茉莉羊英國吃草日記 Dec & Jas Diary

My dear friends,

I would like to share this beautiful song "Island's Sunrise" with you. This is the theme music related to the "Sunflower Movement" in Taiwan. It’s being sung in Taiwanese in the MV.

Island's Sunrise MV with English translation lyrics.

A Taiwanese student group and citizens had been occupying the parliament since 18^th/March and ended on 10^th/April. They oppose a trade services deal (CSSTA, Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement) with Beijing that they claim will hurt Taiwan's economy and make it vulnerable to pressure from China. President Ma insists the deal will bring economic benefits, but campaigners say it will make Taiwan too economically dependent on China. 

 500,000 Taiwanese citizens came out to the streets to join the Sunflower Movement on 30^th/March. As well as lots of overseas Taiwanese people joined them in 49 other cities (17 different countries) across the world. 

The students agreed to leave after the head of the parliament promised that he would not preside over any debate on the bill - which was signed in June 2013 but has not yet been ratified by MPs - until legislation was in place that covered oversight of all deals with China.

(China formally regards Taiwan as a part of its territory, despite the island governing itself for six decades. The two sides split at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.) (A TV program explained the relation between these two in a humorous way. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=WF-lKbIWSIA&app=desktop)

Although the unprecedented occupation has finished, the movement will not stop. On the contrary, it's just started. Please support Taiwan and keep caring the first ever democracy in East Asia. Please visit http://4am.tw/ for more stories. 

Thank you so much for reading this. 

Love Jasmine 

(P.S. part of the info in this letter is copied from BBC News)

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/ Search "Taiwan") 

An animation version of the MV with English subtitles 
http://voicetube.tw/videos/11713

With Japanese translation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqVDQngHMK8&feature=youtu.be

With Russian translation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V_dc9ElUuM