Your house is your larger body. It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? And dreaming, leave the city for a grove or hill-top?
—“On Houses,” from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Completed in 1960, the Chapel Building of St. Joseph Tech­nical Senior High School in Taitung City is a work of the late Swiss architect Justus Dahinden.

Human beings share a nostalgic yearning for nature, but for city dwellers, the bounties of nature can appear out of reach.

On an afternoon that alternated between brilliant sun and cracking thunder, Taiwan Panorama joined forces with the Taiwan‑­Asia Exchange Foundation at Thinkers’ Studio for “Southeast Asia in Transition: Immigrant Perspectives on Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy.” Through its participants, this forum was a showcase not only for how immigrants from Southeast Asia have enriched Taiwan’s cultural diversity, but also for the unbridled vitality they bring with them.

Steel is cold and hard and plastic looks cheap and light, but wood, being so much closer to nature, gives more of a feel of gentleness and calm. Used since ancient times, wood was instrumental in the rise of human civilization.

John Tseng, CEO of Adronic Inspection Instruments, was both saddened and indignant when his mother passed away from cancer. But those emotions became an impetus for change, leading him to shift his company’s focus from producing industrial endoscopes to developing medical ones. Currently Taiwan’s only vertically integrated maker of top-tier endoscopes, Adronic develops, designs, manufactures and services the devices in house.

There are quite a few children in Taiwan who grow up being looked after by caregivers from Southeast Asia. After being together for long ­periods of time, they become like family to each other despite differences in language and culture. These strong emotional bonds do not end when it comes time for the caregivers to leave. When these children grow up, they express their longing for their “second mothers” by learning about Southeast-Asian cultures and following topics related to migrant workers.

Bright, moving illustrations, practical information about life, and deep explorations of topics make for magazines that people can’t put down. The only way you would know that these are government publications is by looking at the masthead.

Small children are always dazzled when they see the machinery at construction sites, while the workers who put up buildings seem like heroes. But after growing up, children are no longer curious about the world behind the construction hoardings, and life inside the hoardings is like a parallel universe to life outside. Fortunately, through books, theater, and performances, we can explore the vitality and energy of construction sites.

In their communications with the public, government agencies are turning away from old habits of issuing haughty pronouncements couched in stuffy officialese. Instead they are employing social media editors who are full of whacky ideas and are a match for every conceivable challenge. These editors expose fake news and interpret policies for the general public by making connections with everyday life and topical events.