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COMPASS MAGAZINE, Feb 1999. VOL. 6 ISSUE 2

I was in the office the other day when I spotted a colleague walking toward me capped with a ski hat, sort of a putrid green color with a thin strip of orange, tucked over his ears.
There wasn't a snowstorm outside. And he wasn't there to rob the office -- we're journalists after all.
My co-worker was hip with the trend. Not cold. Not poor. He was just hip. Written across the front of his cap, in very inconspicuous writing, was " Chen Shui-bian" -- Taipei's former mayor.
The designer of the cap on this man's head? Taiwan's youth, creating their own campaign to help re-elect a mayor they love.
I bring up this fashion trend for a very important reason. The right to vote.
Taiwan recently witnessed and lived through the election of the mayor for the country's capital of three million -- the last major election before the 2000 presidential bid which waits just around the corner.
The election was significant not only for locals but for China, for the US and any other country or person with interests in Taiwan. The election was important mainly because the winning party, the Kuomintang, now has the greatest chance to fill Lee Teng-hui's post when he leaves after serving three terms as Taiwan's president next year.
An amazing eighty percent of the voting public came out to exercise the right to vote in Taipei on December 6. Eighty percent. The United States is more than lucky if more than 40 percent of the public hits the polls during an average election.
There are campaigns across America that have the sole purpose of inspiring people to exercise this right.
And still they don't.
We have commercials of Madonna wrapped in the American flag, taunting people to dare to use their right to vote. We have legislators educating us, lecturing us on the "difference that one vote can make." We have giant stickers with red checks and a note that reads "I voted today" in hopes of making people feel guilty enough that they will squeeze time in to do it themselves.
And still they don't.
Americans come out to the polls during election time, dragging their feet on the ground. In the minds of many Americans, unfortunately voting is more of an annoyance and less of a right to something very special.
On the final night of campaigning, I was forced to walk home after work because no car could squeeze through the thousands of people marching near Taipei's city government headquarters.
I stayed up late just to watch Taipei's citizens live through the election. I watched as teenagers screamed at the top of their lungs to every scooter that passed by. I watched groups as groups chanted like they were rooting their team during the last long pass at the superbowl or the final three-point shot in a basketball game.
Never have I seen such interest in a campaign, in politics, in a country's best interests. Never have I witnessed a community of people believe in their politicians so passionately.
I woke up early on election morning and the first thing I was asked on my way into town was if I had exercised my own right to vote. What disapointment when he realized I didn't qualify as a Taiwan citizen to share his experience.
I went to the polls in the afternoon just to see. Hordes of people waited in long lines -- the old, the young -- not a single person missing.
And then the night came and Ma Yien-jeou was announced as the new mayor by a small majority. Chen Shui-bian would not be returning to office.
The champagne bottles started to pop just as Chen bowed out with tears in his eyes.
It was a good race -- the most enthusiastic partaking in a democracy that I have ever seen.