Happy National Day! Like you, I can't wait to get down and national on my day off. But why does Taiwan's day of national celebration fall on Oct. 10? The answer lies in the history of China and the 1911 Wuchang uprising, the movement that triggered the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China.

As such, members of Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang (KMT) – the nationalist party – will look on President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) presiding over today's festivities with a certain degree of schadenfreude.

After all, President Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) advocates Taiwan's independence from China, so having a national birthday celebration that commemorates the founding of the ROC – for many in the DPP and outmoded concept that Taiwan must move on from if it is to truly divorce itself from its neighbor across the Taiwan Strait – is a matter of some hilarity.

Not to be outdone by the parade that will grace Ketagalan Boulevard today, the KMT is gearing up to throw its own parallel party under the theme of “Love Your National Flag, Love Your Country.”

"The event is scheduled to take place at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei, where an estimated 20,000 people are expected to sing the national anthem and pay tribute to Chiang Kai-shek, a founder of the KMT and later of the ROC," Asia Times reported.

But as the KMT and its supporters rejoice in front of the father of the nation, and President Tsai and some of her few remaining diplomatic allies look on over the official party, Taiwan's perennial identity-issue time bomb ticks on.

But it will (probably) not explode today, so have a great time and forget about politics.

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Editor David Green (@DavidPeterGreen)

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