train back to Taipei in the music of "Song of Chenggong Ridge".I met the person who sat next to me when I first came, and he was sent to another company at that time.He complained: Why did your series look easier?I can only jokingly say to him: Who told you to follow the wrong brand and put it in the wrong place.It was already night when the train drove back to Taipei. When the train passed the Tamsui River Iron Bridge, the practitioners were already rioting when they saw the Xinguang Building, the tallest building in Taipei at that time.And the moment the train entered the underground and appeared at Taipei Main Station, the whole train was almost crazy, and everyone started to beat the windows exaggeratedly; when they got off the train, there were still people kissing the ground, it was really mentally handicapped.
Over the past few decades, more than one million college students have participated in college training here, allowing you to experience the life of the army before serving in the army.Chenggong Ridge can be said to be the common memory of many college boys born before the 1980s.A while ago in Shanghai one early morning, I drank some wine with a former classmate and chatted while walking along Yan’an Road. I wanted to sing, but I couldn’t think of what to sing for a while. In the end, we sang loudly Played "Song of Success Ridge".It's strange to say that ten years have passed, but I still remember the lyrics so clearly.
When I entered the second year of university, I transferred to Soochow University to study in the Department of Philosophy.As soon as the sophomore year started, I saw that almost all the boys would wear baseball caps.why?Because almost all the boys went to Chenggong Ridge, their shaved hair hadn't grown yet, so they wore hats to hide their ugliness.
There used to be a saying in National Taiwan University that three credits are compulsory in university: homework, clubs, and love.As a result, I messed up the first item.It's not that I didn't study hard, it's just that I didn't pay much attention to my major, instead I went to attend courses in other departments such as sociology, psychology, economics all day long, or I just hid in the library reading books all day long , Simply did not go to class.Almost all universities in Taiwan have the so-called "two-one" system, that is, if one-half of the credits in each semester do not reach 60 points, they will be expelled from school. Fortunately, this kind of February 1 crisis has been saved every time.
Of course, not all students are like me. Some students are very goal-oriented and determined to study for graduate students in the future. Almost all of them started to take relevant courses in cram schools during the summer vacation of the second or third grade.These remedial courses for postgraduate examination subjects, as long as you can think of subjects, almost all have courses.For example, some students aspire to study abroad in the future, and they will also start to take some courses such as GRE and TOFEL in special cram schools.In short, there are all kinds of people in universities, some are serious and some are not. There are normal people and there are also weird people. Of course, these boundaries are often not so clear.
At that time, academic exchange groups between the two sides of the strait were popular, and various professors or student groups came and went between the two sides of the strait.It is said that after many professors or classmates arrived in the mainland, they were greatly shocked by the fact that mainland college students always get up early in the morning to read English on campus. It made everyone feel ashamed and determined to work hard for several days.
Let's talk about the community!Societies are quite prosperous in universities in Taiwan.Mainly can be divided into several categories: academic, service, religious, hobbies and so on.The definition of academic is very simple, such as Chinese Studies Research Club, English-Japanese Club, Astronomical Club, etc., which focus on research, but usually not too serious.Service clubs, such as children's tutoring clubs and legal service clubs, are attended by caring students, mostly girls, but they also attract some male students with ulterior motives to join.Religious clubs are usually quite mysterious, and they may be clubs established by outside churches or various religious groups on campus. Usually, these clubs have missionary missions, but most students also keep a respectful distance from the members of these clubs. Because a chat must be endless.Soochow University has a little relationship with Christianity. The latter also has a church on campus, so the Christian community is quite popular here.Interest clubs are almost always supported by a bunch of weirdos from various fields. The common ones are film clubs, mountaineering clubs, martial arts clubs, animation clubs, etc., but these clubs are almost all of a fellowship nature.
Of course, there are also some clubs that are relatively incomprehensible, such as the "Watching the Sea Club", which is to go to the sea together. "Big Adventure Club", um...these people are thick-skinned and fun-loving.Of course, there are also some underground associations that are usually not exposed, but are registered, such as the "Rainbow Club", which is a gay association and adopts an invitation system.
Generally, there are more than one hundred clubs in a university. As long as a certain number of people are found to sign the application, the school will almost always pass it.After passing it, funds will be allocated for the operation of the club every semester, and an office area will also be given to the club. Therefore, many students will go to the club office to eat at noon. In fact, they are chatting while eating, and there are TV, Video games are available.But there are often examples of associations failing to recruit people and failing. At this time, the president is also punished!
The club I joined was also very different. It was a club that used to engage in "movements". The people in it either studied sociology or economics. Adams or Gramsci, Marcus color and so on.Anyway, I don't really love these things when I join this club, I just think it's fun and passionate.Of course, as a leftist student movement organization that was dying at the time, it was necessary to participate in several street movements. Therefore, in addition to making some connections at school, I also participated in several times, such as the Labor Autumn Fight, opposing high tuition fees, etc. Compared with the previous student movement, the street movement is like a child running a house wine!It can only be said that the society is becoming more and more open, and they don't know what to oppose, which makes the angry youth very disappointed.
