by Colin Hyde
Even if pageants were my kind of thing, I couldn’t have watched the big one on Saturday night because my eyes haven’t been the best for a while. I have to try and discipline myself, so my eyes have the vigor to complete my tasks here at the newspaper, and do a fairly clean job. My eyes, when they are dim, they can lead me all over the place.
Television is a major pain for my eyes. I am a sucker for sports and old movies. With the Dodgers spending so much money, the SF Giants don’t stand a chance; but I have trouble passing on a Giants game. Because I “am” a Willie Mays fan, I ended up liking the Mets too. Aha, we have the money there to go head to head with those terrible Dodgers. I hope the Mets kick their behinds!
Old movies, I’ve seen a number of them a few times; but I’ve given up on trying to pull away from the top ones. To escape some recently available old ones that I have not yet seen, I run to my laptop to view the plot and the ending. Perry Mason is a clown. Well, no, I am. You know the ending of every show—that Perry is going to make a fool of the district prosecutor. Wait, he is the jackass, not me. If someone beats you 3 times, you should quit. Perry has beaten that guy like 3,000 times. They must pay that prosecutor very well. Or he is the definition of determination, a bulldog, no quit.
I’m no pageants buff. I was scrolling, looking for some show to “listen” to, and I saw on one of the higher channels a blank screen with the script “Verdes vs Xelajú” at the bottom. Of course I wanted to know the score, and the game not being aired on the channel that announced it, I decided to scroll on to NexGen, the only channel that shows our local clubs. And I landed on the pageant!
Wa, I was scrolling channels the other night and landed on JAWS, the very moment that terrible beast showed its fearsome self, a harbinger of terrible things to come. I was only jesting when I called myself a dummy. I switched from that channel faster than burnt fingers pull away from a hot pot — kwik, faas, an hori. But I didn’t switch from the pageant, because at that moment the beautiful girls were just coming in, in their body-exposing bikinis. I’ve said that these shows don’t need the scant bikini, and certainly the damsels are not looking for admiration from, ehm, older guys. Aw heck, I decided to watch. Getting through this quickly, up top they all got a high grade, though, ehm, none of them threatened to break their straps. Boy, from the waistline to the toes, hands down Miss Hyde — she must be one of my country cousins—she di bring it.
I listened to the rest of the show, and a Miss Zabaneh won the crown. She was the most eloquent of the five. In the first Q & A segment, she got far and away the easiest question, and in the second Q & A, when they asked the girls to answer the same question, she topped them again. Eloquence doesn’t always take the cake. I am certain a Miss Lightburn won the year when Hart Tillett’s granddaughter contested for the crown; and Hart’s granddaughter, no surprise, she has a silver tongue, as smooth as ice cream with gelatin. Hart’s granddaughter’s body was dynamite tu, but the judges know what they’re looking for.
It was quite interesting at this pageant, how Brother Dale McDougal, who luk like hihn baan fu this, steered the audience to ensure that there would be no quarrel at the end. These pageants are very subjective, and well, just let me say he was all about education, and tamping emotion. Congratulations to the new queen! Ehm, I might have more to say about the show on Friday. Hn, I didn’t get to sleep until after twelve because my wife stayed with it until the end.
Big points for Mainland China; dehn di mek Russia and US luk like barbarians
You know that all movies have historical value; some suspect, of course, but many with healthy views of the past. I see the latter in a movie where Genghis Khan invaded China. The writer said the emperor was shocked by the invasion; he thought that when the khan saw the splendor of his kingdom he would want to find out how a people could have achieved such wonderful things, not break it up. It is so terrible that civilized people have to endure brutes. When you see somebody who is better than you, you should put away your romperajoness; you should say, “teach mi”.
Russia is in disgrace for invading Ukraine. Bah, Putin—give a man the bomb and he will swell up like puffer fish. I’ll pass on commenting about Trump bombing Iran’s nuclear sites. My beef with the US — Trump, Biden and all—is their presiding over the destruction of Gaza. The world accepts Israel’s right to defend itself. This isn’t defense. This is Hitler business.
Mainland China maintains a threat on Taiwan, and we understand the geopolitics of China wanting to separate Taiwan from the US sphere. Mainland China gets no points for their threats, but they get big points for staying their military.
Congratulations, Blue and Red, for celebrating Taiwan!
If only because of our common thread, as small countries whose existence is threatened by much larger ones, our friendship with Taiwan must be as firm as hardened cement. I have to check what the show was about at the last House Meeting, but I heard the Leader of the Opposition champion what the PUP side was about. Taiwanese dignitaries were in the House … oh, oh, I heard the PM mention the fantastic support we had received from Taiwan in the Belmopan housing project.
Many of our sister countries in the Caribbean and Central America have, for mercenary reasons, abandoned Taiwan for Mainland China. May we never contemplate following that path, break this friendship. If the hoggish US takes away the chips from Taiwan, and they run brok, we must stand firm in our friendship. Belize and Taiwan, forever!
I don’t forget that someone from the Taiwan embassy scolded me
Aha, a while back I got chided for picking up Taiwan’s history with Chiang Kai Shek. Hn, these Americans are to be blamed for lots of things. My first entry with Taiwan was in primary school, Holy Redeemer, where we learned in one of our American readers about Chiang Kai Shek and his retreat to Taiwan (Formosa) to escape the murderous communists and Chairman Mao Tse Tung. The story that stuck in my mind was of the benevolent, good Chiang and his good, loving people finding salvation on a deserted or near deserted island, not of Chiang’s dream of “reuniting” Taiwan with China, after he had conquered the mainland.
In spots, Taiwan’s history isn’t as straightforward as ours. Allow me a couple clips on Taiwan here, the first from the formidable Britannica:
“Prior to the 1600s, Taiwan was self-governing, although there was no central ruling authority. It was a colony of the Netherlands for about 40 years in the early to mid-17th century and was subsequently independent again for about two decades. China gained control there in the late 17th century and ruled Taiwan for some two centuries. Japan acquired Taiwan in 1895 following the first Sino-Japanese War, and it became a colony.
“Taiwan was returned to Nationalist Chinese control in 1945 following Japan’s defeat in World War II. However, in 1949 Chinese communist armies defeated Nationalist forces on the mainland and established the People’s Republic of China there. The Nationalist government and armies fled to Taiwan, again resulting in the separation of Taiwan from China. In the ensuing years the ROC claimed jurisdiction over the Chinese mainland as well as Taiwan, although in the early 1990s Taiwan’s government dropped this claim to China. The Chinese government in Beijing has maintained that it has jurisdiction over Taiwan and has continued to propound a one-China policy—a position that few countries in the world dispute. There has been no agreement, however, on how or when, if ever, the two entities will be reunified.”
This clip, “The Population Geography of Taiwan”, is from the website, twgeog.ntnugeog.org:
“Taiwan was the land of the Austronesian aborigines before the Han Chinese moved in. These early residents were not many in number, so the Han Chinese have dominated Taiwan’s population growth ever since.
“In 1650 (near the end of Dutch rule), Taiwan’s population was 50,000; thirty years later (near the end of Ming Zheng rule), it reached 120,000. In 1811 (in the middle of the Ching Dynasty), it grew to 1,945,000. In 1905, at the beginning of Japanese colonial times, there were three million residents in Taiwan; the number had doubled to almost six million by the time the Japanese withdrew from the island in 1945. Ever since, Taiwan’s population has grown even faster, reaching 22,101,000 in the year 2000. With an average of 688 persons per sq. km, Taiwan has become the second most densely populated area in the world; number one is Bangladesh (872 persons per sq. km).”