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
Several incidents in August involved Taiwanese musicians who faced restrictions or otherwise came under scrutiny while touring in China. Read More
Internet personality Joeman was arrested on drug charges earlier this month. Though hardly the first time that a celebrity has come under public scrutiny for a drug-related arrest, the arrest has struck a chord with the public at large Read More
New Bloom/No Man is an Island's Brian Hioe spoke to South Korean writer and photographer Minsik Jung about the art project "Monday Without a Wheelchair", detailing the lived experiences of Filipino migrant workers in Taiwan 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 recent article on the Brookings Institution titled “From dove to hawk: KMT’s transformation and the quest for new guardrails in cross-Strait relations”, by Dennis Lu Chung Weng, proves a strange exercise in the KMT’s attempts to depict itself in a positive light to the US. Seeing as the article appeared in the same timeframe as an article by former Sunflower Movement student leader Lin Fei-fan, this seems to be the Brookings Institution’s attempt to present the KMT’s viewpoint Read More
Although it is not actually the first time that he has run for president, the presidential run of former convicted murderer Lan Hsin-qi has drawn attention in recent days Read More
Lalaland, by 1300, is a hypnotizing listen. Backed by a thumping backbeat, the track alternates between vocal textures by the members of 1300 in turn. Though clocking in only at three minutes and thirty seconds, the track proves a many-layered one, unfolding through narratively different vocal sections 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
Tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, one of a host of Republican contenders for the presidential nomination, recently raised eyebrows with comments to the media suggesting that the US abandon its policy of strategic ambiguity regarding what stance it would take in the event of an invasion of Taiwan. Ramaswamy instead suggested that the US should commit to an unambiguous stance on Taiwan, that of strategic clarity—at least until the US could ensure that it is not dependent on Taiwan for semiconductors Read More
A YouTube animation, “Life of a Mountain Road Monkey”, has become a sudden overnight hit in Taiwan. At time of writing, the animation has to close four million views–a figure suggesting that one in six Taiwanese has seen the video Read More
Political streamer and Internet celebrity Holger Chen raised eyebrows earlier this week by accusing the DPP of being behind a shooting incident in August 2020 in which he was shot by a gunman Read More