Watching the endless stream of tabloid-like Taiwan TV news can numb your mind. Every single little thing can be a major drama.
For instance, a young man caged a kitten and an angry mob demanded the young man apologize. Tearfully, the fellow, with his ashamed family, bows and apologizes several times for his terrible crime, in front of tv crews.
In other boliao news, a judge went on a tv show that reads fortunes. People complained and he was taken to task for conduct unbecoming a judicial officer. In the first place, WHY would a judge go on some dodgy fortune-reading show AND tell everyone he is a judge? Boggles the mind.
In other Taiwan news, some PRC tourists complained that a night market hawker gave them higher RMB to NTD exchange rate when they wanted to pay in RMB. They had no Taiwan dollars on them, so asked to pay in RMB, and the hawker charged them slightly more than the rate they got from the bank. The hawker was vilified for her evil profiteering ways.
@manfredpan offered this one: "Second time in a year that a popular Lu Rou Fan place has raised their prices! By NTD4!!"
I think that piece may actually be a real news item.
My favourite one is the one where a motorcyclist was spotted dragging two mattresses with his bike (see screenshot above). The "reporter" followed the motorcyclist till he stopped to untie his mattresses to sell them by the street, then interviewed him.
The other news that Taiwan news channels LURVE to dwell on are horrific accidents. Video footage of a car driven by a young woman careening out of control into rush hour traffic, or a bus losing control and driving into 17 cars and motorcycles like a bowling ball crashing into bowling pins, are very big news.
Of course, there is then inevitable digging up of EVERY. SINGLE. DETAIL. Of the dead, of the injured, of the driver. Especially the person who caused the accident: where they live (cut to video of their home), whether they had good grades in school, where they work, what is their family business (cut to video of their shop), and whether their parents are ashamed and sorry for what their grown-up daughter has done (cut to video of crying parents apologizing for their child's driving).
You can watch Taiwan news for a long time before you get any international news. It seems that only local news sells. And with the China-Japan island dispute being the only international news that the channels think are of any interest to their Taiwanese viewers, that's pretty all we get.
What passes for International news on Taiwan tv:
1. Taiwanese going overseas found air tickets too expensive.
2. And Kate Middleton's skirt flies up because of strong winds in Brisbane.
I notice that the news channels are very clearly aligned to political parties. For example, CTi channel is "blue" or Pro-KMT and Sanlih channel is "green" or Pro-DPP. There is no middle ground. A news channel will whack the ruling party if it is pro-Opposition and whack the Opposition if it is pro-Ruling Party. You can tell what party a coffee shop owner supports by the news channel he has on.
