A recent op-ed in the Australian Financial Times by Chinese ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, has provoked consternation Read More
Life
Random
“The winner of the 2020 National Hakka Stir-fry Culinary Competition goes to A-Wu’s Shop!”, announced Andre Chiang, the lead judge of the final round judges’ panel. The crowd cheered as the restaurant owner and chefs headed up to the stage to claim their trophy and banner Read More
A balloon float featuring 7/11 mascot Open-Chan that broke away from its tethers, flew away, and then exploded has become the object of numerous memes online Read More
An op-ed in the New York Times today by the former Ma administration Minister of Culture Lung Yingtai proves typical in its delusion. After all, despite a history of criticizing the KMT’s authoritarian rule as a writer during the authoritarian period, Lung later saw fit to join an administration led by that same party–never mind the party’s refusal to make amends for the tens of thousands it killed during the White Terror and its contemporary aims to trade off Taiwan’s democratic freedoms to China, at the expense of the futures of its young people Read More
Former Singaporean Minister for Foreign Affairs George Yeo raised eyebrows with comments earlier this month asserting that Taiwan was a “piece on the chessboard.” Though these comments provoked some outrage in Taiwan, Yeo’s full comments were not necessarily incorrect, in that he went on to state that Taiwan was itself aware of its role as a geopolitical pawn of larger powers, and that it was its own choice as to how to be played. Yeo next went on, however, to rather outlandishly suggest that a solution for Taiwan and China to establish peace was to form a confederation with China Read More
Fashion is where Cèdric Alviani’s work shines in its commentary. The photographs were of outdoor fashion posters. Having been through the elements, the fashion statements the posters aimed to make look hollow. The superficiality associated with fashion photography in this context looks absurd. The colorful photographs scream out criticism of our contemporary consumerist world. This subversive commentary of our contemporary “fast fashion” culture is very self-aware, and in fact, is how the exhibition introduced itself Read More
The saga of a baboon spotted variously in the past few weeks in Pingjhen District in Taoyuan came to a dramatic end yesterday after the animal was tranquilized by authorities in the afternoon. Subsequently, however, the baboon was reported as having been discovered to have gunshot wounds Read More
A June piece in The Telegraph, on the joys of tourism in Taiwan as it is under geopolitical threat, proves a bizarre exercise in colonial disaster tourism–or pre-disaster tourism, if you would, seeing as there has been no Taiwan contingency as yet Read More
A strange moment of political convergence occurred with former Trump administration official Elbridge Colby retweeting tankie influencer Carl Zha Read More
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
The Nanshan Gravesite at the southern outskirt of the Tainan city central is a historical site of land burials that had been in use for hundreds of years until 2008 when it was forbidden for any further interment. The “no interment” rule follows an earlier order in 1991 by the Tainan City government to restrict new interments on the site. The “no interment” regulation is aligned with the general trend in Taiwan where the use of cremation has been much preferred over land burial in funeral practices. The Ministry of Interior of the Taiwan Government, for many years now, has been persistent in encouraging its people to use cremation to bid final farewell to the recently deceased. By one count, in 2017 there were only 38 land burials in Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan of about 2 million residents Read More
China has been rocked by protests in the past days, which have taken place in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and others. The protests, which are broadly against the restrictive measures maintained in China as part of COVID-zero, broke out in the wake of a fire in Urumqi that killed ten and injured nine. The protests have been termed the “A4 Revolution” by some. Namely, protesters have often taken to holding up blank pieces of white paper as part of their protests. This is due to authorities cracking down on signs with slogans on them. Read More