Chan's Personal Blog

I was watching Frontline on PBS, and came across a documentary entitled, "The Kidnapped Bride." It was exploring the disturbing practice of abducting brides in Kyrgyzstan, an ex-soviet republic.

From the PBS documentary:


Watching the documentary, it was troubling to see that society accepted such a practice. The kidnapped bride's family seem to usually be willing to accept the marriage even if it was not consensual. It was also wierd that the other women of the extended family condoned such a practice, even though they themselves were kidnapped.

They interviewed one of the matriarchs of the family, and she was excited that a new bride was going to come into the family. She was excited because that meant she'd have someone to help her tend the sheep, make babies to work the land, and help cook. Talk about political correctness eh?

The documentary covered another troubling story that a father told. He said that her girl was abducted, and she resisted, and refused to marry her kidnapper. So, the kidnapper raped her, and she was de facto married. A few days later, the girl hung herself, and her family was asked to come retrieve the body from the kidnapper. The father asked exactly what happened, and the kidnapper did not disclose any information. The father then went to the authorities to press charges and to open a criminal investigation, but the authorities merely dismissed the case a suicide rather than a potential homicide case. That story was very troubling.

It was also wierd watching the groom get his bride. The journalist followed a poor groom into a city. The groom hired a taxi, and began wandering around the city looking for a girl that he liked. Once he scouted out his target, he waited for the next day to kidnap her. The next day they find her, and him and the taxi driver kidnap the girl and quickly drive back to the rural home town. The journalist later went to a taxi company and asked how common it was for them to be hired to help kidnap a girl, and one of the drivers remarked that he just finished kidnapping a girl a few hours ago.

A lot of times, I hear people in the West complain about how their rights are being trampled, or there's no equality, but when you look outside in the world, suddenly all our problems seem just a tad irrelevent. Sometimes we need to look outside in order to appreciate what we have. In many cases, we are extremely spoiled.

This whole thing seemed so very foreign. I couldn't even imagine not being able to marry someone that I truly loved. Being forced to marry someone that kidnapped you seems so alien.

In either case, I encourage you to explore the rest of the story, PBS includes video and other interesting facts.

Well, today was the big election day. I voted first thing in the morning. Personally, I felt that the entire election campaign was fairly boring. There wasn't any spectacular government scandal that polarized the electorate this time around. All parties used a play-it-safe approach in their campaign, and it didn't really get heated.

I watched the entire leader's debate, and everyone's answers were scripted, so it was fairly boring. No knockout punch was scored in my opinion. Every party leader just used the same scripted rhetoric over and over again. The Green Party leader kept using the buzzword sustainability. The BC Liberal Party leader kept saying, hey, we didn't screw up the province as bad as the NDP in the 1990s. The NDP Party leader kept saying, will you make a promise to the BC voters tonight blah blah blah. Repeat all of the above a dozen times, and you pretty much have the general idea of the "debate."

I think the biggest surprise about this election was the voter turnout. Apparently there was very heavy voter turnout, so the official election results aren't even available yet. Preliminary results however show that the BC Liberals have won (no surprise there). Despite all polls indicating a Liberal majority, a lot of people came out to vote. Normally, people don't bother voting if the outcome is obvious because some people get the feeling that their votes won't matter.

The most disappointing aspect of this whole election period was the Single Transfer Vote (STV) referendum in my opinion. I think the government and media has done an extremely poor job of explaining to the public what STV is exactly. A good number of people I talk to have no idea that they're even voting on STV. An even bigger number of my peers have a very fuzzy idea of what STV is. Too bad. I found the Citizen's Assembly report on STV very interesting, and the material they provided about the pros and cons of STV was very informative.

In other news, it looks like the Green Party has failed to secure a seat again. Better luck next time . I noticed that the CBC article (above) talks about the NDP resurgence and being revitalization. I personally don't see it. People want to see some sort of opposition in the legislative assembly. Furthermore, I think a lot of people were just mad at the NDP last election, and a lot of the fury has naturally subsided; obviously they can't do much worse than the last election. To give Carole James all the credit for reviving the NDP would be pushing it. I think B.C. in general has a lot of hardcore NDP support, so it's not like the NDP was going to risk being completely wiped out in this election. I joke to a lot of my friends outside of B.C. that the West Coast should be known as the Left Coast.

