With its elegant ­Yingxi Gate, two-centuries­-old City God Temple, and Dong­men Market (once the largest traditional market in Taiwan), Hsin­chu is a city that lends itself to reveling in the past. Yet with the Industrial Technology Research Institute and the Hsin­chu Science Park, the city is known the world over for its modern present. Hsin­chu blends the old and the new and also welcomes newcomers from all over to settle down there, participate in its bubbling creativity and help write the ne (Read More)

Life is more often hard than happy, but the power of faith provides spiritual refuge and peace of mind, so that people can raise their heads again and move forward. Throughout the eight-day Baishatun Mazu Pilgrimage, we see pious believers kneeling to worship as Mazu’s palanquin approaches, preparing to kneel or prostrate themselves to let the deity pass over them. Every pair of eyes and the wrinkles on every pair of hands tell a story. Only by going deep into Taiwan’s countryside can one get (Read More)

Have you ever seen a mountain fly? In the early hours of September 21, 1999, when the huge Jiji Earthquake caused roughly 3.5 kilometers of the south face of Mt. Jue­duo in Cao­ling, Yun­lin County, to break loose in a landslide, an estimated 120 million cubic meters of earth and rock “flew” for about three seconds. The landslide formed a dam across the Qing­shui River, creating a barrier lake that became known as New Cao­ling Lake. The Cao­ling landscape has continued to transform in the years (Read More)

Our visit to Taiwan’s Northeast Coast begins with an interview amid majestic scenery. Standing next to the large window of her second-floor office, Chen Yu Fang, principal of Bi­tou Elementary School, introduces the surrounding landscape. To the left, wave-cut rock platforms slope toward the sea below the Bi­tou Cape Trail. To the right, the Long­dong rock-climbing site and Long­dong Bay can be seen in the distance, as well as the San­diao Cape Lighthouse even farther afield. “From the second-fl (Read More)

A host of oddly shaped, jagged  hoo­doo outcrops are strikingly arrayed on Ye­­liu Cape, which extends 1.7 kilometers into the ocean. With a landscape virtually unmatched elsewhere, in 2003 it became the site of Taiwan’s first-ever “geopark.” Endowed with rich wildlife, sea life and bird life, its reputation has spread far and wide. Thanks to the barrier formed by the cape, more than 300 years ago Ye­liu was already the largest natural fishing port on the North Coast. But in the wake of a (Read More)

Becoming a world champion is made even sweeter by having learned the lessons of failure. Four years ago, four students of National Cheng­chi University’s International Master of Business Administration (IMBA) program signed up for the Hult Prize, known as the Nobel Prize of social enterprise. After hitting a hurdle in the regionals, they kept fighting, making a surprise comeback and going on to come out top from among over 20,000 teams worldwide. The social enterprise they created, IMPCT Coff (Read More)

“Ihave always believed that literature is the salt of the earth. Salt may be a trivial thing, but it is essential for our health. Precisely because literature is like a handful of salt found in the soil… I believe it can transform mankind’s spiritual structure, and unleash limitless potential for betterment.” Thus did Yeh Shih-tao, a pioneering writer and a respected scholar of modern Taiwan literary history, describe the power inherent in literary creation. (Read More)

Most of us yearn for a home that will shelter us into our old age. How do architects design structures to meet the needs of the elderly? (Read More)

Petite and impeccably put together, Yvonne Chiu stands out in the male-dominated field of software. She is chairwoman of both the Information Service Industry Association of the ROC and the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA), and she has fought behind the scenes to enable Taiwan to host the World Congress on Information Technology, which is regarded as the “Olympics of high tech.” (Read More)

A 30-year-old Japanese film called The Ballad of Nara­yama depicts the probably apocryphal rural Japanese practice of uba­sute, a harrowing type of senicide. In the film, the residents of a poor village abandon individuals over the age of 70 on a mountainside, leaving them to die as a means of conserving scarce resources. In Taiwan, the rapid aging of our society has us projected to become a “super-aged society” by 2025. Meeting the healthcare needs of elderly people in such circumstances is (Read More)