Following the traffic circle around Tai­pei’s historic North Gate, one catches sight of the old Taiwan Railways Administration building to the roundabout’s northwest. With brick and half-timbered walls and protruding towers to the right and left of the entrance, the two-story building with a dormered third floor is an example of Tudor-revival Japanese colonial architecture. It’s a beautiful building that features prominently in the memories of many long-time Tai­pei residents. Meanwhile the Tai­

Designers are often faced with the question of how to balance personal creativity with commerce. Tai­chung makes that balancing act a bit easier. Its relatively low rents and labor costs, and Tai­pei-comparable competitive pressures, make it more accommodating to experimental spaces, enticing young designers to build their businesses there. These young creatives are renting apartments in the city, opening unique creative and cultural businesses, and connecting with and encouraging one another.

It all goes back to 2015, when Li Huan­peng, a teacher in the performing arts class at San Min Junior High School in Hsin­chu, gave a puppetry course at the Shei-Pa National Park Headquarters. The course inspired park staffer Cho Hsiao­-­chuan and a group of volunteers to do a series of puppet shows on their own. Not only did these help strengthen the public’s desire to protect the Formosan landlocked salmon, they also evoked a general consciousness of ecological and environmental protection.

Septuagenarian Tong Yang-tze has long stood at the cutting edge of her era, bringing Western techniques of composition to the narrow confines of Chinese calligraphy. Her unruly character forms, energetically applied to paper, have lifted contemporary calligraphy from traditional handicraft to modern art.

The Pu­zanga­lan Children’s Choir, which comes from the extreme south of Taiwan, has this to say on their Facebook fan page: “In the Pai­wan language, pu­zanga­lan means ‘hope.’ The Pu­zanga­lan Children’s Choir, composed of Pai­wan children, is a group of youngsters who love singing, are willing to work hard, and who want a different future. They hope to use song to bring good wishes and happiness to everyone, and to bring hope for their own future.”

As the music video for the album What Are You Singing? finishes playing at the 2016 Red Dot Design Awards ceremony, the audience erupts. Preparing to take the stage and accept an award for the video, Chu ­Chien-chih, leader of Taiwan Smile Folksong Group, is puzzled: “No one in the audience is from Taiwan, and the whole video is in Taiwanese…. Did they somehow understand it?” To be sure, the vast majority of the audience understood none of the language, but the video’s combination of Taiwanese t

While president of the ­Landis Tai­pei Hotel, Stanley C. Yen, now chairman of the Alliance Cultural Foundation, met artist Paul ­Chiang, and described him thus: “If we take the cherry blossom as a metaphor for the potential of a life, Paul Chiang has accumulated a lifetime of abilities, refining experiences, aesthetic cultivation, and consummate skill—a life of dogged pursuit, all for a single flowering of aesthetic perfection.” Paul ­Chiang’s spirit is captured in his abstract paintings, and

Under cover of a dark, windy night, he finds a slab of wall and begins his work. Halfway through, the sound of police sirens lets him know he’s been sprung, his piece half-finished. Such is a typical night for graffiti artist Bounce, or rather it used to be. Today, his works can be found hanging both in galleries and high above the streets.

Leaving behind the din of the Gong­guan traffic circle and turning into Lane 119 off Section 4 of Roosevelt Road, the noise of the city instantly fades and the sweltering heat drops by one or two degrees. The single-story houses of the Toad Hill community are nestled in close rows against the hillside. In summer, this area on the southern outskirts of the Tai­pei Basin is alive with the sounds of insects and birds. On spring evenings, fireflies flicker, old folk chat on benches, and the clatter

Star Knows My Heart and One Plum Blossom from the 1980s, Flame-Bathing Phoenix, Justice Bao, and My Fair Princess from the 1990s… how the magic that emanated from televisions in those decades moved audiences to laughter and tears! But Taiwan’s blockbuster TV serials are now a thing of the past. What remain are a few shows featuring young pop idols, as well as a few with small-town or rural settings. The glory days of Taiwan television are long gone.