My First Impressions
I don't recall the exact date when my professor first showed the class 島嶼天光 Island's Sunrise, but I do recall being fascinated by the concept of a movement having a theme song. I had heard only maybe a thing or two about the movement itself, and really only thought of it as "something going on in Taiwan led by students", until we, as a class, saw the music video. After that point, I remembered thinking "Man, it's so cool that students in Taiwan are so actively engaged in the politics of their society!" I was comparing what little I knew of the movement to the Occupy Movement that had a base here in UC Berkeley in November of my freshman year.
One of the things about the Occupy Movement that bothered me was the lack of involvement of Asian students on campus - I was one of the few Asian girls who joined in the rallies (partially urged by my sociology class at the time), and wondered why. It was definitely refreshing to see a hundreds of thousands of Asian students being so actively and eagerly involved in a movement. Sure, Taiwanese students are...well...of Asian descent, but the fact that students across the nation joined together to rally against the government while sacrificing their schoolwork and potentially even their political rights was astonishing to me.
One of the things about the Occupy Movement that bothered me was the lack of involvement of Asian students on campus - I was one of the few Asian girls who joined in the rallies (partially urged by my sociology class at the time), and wondered why. It was definitely refreshing to see a hundreds of thousands of Asian students being so actively and eagerly involved in a movement. Sure, Taiwanese students are...well...of Asian descent, but the fact that students across the nation joined together to rally against the government while sacrificing their schoolwork and potentially even their political rights was astonishing to me.