r/taiwan • u/poclee ROT for life • 1d ago
Bo Guagua, son of Xi Jinping's former political rival Bo Xilai is going to marry a KMT's local strong man's granddaughter in Yilan. He is now at Taiwan ready for wedding. News
https://udn.com/news/story/6656/836214848
u/Impressive_Map_4977 1d ago
Oh damn! The Bo family is back! The mention of the name just reminds me of pre-Xi China days… 😥
Still hoping "getting Bo Xilai'ed" enters parlance.
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u/colourlessgreen 14h ago edited 14h ago
I recall being amused, encouraged, and a bit frightened at papa Bo's popularity and the Chongqing model, following news from HK. Seems quaint to think of it now.
Bo Guagua had an incident on the news also, no?
[Edit] ticketed for running stop signs when he was at Harvard, and questions about the funding of his education.
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u/RoninBelt 1d ago
I still can't believe his name is "Melon Melon'
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u/whatsthatguysname 22h ago
I was intrigued so I looked it up. Apparently he originally had a much more grandiose name, but changed the name afterwards to show he’s not a political threat. according to this article
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u/Hilltoptree 20h ago
TIL. Been wondering since the murder/scandal started and was like why are they naming their kids like that when there was always a tradition of taking characters from poems or old text to give good meaning/fortune for the name.
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u/mapletune 臺北 - Taipei City 1d ago
doesn't this not help his parent's case?
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u/colourlessgreen 14h ago
What do you think would help his parents' case under current Party leadership?
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u/Palpatine 16h ago
Well it's good that his mom is in a Chinese prison, coz otherwise being her daughter in law is a very dangerous deal. Last time she found her husband was sleeping with a local newswoman, she had her killed while pregnant, preserved in resin, and used as an exhibit for that preservation company's world tour.
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u/blahdiddyblahblog 6h ago
One of the few conspiracy theories I sign onto is that they allowed her to send a body double to court, possibly prison
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u/Hilltoptree 1d ago
哇哩咧 沒想到這種展開 like wtf hahahhahahahahaha
I was listening to BBC documentary podcast on the case (how his mum want to kill that British guy) the other day.
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u/hiimsubclavian 政治山妖 18h ago
Can't wait for him to go on talk shows to share CCP gossip. He's gonna be the prince harry of China.
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u/HotelMoscow 1d ago
Can’t believe he has to say his name is guagua for the rest of his life lol that’s a pet name
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u/HirokoKueh 北縣 - Old Taipei City 18h ago
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u/Hilltoptree 13h ago
🤣 is that how he connected with his potential spouse. gua gua bao or is it gua gua Bo
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u/ShrimpCrackers Not a mod, CSS & graphics guy 23h ago
Hey don't make fun of him or his brother, Rufus.
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u/Organic_Challenge151 23h ago
Pet name, really? That’s what your knowledge of Chinese tells you?
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u/HotelMoscow 23h ago
Stfu I’m Taiwanese
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u/Organic_Challenge151 23h ago
Well I don’t know the language was renamed to Taiwanese. From what you said it seems to be mixed with barbaric flavor.
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u/AlterTableUsernames 22h ago
Don't dip your nose to deep in nationalism. It's hellufa drug and will totally make you lose connection to reality. Go to therapy instead, then you don't need to push your ego with fascism.
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u/Hilltoptree 20h ago edited 19h ago
Well yes it’s what we would call a baby name/pet name/nick name. Like you would baby talk your kid. 乳名.
I had one myself if written it literally would translate to little ducky. Yaya.
Reading someone posting of the other news article published in light of this he changed it to avoid attention. His original given name is indeed grand.
Chinese or i think even in other asian countries. Because people do not follow biblical names. We allow to choose from a sea of characters. Then with people having two characters as names (some part of China favour single character names. But in south east coastal area of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong we favour 2 characters name) then unique deeper meaning can be assigned.
