Taiwan’s night markets are like a downhome meal made by combining passion with human kindness. —Mariko Okubo

Franck Paris, director of the Bureau Français de Taipei (BFT—the French Office in Taipei), arrived in Taiwan to take up his post in August of 2023. His Chinese name, Long Ye, is very cool and classy. “Long,” which means “dragon,” was chosen because he was born in a Year of the Dragon according to the Chinese zodiac, while “Ye,” meaning “blazing fire,” reflects the fact that his family name, Paris, is also the name of the French capital, which is known as the City of Light.

Early in 2025, a Taiwanese convenience store rolled out a new ice cream swirl product featuring a subtly bitter Belgian chocolate complemented by rich dairy ice cream. It scored a big hit immediately upon reaching the stores, and eager consumers formed long lines to get a taste. Meanwhile, classic Belgian comics such as Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin and the Smurfs have enchanted people of all ages for many decades.

The traditional method for making soy sauce is to first steam soybeans, then stir in kōji mold and wait for a few days for the mold to penetrate the beans, then place the beans into vats and blend in salt or add salt water. After long exposure of the vats to sunshine, the contents are removed and undergo filtration and pressing. Then the resulting sauce is cooked in a pot and finally bottled for sale to the public.

“Oh, how adorable!” We look at photos of a black-winged kite (Elanus caeruleus) moving its head from side to side as it roosts on one of a number of perches for raptors (birds of prey) set up by farmers amid their fields. Two other black-winged kites are wheeling through they air, playing musical chairs for a spot on the perches. Meanwhile, an eastern grass-owl (Tyto longimembris pithecops) carries a small rodent that it has caught directly to one of the perches.

Amass die-off of pheasant-tailed jacanas in 2009 sparked a series of environmental actions. Since then, protected by goodwill and conservation measures, the pheasant-tailed jacana has flown free and unthreatened over the water caltrop fields.

Funerals, the rituals by which the living say goodbye to the dead, have their own traditions in different places around the world. In Ghana, funerals are often like parties to which even performance troupes are invited. On YouTube there are videos of Ghanaian pallbearers who dance as they carry the coffin, creating a joyous send-off. Meanwhile, at last rites in Taiwan, there may be an all-female xiyuedui (“Western music group”) playing upbeat melodies and dancing lively steps to send off the dec

Bitter orange tea, like Pu-erh tea, is a compressed tea (a kind of tea pressed into the form of bricks or other shapes). Though perhaps less widely known than Pu-erh, bitter orange tea is Taiwan’s only homegrown compressed tea, and represents the thrifty, waste-nothing habits of Hakka people.

Travel is about getting from here to there, but interesting modes of transportation always excite the imagination and foster a sense of anticipation.
Perhaps that explains why everyone, even those who aren’t proper train buffs, seems to have an innate love of trains and rail travel.
The most famous railway in Taiwan is likely the Alishan Forest Railway, which is regarded as one of the mountain’s “five wonders.”

Arriving in the Bunun village of Kamcing in Taitung’s Haiduan Township, we come across a group of young people crouching in a field of foxtail millet, weeding the soil. Greeted by Kaiana Workshop owner Hu Yuru (who goes by the name of Ibu), we squat down with her to learn how to distinguish between weeds and millet—the latter has red stems. Noticing how cautiously we approach the task, Ibu reassures us: “Don’t worry. If you pull up millet plants by mistake, just put them back in the soil.”