TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Last week, a Chinese American netizen shared a photo of an eatery in southwestern Taiwan called "Communist Bandit Pastries" (共匪餅).
When asked by Taiwan News why it chose the name "Communist Bandit," a restaurant employee explained that the aunt-in-law of the boss was born and raised in China. After she married his uncle and immigrated to Taiwan, she began to long for snacks from her hometown.
Therefore, she decided to make pastries (餅) that she grew up eating in China. Her nephew found the snacks quite interesting and decided to experiment with different fillings until he came up with the current "Communist Bandit Pastries."
(Facebook, chinesepizza photo)
The owner chose the name because during his youth in Taiwan while it was under martial law, the term communist bandit was frequently used as an epithet against people from communist China. When his aunt married his uncle, his family would often jokingly call her a communist bandit or "mainland sister," thus the full name for the shop became "Mainland Sister Communist Bandit Pastries."
Communist bandit is an anti-communist insult first coined by the Kuomintang in the early 20th Century and used extensively by the Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) government during the martial law era in Taiwan. The Chinese character "共" (gong) is short for 共產主義 (gongchan zhuyi, communism), while the character "匪" means "bandit" and was used extensively during China's Warlord Era. In turn, the communists described the KMT as the "Chiang gang" (蒋帮).
(Facebook, chinesepizza photo)
When asked whether the name of the stand was meant to be a joke, the employee stated that the name was meant to be "creative and to attract attention." Indeed, many Taiwanese media outlets have reported on the mom and pop shop, which is based in Chiayi City's West District.
On Sept. 22, Hong Kong's TVB aired a travel show which introduced the eatery, with the host frequently using the term communist bandit during the program. However, users of the Hong Kong social media site LIHKG complained and the TV station later yanked the episode off its myTV SUPER website, apologizing for the use of the "insulting name."
(Facebook, chinesepizza photo)
In Taiwan, the photos of the snack stand began to spread among the foreign community when a Reddit user posted it on Dec. 30 of last year. One netizen joked that there was a rival store in China called "Capitalist Bandit Pancakes," while another observed the irony that the store is privately owned.
(Facebook, chinesepizza photo)
(Facebook, chinesepizza photo)
(Facebook, chinesepizza photo)
