{"id":62186,"date":"2024-01-12T20:30:36","date_gmt":"2024-01-13T01:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=62186"},"modified":"2024-01-13T12:43:51","modified_gmt":"2024-01-13T17:43:51","slug":"the-politics-of-dried-mango-in-taiwan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=62186","title":{"rendered":"The politics of dried mango in Taiwan"},"content":{"rendered":"

No sooner have we addressed \"The politics of frozen garlic in Taiwan<\/a>\" (1\/11\/24) than we now must look at the implications of dried mango for the current election in that island nation.\u00a0 Here we will not be studying the obscene usage (g\u00e0n) that \"dry\" (g\u0101n) often gets mixed up with.\u00a0 For those who are interested in that topic, which Language Log has been following since 2006), check out the last two items in \"Selected readings\") below.<\/p>\r\n

Today's mango excitement derives from a pun based on the expression \"dried mango\" (m\u00e1nggu\u01d2 g\u0101n \u8292\u679c\u4e7e); it has nothing to do with \"$%<\/span><\/span>#@!\" mango.\u00a0 The near pun is for \"w<\/span><\/span>\u00e1nggu\u00f3 g\u01cen \u4ea1\u570b\u611f\" (\"sense of national subjugation\"), where <\/span><\/span>w\u00e1ng \u4ea1 means \"perish; death; die\", though in this phrase, \"subjugation\" has become the usual translation.\u00a0 Of course, gu\u00f3 \u570b, means \"nation; state\", and note that the \"K\" of KMT (Kuomintang [Wade-Giles romanization of \u570b\u6c11\u9ee8] <\/span><\/span>\"Nationalist Party\"<\/span><\/span>) or the \"G\" of GMD (Gu\u00f3m\u00ednd\u01ceng [Pinyin romanization of the same name]) is that same word, <\/span><\/span>gu\u00f3 \u570b (\"nation; state\").<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

In the last few weeks of the runup to the presidential election, m\u00e1nggu\u01d2 g\u0101n \u8292\u679c\u4e7e (\"dried mango\") || \"w<\/span><\/span>\u00e1nggu\u00f3 g\u01cen \u4ea1\u570b\u611f\" (\"sense of national subjugation\") has gone massively viral in Taiwan and beyond.\u00a0 In most people's minds, the <\/span><\/span>\"gu\u00f3 \u570b<\/span><\/span>\" of the pun has come to be associated with the \"Nation\" of the \"Nationalist\", the implication being that, if the Nationalist Party wins, the country (Taiwan) will perish (at the hands of Xi Jinping's CCP\/PRC).\u00a0 That's what people g\u01cen \u611f<\/span><\/span> (\"sense\") <\u00a0g\u0101n \u4e7e (\"dried\").\u00a0 This is especially true among the ju\u00e9q\u012bng \u89ba\u9752 (\"Awakened Youth\").<\/p>\r\n

Selected readings<\/b><\/p>\r\n