Anyways, hopefully tomorrow morning the dust will have settled, and we'll know the exact election numbers. Kudos to all the first time voters.

Here's another installment of useless facts. I was reading this news article from Yahoo entitled, "Women-only train cars irritate some Japanese men." Apparently being groped in crowded commuter trains is very common in Japan. So, now they're introducing women only train cars to alleviate this problem.

From the article:


For further analysis and comments, I now turn to my senior Japanese correspondent, Myron. He specializes in Japanese culture as he has lived there.

With this week's anniversary celebrations of the end of World War 2, I thought this story was somewhat appropriate. I came across this article from CNN talking about Operation Salami Drop. It's a story about two brothers thinking of a way to support its troops currently in Iraq. Since they owned a deli, they came up with an idea to send salami to the 42nd infantry division. (An infantry division consists of anywhere from 10,000 - 20,000 soldiers.)


It's interesting that the brother's father fought in World War 2, and the salami idea was inspired by his war stories. Their father "fought in World War II in France and described receiving a salami in the mail about every month and carrying it around in his backpack for weeks. My whole platoon would line up and I would slice pieces for them," Sam Brummer recalled. "It was very important to us."

The article goes on to say that salami is a perfect war-time food. It reminds the troops of civilian life, and the stuff lasts a long time because it is dried.

Well, there is the saying that an army marches on its stomach.

I've been getting a lot of interesting questions about the upcoming BC Provincial Election, so I've decided to write another blog article about it. The reason why I write about this is because the youth vote is extremely low. I think only 26% of eligible voters ages 18-30 voted last provincial election. This is a troubling pattern to me because we are the future leaders, and a democracy only reflects the will of the people IF the people vote and be heard. Low voter turnout pretty much ensures that an elite minority forces its will and agenda on the majority.

So let us begin. A lot of the answers about voting can be found at BC Elections if you want self-serve information.

Why Vote?

Voting for a political party will have a significant impact on many aspects of your life. By voting, you're indicating your support/opposition to many issues. What issues could possibly affect you?

Here's a few of the issues:

• Taxation. Each political party has different agendas on how to spend taxpayer money. Some parties envision a large government with large social programs that help a lot of people and provide many services, but it costs a lot of money. Other parties believe in smaller government with more limited services. Which ever you choose, government services ultimately cost money. This has a direct impact on how much tax you pay to the government. Nothing is free.


• Tuition fees. If you're a post-secondary student, then this will affect you greatly. There are many schools of thought about how much your education should cost. Some believe that tuition fees are still very cheap when you compare it with the rest of Canada. Some believe that tuition fees are too high because they've increased in the past few years. There are some who want to reduce tuition fees, and others that want to freeze tuition fees. Some want free tuition all together. Whichever belief you subscribe to, it should be noted that nothing is free, and the money has to ultimately come from somewhere.


• Debt. Is it right to spend money that you don't have? You will have to decide that. There are some political parties that believe borrowing money to pay for social services like health care is the right thing to do, and they see this as an investment. Others feel that it is irresponsible to go into debt to pay for social programs because future generations are left with the bill. The political party that rules the province will have direct say over debt because they will set the provincial budget.


• Jobs. Lets face it, finding a decent job is a very important matter. The government you choose will directly impact this. Look at what job creation initiatives are being undertaken by your political party. Is the government investing in infrastructure, providing business grants, investing in research, etc to boost jobs in the province?


• Unions VS Business. The government you choose will determine how powerful the unions or businesses are. Some governments are very friendly and supportive of unions, while others are more friendly to businesses. Do you believe in unions or market forces?

This is not an all-inclusive list of all the issues. There are other big ones such as health care, the environment, and more, but you can do research in those areas.

