How is Taiwan understood by the world? As a silicon chip island? As a model of pandemic response? As a gender-friendly society? Or as a symbol of democracy and freedom? There is no one single answer. This is because under the world’s gaze, Taiwan is continually being reexamined and reinterpreted.

The documentary film A Chip Odyssey came out in the early summer of 2025, and in less than three months surpassed NT$30 million at the box office, making it one of the top five highest-­earning documentaries in the history of Taiwan. The film transcends the gulf between generations and fields of endeavor and has heightened people’s affection for this land.
Golden-Horse-winning director Hsiao Chu-chen spent five years making A Chip Odyssey.

With the permission of the International Satoumi Program, a case study on Taiwanese stone fish weirs has been published on the website of the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative by the Agency of Rural Development and Soil and Water Conservation of Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture.

There are 609 stone fish weirs in Penghu County alone, their dikes extending over 133 kilometers. In particular, Jibei Island has 101 existing fish weirs, giving it the highest concentration of such structures in the world.
Groups of fish weirs that date back over 300 years in places like Penghu and the Xinwu District of Taoyuan are also remarkable for their wide variety of shapes and the integrity of historical documentation.

Toucheng in Yilan County is known as the county’s oldest town, and its Old Street, only 600 meters long, has the highest concentration of cultural heritage of any place in Yilan. It is the center of the maritime culture that arose among the area’s five fishing harbors.
As times have changed, Toucheng has been reenergized after a period of decline. The Ghost Grappling Competition held during the seventh month of the lunar calendar, the Toucheng Art Festival, now in its tenth year,

Why has Jiufen, formerly a prosperous gold-mining town that was later nearly abandoned, continued to attract so many tourists over recent decades? Is it the crowds of people brushing shoulders as they pass beneath the red lanterns that line its stepped streets? Or is it the poignant mood captured in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s film A City of Sadness? Or perhaps the sense of tranquility that comes from gazing at fishing-boat lights shimmering on the sea at night? The beauty of Jiufen is ever-­changing, and

Ceramics making is an ancient set of skills that have long been the basis of an industry. In Taiwan, the most important bastion of world-class ceramics manufacture is New Taipei City’s Yingge District, known as “Taiwan’s Jingdezhen.” (Jingdezhen, China’s “porcelain capital,” has been a center of ceramics production for more than a millennium.) Though Yingge’s ceramics industry has no astonishing background story or dramatic past, it has its own tale to tell.

Tea culture started in Asia and later made its way to the West, not only transforming global trade but also the languages of many lands. Wherever this beverage’s pronunciation is close to “tea,” this generally means the term came from China’s Fujian Province or from Taiwan, and was influenced by the Hokkien pronunciation te.
Once upon a time Taiwanese teas dominated the international market, launching the island’s role in the Age of Discovery.

In the Analects of Confucius it says: “It’s always a pleasure to greet friends from afar!” Every summer, flocks of adorable little guests come from Australia to the estuaries and beaches of Taiwan. They are “little terns.”
Little terns nest and raise their young in Taiwan, staying until August when the juvenile birds can fly well enough for all of the terns to travel back south, before returning to Taiwan the following year.

“Babu, babu!”—the sound of a horn rings out in the distance. People trying to cool off make their way through the scorching hot afternoon to a vending cart, where an older man is scooping out Taiwanese-style ice cream in taro, sweet runner bean, and goose-yellow vanilla flavors. An icy cold treat is the quickest way to beat the heat!