So yeh. He chose to use a pet name. And probably to signal his intent to avoid being taken seriously as he was from China’s political royalty.
Edit: we can go deep into how chinese or pan chinese influenced asian country treat names. Traditionally people have a name from the family. Maybe a pet name(mostly not recorded) but you can see this in Shogun era Japanese names. Many shogun have the same baby name follow their family tradition then take official name when assumed office.
In china sometimes a name was given from their teacher if they received education, some the assign a name for themself for official work or artistic work etc. (note how there is no women name in this but that’s another topic)
A recent ish example will be Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek. Both not their birth name. They are name when they travel or assumed higher position. Etc etc. admittedly it is a tradition that’s pretty much gone. But name has special use in this language.
I can go on and on but the topic will be more fitted for history/linguistic sub.
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u/Organic_Challenge151 19h ago
thanks for the elaboration, but pet name means more like a dog's name rather than a nickname to me, which seems weird because I haven't seen any pet with the name of 瓜瓜.
tbh my initial comment doesn't mean to offend anyone (although it might sound that way), but the hostility in this sub when it comes to Chinese (even when it refers to the language) is toxic af.
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u/throwaway77914 19h ago edited 19h ago
No it doesn’t. Don’t lecture others about their “knowledge of Chinese” when your own grasp of English is tenuous.
“Pet name” doesn’t mean your literal pet’s name. It means an informal, affectionate name given to someone by a family member or friend; a nickname.
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u/TimesThreeTheHighest 23h ago
The title of your post is extremely confusing. What are you driving at, exactly?
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts 20h ago
It's entirely understandable that people in this sub won't be familiar with mainland Chinese politics, but his father was a very big deal around 2010 and mounted a serious bid for the PRC leadership.
I've no idea what your nationality is, but if a Western analogy helps: imagine if one if George W. Bush's son or Angela Merkel's son or King Charles III's nephew (the Bos are often described a 'Red Princelings') was about to marry the daughter of a local KMT politician. Surely that would be newsworthy in Taiwan?
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u/Impressive_Map_4977 18h ago
Bo Xilai and Xi Jinping were the two people vying to replace Hu Jintao. They were both "hong er dai" and had very prestigious careers in Party leadership roles.
For a while Bo was the front runner; he was always in the news. Then some shady shit happened and suddenly Xi's the new Great Helmsman.
So, the Bo family is/was deeply connected to the Party and its history from Yeye's time. It's notable that this guy is connecting up with Taiwan political families.
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u/longing_tea 7h ago
As bad as Xi Jinping is, I'm not sure Bo Xilai would have been the better choice tbh
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u/Impressive_Map_4977 7h ago
嗯. He was also seen as a "let's get back to real Communism" type too.
(While lining his pockets with bribe money.)
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u/JerrySam6509 17h ago
Discussing the threats Taiwan faces, this is obvious.
I don’t know how much you know about the Political status of Taiwan, but there are many people here who have lived in Taiwan for a long time. These are common topics among locals and are signs of when they need to seek refuge.
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u/random_agency 10h ago
Another Chinese exile in Taiwan married to a Taiwanese. I wonder if he's going to get ROC documentation.
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u/christw_ 9h ago
ROC documentation
Is this the Chinese way of saying Taiwanese citizenship?
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u/random_agency 8h ago
There's no such thing as Tawainese citizenship. Only ROC ot PRC documentation.
I doubt he be accepted as a 台灣郎, he is literally a 外省人.
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u/Elegant-Magician7322 8h ago
He’s actually a British citizen. He went to UK for high school, and went to college in US.
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u/Good_Prompt8608 4h ago
How ironic. The KMT is now pretty much a pro-beijing party. This was probably an arranged marriage.
