This song tells the story of a Paiwan indigenous family, but it is also the personal story of Golden Melody Award winning singer Abao (Paiwan name Aljenljeng Tjaluvie). The abundantly creative Abao released her second solo album, Kinakaian: Mother Tongue, at the end of 2019. It had been three years since she released her first solo album, Vavayan: Woman, produced by Soichiro Arai.
Punk-influenced Kaohsiung band Fire EX. sings in Taiwanese about the times we live in and the band’s deep love of Taiwan, writing and performing such highly popular tracks as “Good Night! Formosa!” and “Island’s Sunrise” that kindle their fans’ hopes for Taiwan’s future.
ROC government scholarships offered to citizens of friendly nations have changed two young people’s lives.
A member of Taitung’s Pinuyumayan community, Sangpuy Katatepan has been deeply attracted to the ancient melodies of his tribe since childhood. He composes the lyrics for each song on his albums in the Aboriginal language of his people. This love for the land is channeled by a robust yet gentle voice that not only moves the Taiwanese, but also transcends the language barrier, resonating with musicians abroad and earning him a gold medal at the September 2017 Global Music Awards in the USA.
Stepping foot on the rooftop of the Hong-Gah Museum on a clear day, the outlines of Mt. Danfeng, Mt. Qixing, Mt. Datun, Battleship Rock, and even that stronghold of local arts, Taipei National University of the Arts, are all visible. On the Guandu Plain in Taipei’s Beitou District, where the museum is situated, a wide road splits the landscape into an endless expanse of fields to one side and a forest of metal factories and homes to the other.
“Youth Banana” is a Taiwanese rock band whose very name bespeaks the younger generation’s creativity and sense of the absurd. Its four members—leader, keyboardist and lead singer Wang Kiwei (known as “Lao Wang” or “Old Wang”), bassist Jiang Wang, drummer Huang Tang Hsuan, and guitarist Zack Guo—all grew up in the little town of Qishan in Kaohsiung.
In 2019, Vietnam’s National Hospital of Pediatrics conducted a successful liver transplant on the youngest patient in the nation’s liver-transplant history; a surgical team from Taipei Veterans General Hospital performed the operation. A Thai government promotional video on smart medical care featured a wellness diagnostic kiosk manufactured in Taiwan.
Lin Sheng-xiang is a unique voice in Taiwan’s music community. He has long been focused on issues related to farming, labor and the environment, and he has a particular style that has absorbed the traditional and the modern in a blend of traditional Taiwanese music with Western rock and roll.
“What I want to be when I grow up.” Do you remember that assignment from elementary school? Now, years later, have you become the adult you envisioned?
When you walk into the IBU Book Café, in a lane off Nanxing Road in Yilan County’s Dongshan Township, the first sight that greets your eyes is a wall covered with a dazzling array of books, while your nose is met by a light fragrance of coconut and a heavy smell of spices. This is a place where you can borrow books and try out some Southeast-Asian cuisine, and it is also a space where migrant workers and long-term immigrants from Southeast Asia can interact.