Later, this once glorious and legendary society collapsed.
As for the so-called love credits, it is inevitable to go to college and make boyfriends and girlfriends.The cadres in the class will also provide many opportunities for everyone to meet friends of the opposite sex, such as organizing friendships with other departments, usually classes with more boys in science and engineering and classes with more girls in liberal arts.Otherwise, it is to draw a student buddy with other classes, that is, to draw a student of the opposite sex from another department to be a friend, and similar activities.But usually, ignorant freshman girls are chased away by mature-looking seniors.The boys in the same class were left with regrets, and after a year of upgrading, the vicious cycle continued.
Almost all college students in Taiwan ride motorcycles, and besides being used as a means of transportation, motorcycles usually also have functions such as delivering goods and making friends.Therefore, students often hold motorcycle fellowship activities, and find some female students to go out to the countryside together.It's time to draw the key!The male students put all their car keys in a hard hat for the female students to draw to decide who will carry whom.This process is really cruel!If my key is drawn by a beautiful girl, I will be elated all day long, as if I am going to float when riding, and then I will deliberately step on the brakes a few times during the ride to let the girl's chest come up, Or if you drive faster on purpose, the girl will hug you even tighter.But if you are caught by a dinosaur, although everyone doesn't say it on the surface, they will pat you on the shoulder silently without smiling, "Thank you, Dragon Knight", this is simply torture!Sometimes the bad students would play technical tricks, pretending that something was wrong with the bike after riding for a short time, anyway, they just tried their best to get rid of her.
Taiwan's college student couples are not like mainland China, where many of them split up after graduation.Taiwan is actually just an island, and no matter how long-distance love is, it is still on the island, and the distance is not too far.Therefore, the biggest killer of college couples is "mutiny", that is, the woman changes her mind when the boy enlists in the army.It's no wonder that after the lovers graduate, the boys go to the army immediately, while the girls enter the workplace, and the boys are isolated in the army.In the workplace, girls meet attractive men who have worked for several years and are "mature and rich". Of course, they are not comparable to their original boyfriends. Under the care of his father, he naturally "mutinied".So Kangkang's song "Mutiny" sang the hearts of many Taiwanese boys, and many people cried while singing.
As a result, when these boys enter the workplace after retiring from the army, after a few years they also become attractive men, and then go to meet those lonely freshmen in the workplace. Generation after generation, it is a vicious circle again.
In those few years, the Internet became a new gadget for college students, and online dating naturally became a new form of communication.Among my classmates and acquaintances, there have been many poignant and stupid love stories. In 1999, "The First Intimate Contact" was launched, which made many innocent men and women shed "tears of the times", and even pushed the popularity of online dating to its first peak.However, most online dating usually ends without a problem, and a small number of those who achieve positive results are often viewed with colored glasses.After all, at that time, online dating was like making friends on the phone earlier, something that only serious children would do.
The Taipei mayoral election at the end of 1998 was considered the "showdown of the century."Ma Ying-jeou and Chen Shui-bian, the Mesozoic super elites of the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party, finally confronted each other head-on.The two sides can be said to be evenly matched, and the battle is tight.Chen Shui-bian seeks re-election relying on the high approval rate of 70% during his four-year term as mayor, while Ma Ying-jeou has always been clean and good image, coupled with the characteristics of the great unity of the pan-Kuomintang, it can be said that Ma Ying-jeou is aggressive.
After the Bai Xiaoyan case in 1997, Ma Ying-jeou resigned from his job as a "political committee member" and returned to teach at the university because he expressed his disappointment with the political situation.Facing Chen Shui-bian's inevitable victory at that time, the KMT did not have any confidence in the Taipei mayoral election in 1998, and the few people who were named thought they were going to be cannon fodder.Soong Chuyu, the only one with strength, had already fallen out with the Kuomintang Central Committee because of the issue of freezing provinces, and it was clear that he would not stand for election.And Ma Ying-jeou has stated several times that he will never run for election, and the Kuomintang is simply in a dilemma.
But, apart from Ma Ying-jeou, who else has the ability to compete with Chen Shui-bian?Although Ma Ying-jeou has expressed his attitude, everyone knows that he will definitely run for election in the end.Sure enough, at the last minute, he decided to accept the call to run for mayor of Taipei, and on the day he announced his candidacy, his approval rating immediately surpassed that of Chen Shui-bian.The Kuomintang can be said to have been brought back to life, and its morale suddenly soared.
At that time, Chen Shui-bian's prestige could be said to be in the sky, his achievements in the municipal administration were obvious to all, and his leadership ability was strong. He soon became the person with the most resources in the DPP. In the county and mayor elections in 1997, he set up a campaign team in his own name to support the candidates of the Progressive Party in various counties and citizens. Everywhere he went, it caused a sensation. There was a wave of Chen Shui-bian's craze in Taiwan, which also made the Democratic Progressive Party For the first time, the county and mayor seats surpassed the KMT.
