Taiwan: Curious Questions, Why the Secrecy on Ma's Daughter's Marriage

Monday April 15, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Taiwan has many current pressing problems. How to get the economy rolling? What to do with China's constant threat to its democracy? What should it do about nuclear power? What about the Diaoyutai/Senkaku dispute? The list can go on and on, but mixed in all these is where is the heart of its president and where will he retire after his final three years are up, especially since his ratings continue at an all time low.

The questions of where he might retire etc. bring us back to why the secrecy of his daughter's marriage which broke last month?

Certainly, the first family deserves a certain amount of privacy, but privacy is not hiding something. Ma's daughter was married it appears a year ago to a Harvard schoolmate Allen Tsai, but Taiwan did not know about it till the following year and that only because a second ceremony/dinner was held in the Grand Hotel in Taiwan for select locals. It was not announced, but it is a lot harder for the first family to keep a secret in Taiwan, than it is in the USA.

No one has anything against private weddings and a wish to be free from Paparazzi, but when the daughter of a president of a country gets married and the country finds out a year later, the nagging question comes up, why so hush-hush?? It is almost as if the president does not want more than the marriage of his daughter known. Is he ashamed or embarrassed that other questions about the fact that he is president of Taiwan will come up?

This is more like hiding the wedding; and it is in someways a discredit to Taiwan's media that it took a year to find out--and that only because a second wedding was held in Taiwan.

So speculation arises, where would Ma retire to? His daughter is now living in Hong Kong, and that is where Ma was supposedly born. Would the president of a country choose to retire there and not in Taiwan? That does not say much for loyalty to one's country.