Life

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“100 Ways to See Transgender” Exhibition Shares a Wide Range of Transgender Experiences

·November 11, 2022·6 min read

This past weekend, over 200 participants came to see the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights’ (TAPCPR) "看見跨性別藝文展 100 Ways to See Transgender" exhibition at 二空間 SPACE TWO. Since their first Transgender Film Festival in 2020, TAPCPR has made it a tradition to do larger scale public engagement programming around transgender issues every year in the month of November. Last year was the second Transgender Film Festival, and this year is the 100 Ways to See Transgender exhibition Read More

“Beitou Witch Magic Festival” Criticized Over Depiction of Indigenous

English Events Life

·September 8, 2022·4 min read

A cultural event in Beitou has been criticized regarding Indigenous representation. Namely, the event, the “Beitou Witch Magic Festival”, draws on the history of female Indigenous mediums in Beitou Read More

A Tale of Two May 4ths

English Life

·May 7, 2021·4 min read

A few years ago during the one-hundredth year anniversary of the May 4th Movement, when members of the pan-Blue camp, along with various Chinese nationalists, were outraged by the Tsai administration instead commemorating the date as “May the Fourth be with You”—Star Wars Day, I guess you could call it Read More

An Attempt to Revive Marx’s Workers’ Inquiry

Books English Life

·June 22, 2021·3 min read

Workers’ Inquiry and Global Class Struggle: Strategies, Tactics, Objectives, edited by Robert Ovetz, is an ambitious book Read More

An Insightful Look at Taiwan’s Explosion of Creativity in the 1980s at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum

English Events Life

·December 31, 2022·3 min read

“The Wild Eighties: Dawn of Transdisciplinary Taiwan,” which runs from December 3rd to February 26th at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, is a highly successful look into the artistic creativity of Taiwan’s 1980s. This was the period in which martial law was lifted in Taiwan, resulting in an unprecedented explosion of creative freedoms. Read More

Animatronic Hells and Goddesses with GPS

English Life

·April 20, 2021·5 min read

Temple festivals in Taiwan often seem to be a mixture of the sacred and the profane. Sure, temples are places of worship—but temple festivities often have elements of what would otherwise be considered “low” culture incorporated into them Read More

Are Some Forms of Corruption in Taiwan More Socially Acceptable Than Others?

English Life

·December 9, 2022·2 min read

The popular influencer, bodybuilder Holger Chen, recently raised eyebrows with comments that one in three young people today have gang ties. Read More

Book Review: The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism

Books English Life

·February 9, 2021·5 min read

In 2016, Trump shocked liberal Democrats. They should not have been shocked. It takes a certain level of ignorance and magic thinking to believe in their candidate at the time. Hilary Clinton, after all, is the spouse of a president whose trade policies were largely responsible for the closing of factories and deindustrialization of the nation Read More

Burying Taiwan’s History by Digging It Up

English Life

·November 5, 2021·4 min read

Several dozen people gathered outside of a small temple at the Nanshan Public Cemetery in Tainan on the afternoon of October 15th. The event, which was a guided tour of the cemetery, was organized by a group of local residents and academics who have devoted themselves to calling for the cemetery’s preservation. Namely, the Tainan city government is planning on demolishing the cemetery for redevelopment, though technically the cemetery is undergoing an evaluation as to its cultural value Read More

Calls to Auction Off the Sun Yat-Sen Portrait in Legislature?

English Life

·June 28, 2022·1 min read

At a time in which calls to remove authoritarian symbols have more often led to proposals for the removal of the Chiang Kai-shek statue in the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, pan-Green legislators have recently called for the removal of the Sun Yat-sen portrait in the legislature Read More

Celebrating a God’s Birthday with a Temple Rave

English Life

·December 7, 2020·8 min read

The first hint that something big would be taking place in Bangka over the weekend was when a large stage was set up on the street of my apartment building and started blaring loud electronic music every day at 11 AM Read More

Could a Popular New Social Network Be a Chinese App Seeking to Steal Personal Data?

Design English Life

·January 27, 2023·2 min read

In the past week, Bondee, an app allowing users to create virtual avatars and chatrooms in which they can host up to fifty of their friends, has taken Taiwan by storm. This follows the popularity of apps such as Gathertown in Taiwan, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic Read More