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.
Born into a farming family, Jan Feng-chun, whose father was a university gardener, has had a connection with trees all her life.Jan, who has a PhD in environmental design from the University of Tokyo, not only holds a Japanese license as a tree surgeon, but is also licensed in Japan to work as a “nature restoration promoter” and to perform soil assessment and amelioration. She is Taiwan’s first fully qualified female arborist.
Chen Fang-ming: Scholar of Taiwanese literary history, chaired professor at National Chengchi University.Ken Worker: Online trend tracker, blogger, international tour leader/guide.Wang Pitsu: Parenting author, home cooking expert.Lai Peixia: Singer, TV and radio host, artist, and spiritual mentor.
Nose-flute master Pairang Pavavaljung, a “living national treasure” who represents the Ravar group of the Northern Paiwan people, uses the music of the nose flute to tell the legends and stories of Taiwanese indigenous people. The art of playing the unique twin-pipe polyphonic nose flute was on the verge of being lost, but today it is being taught to five students, allowing this music to continue to survive.
