Taiwan Political Protests via Taipei Taxi

By Neal Moore

TAIPEI & TUCHENG (CNN i-report) --- I stepped into a Taipei Taxi this morning to try to get a better understanding of the current political scene in Taiwan.  What I thought would be an easy task proved to be anything but. 

Everybody’s got an opinion in Taiwan and in the end while I knew these opinions would conflict, it was interesting to see first hand the similarities between the lines. 

We drove past the Presidential Building and then on to Liberty Square.  It is here that university students are holding the Wild Strawberry Movement - a sit-in protest against a government they see as not responsive to their requests for basic freedoms.  This is day eleven for these protesters whose numbers have swelled from one location to multiple locations the entire island over.  Here at Liberty Square I spoke with one of three university “Wild Strawberry” students who have locked themselves into cage props for 24 hours.  What they were talking about had absolutely nothing to do with DPP Taiwan independence but everything to do with personal independence – of freedom of speech. 

But as we drove on, out into Tucheng City (Taipei County), the images and the symbolism of these student cages morphed themselves into the detainment center now holding former president Chen Shui-bian – a place where the protestors outside were very much in support of the pro-independence, opposition Democratic Progressive Party. 

Democracy is certainly a balancing act and I think it is fair to say that both the young and old of Taiwan are, for a number of reasons, at the moment in a state of protest. 

Shot local time between 10am and 2pm, Sunday, November 16, 2008.