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| Los Angeles, May 1 (CNA) A U.S.-based coffee association that organizes the World Coffee Championships (WCC) said on Friday that its decision to change the designation of competitors from Taiwan as representing "Chinese Taipei" was in line with international conventions at sporting events. The decision has drawn criticism from Taiwan's coffee community, particularly after the WCC website recently changed references to Taiwanese competitors--including this year's World Latte Art Championship winner Lin Shao-hsing (林紹興) pictured above—as being from "Chinese Taipei" instead of "Taiwan." |
We're trying to hatch this island
egg-shaped, that was born already.
Thousand-year-old, incubating
in a standoff, we were born already.
They say to be careful, step-ball-
change what you call yourself,
dance around words like
Taiwanese and Country.
Special administrative,
inner outer autonomous,
hyphenations on a name,
that was born already.
Imagine, standing
on eggshells that spell I-N-D-E-P-E
N-D-E-N-C-E trying to take a step.
Birth being brokered, pawned by two
protrusions, jutting into the Pacific. But
we were born already.
Albert Hwang is a Taiwanese American poet from Illinois. He writes about alienation, distance, and inherited grief in the Asian American experience. He is a 2004 James B. Reston New York Times Gold Key winner (Scholastic Arts & Writing). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Inscape Journal, Unbroken: Prose Poems, Heavy Feather Review, Eunoia Review, Unleash Lit, DIHP, Anxiety Press, Pen Pushers, Longmeadow Literary, and other publications.
