I was outside 7 11, when I saw this bicycle with two ribbons tied round it and decided to have a closer look. The yellow ribbon had already faded to nothing, but I assumed that it was in support of the Sunflower Student Movement, though if I’m wrong, feel free to comment below. 

The red ribbon read: 

Save the fire fighters

I searched online for this and found several linked websites and Facebook pages advocating for fire fighter rights, as below:

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/savefirefighters

A blog: http://savefirefighters.blogspot.tw/

A Youtube account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0VNfomF1Mw

An Apple Daily news article: http://www.appledaily.com.tw/realtimenews/article/new/20140817/453271/

A blog post: http://berryvoice.org/b/item/151-voice-of-da-and-ker

And a post on a citizen journalism website: http://www.peopo.org/news/253311

The websites all advocate for better working conditions for firefighters in light of recent events, in particular with reference to the explosion in Kaohsiung, and a later demonstration on August 18. 

It’s odd that I heard so little about this at the time, interesting to see the remnants of past protests still alive in Taipei. I thought the faded message on the yellow ribbon was quite interesting and representative of the fading public interest in certain causes once the media spotlight is off them.