Anyway, this year's Taipei mayoral election is a duel between two heroes.In fact, there is another new party, Wang Jianxuan.At this time, Wang Jianxuan's role is quite subtle.Because the approval ratings of Chen and Ma are almost the same, although it is generally believed that Chen Shui-bian will be elected, everyone is crazy about him wherever he goes, especially the young people.But in fact Ma Ying-jeou has always been slightly ahead of Chen Shui-bian in the number of votes, so how many votes Wang Jianxuan can get is related to who can win this election.
In this election campaign, Chen Shui-bian has put his marketing strategy into full play.In this election campaign, apart from his own campaign headquarters, Chen Shui-bian set up an alternative campaign headquarters called "Flat Hat Factory".It is a whole building like a PUB full of post-modern atmosphere, with coffee bars, lecture halls, audio-visual rooms, etc. inside.The so-called "flat hat" is a dark green woolen hat. It was originally a bazaar item for the preparation of election funds. Unexpectedly, the launch of this thing unexpectedly caused a panic buying in the whole Taiwan, and became a fashion trend at that time. Commodities, people can be seen wearing flat hats everywhere in Taiwan.Therefore, Chen Shui-bian simply took "Flat Hat Factory" as a creative brand, and continued to launch some peripheral products, such as personalized notebooks, mouse pads, mugs, etc., which also caused a wave of collection and popularity.A subsidiary product produced by a politician has turned into a hot commodity in short supply in the market. In my opinion, only Taiwan, which regards elections as a national movement, can create such a miracle.
But in this election campaign, Chen Shui-bian made a mistake: the later the election campaign, the more he provoked the provincial complex, and some people in the Democratic Progressive Party said that Ma Ying-jeou was a member of the "New Taiwan Selling Group". As a result, The election campaign has become more and more tragic, but it is not as good as the atmosphere full of "happiness and hope" four years ago.Although the provincial factors have not fully fermented in this election campaign, some remarks made by the Chen camp did stimulate the ethnic groups in other provinces.
On the other hand, Ma Ying-jeou's camp, the more joyful the election campaign, the pan-KMT camp is united.So in his place, not only the Kuomintang flag can be seen, but also the New Party flag.
Ma Ying-jeou's election campaign became more and more joyful, while Chen Shui-bian became more and more sad and indignant.This situation was particularly evident in the campaign rally held by the two parties overnight before the election.On Chen's side, he kept repeating the DPP's consistent appeal to the Taiwanese people in the past.On the other hand, on the horse side, the scene is getting more and more HIGH. "Friends in front of the TV, come and cheer with us!" Ma Ying-jeou said enthusiastically in the camera, which made many young people who supported Chen Shui-bian couldn't help being moved.
As a result, the next day, Ma Ying-jeou defeated Chen Shui-bian by 6%.This election campaign was the first great unity of the KMT after its split, but it also created a bubble for the new party.Chen Shui-bian was quite gracious in his defeat speech.Soon after, Chen Shui-bian handed over the mayor to Ma Ying-jeou.Who knows that the two of them will hand over again 10 years later.
Chen Shui-bian has a large number of young supporters. In fact, many of them do not have the right to vote, and they just follow suit.But in the general election two years later, they can already vote and become a powerful source of votes.
At the same time, the mayoral election of Kaohsiung was also reversed. The mayoral candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party, Hsieh Chang-ting, went south and defeated the then mayor Wu Dunyi.So far, Taiwan has basically formed a situation where the north is blue and the south is green.
A controversial topic is the provincial governor election and the "general election" in Taiwan. What if the governor gets more votes than the candidates for the "general election"?Does it mean that the governor has more legitimacy to rule?Will it cause the so-called "Yersin (Yelsin) effect"?Fortunately, in the "General Election" in 1996, Lee Teng-hui still got more votes than Governor James Soong in 1994.
After the Kuomintang arrived in Taiwan in 1949, a single island of Taiwan had four levels of "government", namely the "central", provincial, county, and township levels. In 1998, in order to fight off James Soong, Lee Teng-hui simply "frozen" the province.This "frozen" also "frozen" the relationship between Lee Teng-hui and James Soong, which led to the subsequent split of the KMT.
When Lien Chan was transferred from the chairman of the provincial government to the "President of the Executive Committee" in 1993, perhaps out of gratitude for James Soong's "conservative service", Lee Teng-hui thought of James Soong when he appointed the last official Taiwan Provincial Chairman.Soong Chuyu also did a great job during his short one-year tenure as the provincial chairman. In 1994, with high popularity, James Soong won over one million votes from the Democratic Progressive Party with more than 4.7 million votes, and successfully won the first democratically elected governor of Taiwan Province.
During his tenure as governor, James Soong was not only good at dancing, well-versed in appearance, strong in leadership, and handled everything properly, but also won the true biography of Chiang Ching-kuo and worked hard among the people.And his "provincial government team" became popular all over Taiwan, and at that time it almost became synonymous with "efficient", "close to the people", and "clean and honest".Moreover, in addition to running his own provincial team, James Soong has also expanded his network of contacts to various fields of society. At the beginning, it was not difficult for anyone to see that he had ambitions to reach a higher level.
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