For a healthy democracy to work, it requires that its citizens participate and voice their opinions through voting. The more people that vote, the more it truly reflects the will of the people. Low voter turnout basically ensures that a minority of people imposes its will on the majority of people. Guess what, if you don't vote, you can't complain about the government because you didn't bother telling them what you think is important. If you don't vote, it makes my vote worth all that much more.... muahhahah, fools!

How Do I Register To Vote?

You can register to vote if you meet the following criteria (information from Elections BC):

• be a Canadian citizen;


• be 18 years of age or older on General Voting Day for the election;


• be a resident of the electoral district;


• have been a resident of British Columbia for at least 6 months immediately preceding General Voting Day for the election;


• be registered as a voter for the electoral district, or register in conjunction with voting; and not be disqualified from voting in the election.

There are a number of ways to get registered to vote. On your tax forms for example, you can check off a box on the front page that tells the government to put you on the voting list in the event of an election.

The other way is to show up at your polling station and register on site. "When registering at the time of voting, a voter will be required to produce two pieces of personal identification, showing, in combination, their name, current address and signature."

If you are already on the voting list, you'll be receiving a card in the mail during the week of May 9th, 2005 which will tell you that you're on the list, and where/when to vote.

Where Do I Go To Vote?

BC Elections can tell you where to vote by simply putting in your current address. It will also give you the electoral district which is VERY IMPORTANT, so take note of it. I'll explain it later. The election website will tell you where the advance voting place is, and where the general voting place is. Advance polls are for people who want to vote early; advance polls are held between May 11, 2005 to May 14, 2005. The general voting day is May 17, 2005 which is the main day to vote.

For people who can't vote on any of those days, you can look into an absentee vote (*cough* Bethany *cough*). People can cast an absentee vote at district electoral offices which can be found here. You can make an absentee vote any time now.

Who Do I Vote For?

You have to figure this one out for yourself. You'll be voting for a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) who will be part of a political party. Each electoral district has many candidates competing to become your MLA who will represent you. If you don't know your electoral district, you can find it here. Once you know your electoral district, you can find out which candidates are running in your district, which can be found here (PDF). Once you know your candidates, you should do research on their political party, and a little about the individual candidates.

Elections BC provides a list of political parties and brief statements from many of the parties.

For individual candidate information, you'll have to search through party websites. I couldn't find any site that aggregated all of the candidates' information in one spot, so I'm going to do that for Victoria-area candidates. It should be noted that I'm only going to provide links to candidates running for the BC Liberal Party, the BC New Democratic Party, and the BC Green Party because those are the three biggest political parties that actually receive a good number of votes. Yes, this is a bias, but I'm too lazy to do research on fringe candidates. If you feel like doing the research, go ahead and post your findings in the comments section.

Victoria-Hillside Candidates

• Steve Filipovic, BC Green Party
• Rob Fleming, BC NDP
• Sheila Orr, BC Liberal Party

Victoria-Beacon Hill Candidates

• Jeff Bray, BC Liberal Party
• Carole James, BC NDP
• John Miller, BC Green Party

Note: A lot of these candidate websites have links to additional information about the candidates.

Some times, people will vote based on a political party's agenda, rather than the individual candidate. Looking a party history and background is a good idea because during election time, a lot of parties promise a lot things and provide revisionist history. The wikipedia has pretty good historical information on the BC NDP, the BC Liberal Party, and the BC Green Party.

Conclusions

Hopefully this information was useful, and you'll decide to vote come May 17, 2005. It took a while writing this article, but if one person decides to vote because of this article, it'll all be worth it .

Again, it should be noted that the BC Liberal Party is NOT the same party as the Federal Liberal Party... you know, the one being led by Paul Martin, and is currently under investigation for corruption.

If anyone has additional links that will be useful, please post them in the comments.

If you're completely unsure of where you stand on issues, you can try taking the world's smallest political quiz. It can give you a rough estimate of where you are on the political spectrum. If you're left-leaning, then something like the BC NDP or BC Greens is probably your cup of tea. If you're right-leaning, then you're probably closer to the BC Liberals. But again, I encourage you to do some independent research before choosing who to vote for.