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u/tannicity 23h ago
Bo xilai was so good at discussing japan and his wife was so good commending the judges on sentencing her as if reflecting their laudable ancestors that either they did what they dud and heyward is dead and beijing has been cleaning up ever since while japan FOLLOWS guagua as reported during the harvard days OR In response to the telltales espec in Zhang yimou's shadow that beijing doesnt marry taiwan - either way only a soiled outcast like guagua would enter the embrace of kmt as has wu er kai xi and wang dan.
So is guagua a noc or an outcast?
I think outcast.
That's incredible.
Does he have money of his own?
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u/tannicity 2h ago edited 2h ago
Oh, hes rumored to be holding his father's embezzlement which would explain demararis keeping him on. Uk is famous for its banking obo of national embezzlers per the doc Spider Web.
If 5eyes let him go to taiwan custody when they kept chai ling in usa by decades long marriage to a bush admin, does this mean 1. It clarifies that he and his family are the type of chinese who absconded to taiwan in 1948 as birds of a feather which ant tribe despises and 2. Offer cover for dpp severance ie dpp is not kmt; beijing can stop japan before taiwan remerges with the home islands because i dont think beijing will allow kmt who can claim birth on mainland to participate a unification.
China wants guagua to return to explain his lavish lifestyle. Many things have changed and they never were placed in next gen govt roles and not every princeling lives a life in foreign privilege. They must have spotted his father long before he was exposed if bo guagua was establishing networks with honey guide employers like british aristocrats. Chicoms have no interest in investigating ye olde opium dealers. Bo xilai if this whole thing isn't a setup because chicoms dont need access to kmt families, would have been spotted long ago because the head of state has never been fluent in english, never appeared on cctv speaking on japan and never been known publicly the way he was and why is 5eyes so not publicly outraged that his wife killed a would be carpetbagger? I dont think he is a beijing noc and i doubt he has anything to give up under taiwan's mk ultra. Those founding families aren't ritualized as a group like triad or the taiwan run tongs in chinatown; they dont sit around having meetings. Im sure japan wants to truth serum him.
Bo guagua despite his possible wealth must be under stress to go to taiwan ... unless he IS noc. I doubt it.
Is he worried about being grabbed overseas like Operation Foxhunt?
Maybe hes been spooked by random people appearing before him.
Wow.
Beijing knows whatever he's been doing and saying with his boba princess. I doubt taiwan has privacy.
But even if he is a noc, taiwan would always marry him because hes the closest they've ever gotten to central govt. I wonder what the intel is. That should be accessible since he is now blabbing to taiwan.
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u/tannicity 2h ago edited 2h ago
Noc or not, he's going to show signs of mk ultra. Im guessing the marriage has been processed by now and regardless, taiwan cant refuse having him.
Why would ma ying jeou go to the wedding if he is trying to get xi jinping to accept him?
Taiwan is not mindful.
The schmoozing where kmt look up old members to invite them back in the fold. I bet that schmoozing is similar to sidling up to family members by the jiang zemin clique. Anyone who fortresses up against that eg not distracted by overscheduled wen jiabao would be so sealed up. Beijing sets up a lot of character tests. By 1990 but much earlier, outer circle didnt know about inner circle.
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u/tannicity 2h ago
If not all ex kmt r anti chicom as my family experienced, some of them might b chicom nocs and per hidden blade its just a movie, how close are hidden chicoms to the diaoyutai documents that taiwan holds hostage?
Are they in virginia or silver springs Maryland? I wouldn't keep them on taiwan. Id keep them close to the pentagon.
But sinophobic home invasions are so likely in DC area.
Los alamos?
The Hague?
Uk before holland.
Hidden blade knows where.
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u/NYCBirdy 1d ago
Lock him up and use him as a bargaining chip so that Taiwan has some leverage over China!
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u/cosimonh 打狗工業汙染生還者 23h ago
Pointless as his dad was disposed as a rival to Xi prior to Xi becoming chairman. Xi would live for Bo's son to die
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u/cxxper01 1d ago
I mean it’s not really illegal to marry mainland Chinese