Suddenly, a song breaks from the speakers, and a jingly Hakka tune is being led by the people on the stage. I begin waving my red-and-blue starred flag along with the crowd. Not everybody was familiar with the lyrics, but all join in the temporary merriment of it with their flags. I use my flag along with everyone else to route on speakers who get up to the stand afterward. Something is shouted then “Right or wrong?” followed. We all shout, “Dui! (right).” My Mandarin skills are weak. I grab hold of a few words and pieces of syntax, but the speed (not to mention passion) with which they are spoken makes their speeches ultimately inscrutable to my ears. One woman approaches the stand. She speaks in a squealing, high-pitched purr through the multitude of amplifiers, sobbing in between drawn-out words for drama. I wonder how effective she is; people are quieter in respect. I sense she is going on for a little too long after a while. At one point, I notice a few in the crowd flinch at a certain screamed line. One of our friends tells me that she said, “She feels like she wants to commit suicide.” I wonder what to do – clap?

Looking among the crowd of locals, nobody stares at my half-white face. They are too caught up in the emotional fervor being expressed from the stage – and for a grateful change of pace when it comes to crowded places, I don’t feel as much of the foreigner that I am. Our group is unique amongst the crowd because we are young. Many of our fellow students’ parents wouldn’t allow them to enter this scene. We aren’t teenagers, but even college students seem like a rarity in this bustling crowd dominated with people above thirty. A man with a long white beard stands upon a pillar holding a handful of flags in one hand (for lack of one bigger one of which there are a few scattered atop the heads of the crowd), and spreads his arms like an eagle. He turns occasionally to engage the audience who are behind him, maintaining a monkish silence.

In the carefully plotted aisles, people come by pushing carts of food, or handing out packages of buns or bottled water. There is no shortage of goods – they urge them upon us, and passed out glow-sticks after them. Upon small stools, the young and old sit and watch patiently from their seats. Some look as old as seventy. One stool has packages of giveaway food hoarded in a pile underneath. Many look as if they had stayed in their seat all day long into the evening, with expressions of chagrin drawn upon their faces. My friends are bursting with energy, rapping their flags to the chorus of cheers. They teach me a few of the most common chants – “Step down, Chen Shui-bian,” “Long Live the Republic of China.” They are through with asking me why I came. Of course I wanted to see the protest; my own mother emigrated from Taiwan and supports the KMT or Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party). They smile and tug me into their tight circle closer, like I’ve gained initiation. To them, I suppose, I’ve lived up to my criteria for being here as an exchange student who doesn’t flaunt my Americanism, who is not hesitant to brave alienation when it comes to chatter that I cannot understand. I help them speak English, they help with my Mandarin. I never stop encouraging them to take me anywhere in Taiwan, try the most disarming foods to Americans, perform Buddhist rituals in temples, or let myself be dragged through the teeming crowds at a political rally in a country across the globe from my native one.

We head down a long aisle at the sideline. A row of tables serve an assortment of free food, from full, hot lunch boxes, to a pile of candy. How in the world did they pay for all this? At one table, people are gathered around to make donations to the KMT, including Leah and one of her friends.

I take a steamed bun. It is spongy and white, filled with warm pork filling. A sweet bun later, and I am utterly filled. Cebrena takes a cup of a steaming hot ginger drink that is good for one’s health from a table. Its pungency seems to clear my nasal passage from a distance. At one table there are people handing out flyers instead of food. The document is written in plain type on white paper, as if someone had run them off from an unevenly-spaced memo on their computer. One paragraph is provided in Chinese, the bottom ones, in English. The opening begins, translated: “From me, a medical doctor of 10 years experience…” It goes on to allege that the type of bullet that struck Chen the day before the election causes severe bruising, which was unapparent in the photos of his wounded belly.

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