In an April 2017 report, CNN once again ranked Taipei among the world’s top ten most popular cities for vegan cuisine. This is not the first time that international media have praised Taiwan’s vegan fare. Aside from baseball, xiaolong bao steamed buns, night markets and other familiar points of pride, the impact of veganism in Taiwan is not to be underestimated.
In an increasingly virtual age, there is still a need for bricks-and-mortar libraries. A 50-year flood of digital technology cannot wash away the 5000 years when books were the planet’s main receptacles of knowledge. People possess largely short-term memories that seem ever thinner and more fleeting. Fortunately, two physical spaces devoted to long-term memories are nestled within the city of Taipei.
As we exit the Xinbeitou MRT station, the Beitou Hot Spring Museum can be seen at a short distance on the right. The smell of sulfur wafts faintly on the wind, and trees provide dappled shade. Small groups of two or three strollers, young and old alike, bask in the pleasant atmosphere, chatting as they head uphill.
The evidence of painter Liu Kuo-sung’s international fame is indisputable. Major museums all over the world, including the British Museum, hold his work in their collections. In 2008, Taiwan’s National Culture and Arts Foundation honored him with a National Award for Arts. In 2013, mainland China’s Shandong Museum raised the curtain on its “Gallery of Modern Chinese Paintings by Liu Kuo-sung.” In 2014, Christie’s in Hong Kong auctioned his painting Scenery of Hong Kong for some NT$67 million. I
A sun rising from the long horizon—this is the scene depicted by the oldest known Chinese character, 旦(dan), meaning “dawn” or “day.” This character, invented more than 5,000 years ago, has an intuitive, sensory quality, and from their earliest incarnation Chinese characters have been part of a unique tradition in which calligraphy and painting spring from the same roots. Fast forward to the present, and we find Chinese characters being employed in all sorts of ways in the world of design. Th
Door gods, jiannian sculpture, processions…. Taiwanese are well acquainted with the trappings of temple culture. Now, those same elements are being turned into rich fodder for the contemporary arts.
Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) gently places a record on the turntable, puts the needle down. As the music begins to flow forth, he flicks the switches to turn on the prison intercom, filling the lock-up with the soprano sounds of The Marriage of Figaro. For a moment, the men behind the bars stop, raise their heads, and listen to the heavenly serenade.
The Japanese author Haruki Murakami once remarked how awesome it would be if words were whiskey. And in an age full of music, one can’t help but wonder: Why do we still need language? In this era when digital technology dominates, there is a group of people who insist upon sticking with the traditions of vinyl records, believing that those analog recordings not only bring music to people but also allow them to return to a slower, more peaceful pace of life.
When advertising began in February for the Hollywood film Logan, the portrait of the central character “Professor X” executed by Yan Jhen-fa, master artist for the Chuan Mei Theater in Tainan, stood out as a brilliant example of Taiwan’s tradition of hand-painted movie billboards. Meanwhile in northern Taiwan another maestro of cinema billboards, known as “Moriyama,” has continued to use his refined skills to bring the latest feature films vividly to life.
In the 1970s, Taiwan had a total of 826 local movie theaters. In those days when entertainment was a lot harder to come by than it is now, entering that inky black space and throwing yourself into the magical world of projected images was a way to temporarily escape the daily grind. Local theaters were storehouses of joy, sorrow, love, and happiness for ordinary small-town folk, and the foundation stones of many of the collective memories of that era.
