The scenery changes from city high rises to layered mountain ridges on the 30-minute drive to the Malingkeng Recreational Agriculture Area in Keelung’s Qidu District, a secret hideaway in Taipei’s backyard. Spending just half a day here, you can walk beautiful trails lined with blooming tung trees, play in a riverside park, and visit an old bridge built with glutinous rice.
As a child I lived in a market district. My father ran an ice shop on the ground floor of our house. Morning shoppers at the market would visit us for fruit juice and shaved ice while enjoying a moment’s peace and quiet. When he wasn’t busy, my father would take me round the market, buying me whatever foods I fancied. This father-and-son ritual survived into my adulthood. Whenever I had a few days off and returned to my hometown, I would pay a visit to the market with my father.
“Who Cares About Heaven?” and “Made in Chiayi”—these phrases are boldly displayed on the poster for Palaces against fluorescent red and green colors. The design brims with a distinctively Taiwanese flavor and a grassroots vibe. Palaces is a coming-of-age production celebrating Our Theatre’s 18th anniversary. Based on the “Five Mysterious Cases” in Taiwanese folklore, Palaces is composed of two parts: Palaces: Outside In and Palaces: Inside Out.
Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau has proclaimed 2021 the “Year of Cycling Tourism,” promoting bike routes throughout Taiwan tailored to a variety of interests, broadening and enriching the “new cycling culture.” Today we’re hopping on our two-wheelers and pedaling through Taichung in Central Taiwan for a brand new riding experience and a look at the new cycling culture.
Back in 1980 David Chen, who had just graduated from the Department of Marine Engineering at National Taiwan Ocean University, and his elder brother Chen Ping-tsao, met with Ping-tsao’s friend Yang Tai-chung and the three of them decided to go into business together. Each contributed NT$50,000 as start-up capital, and they founded the Value Valves Company, specializing in producing valves for ships, the petrochemical industry, and the steel industry.
New Taipei City police officer Alex Chen uses identification technology to provide leads to criminal investigators. A 2020 recipient of the Examination Yuan’s Civil Service Outstanding Contribution Award, Chen applies the same technology to the difficult task of identifying homeless persons and unknown decedents so that they can be reunited with their loved ones. Successful searches return lost souls to their homes, and bring closure to their families.
In 1963 Lin Chiung-yao, founder of Kaohsiung’s San Sin High School of Commerce and Home Economics, commissioned architect Chen Jen-ho to design classrooms with tiered seats, to give her students a better view of their teachers and the blackboards. Chen grappled with structural challenges, a tight budget and other difficulties, eventually creating the unique Wave Tower.
Global yields of agricultural staples are falling as climate change, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides degrade the world’s soils. Adding insult to environmental injury, organic waste often isn’t recycled and properly reintegrated into the soil system.
Two-hundred-plus years ago, Lukang was one of Taiwan’s major trading ports. Local prosperity led to the rise of rich and influential families, and some important businesspeople got their start in this town. No one foresaw that one day the harbor would be closed by siltation, that large numbers of people would move away, and that even the mansions of the wealthy would go to rack and ruin.
What is your idea of an indigenous community? Tjimur Dance Theatre, a troupe that hails from the Timur community in Pingtung County’s Sandimen Township, invites you to “Go Paiwan”—to see how authentic Paiwan culture differs from your impression of this branch of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples.
