In 2024, researchers at the Biodiversity Research Center of the Academia Sinica discovered traces of wild brewer’s yeast in a forest. Remarkably, although Taiwan is small, it has the highest genetic diversity of brewer’s yeasts anywhere in the world. Moreover, it is easiest to find these yeasts on trees of the beech family, Fagaceae.
In March, not long after the Lunar New Year festivities in Taiwan, India also welcomed the spring with the celebration of Holi, one of the country’s major festivals. The India–Taipei Association, India’s representative office in Taiwan, marked the day by holding a Holi celebration in Green River Park in Yonghe, New Taipei City.
Anjanette Kattil, ambassador of the Republic of the Marshall Islands to the Republic of China (Taiwan), is fond of the xiaolongbao soup dumplings served at the Din Tai Fung restaurant as well as Taiwan’s hotpot and boba tea. When she talks about the links between the Marshall Islands and Taiwan, she mentions not only Austronesian culture and shared concerns about climate change, but also seafood culture and stinky tofu.
Slightly different from the Portuguese and Dutch, who once referred to Taiwan as “Ilha Formosa,” the Spaniards in the 16th century called Taiwan “Isla Hermosa.” These two monikers were alike in that they both had the same meaning: “Beautiful Island.”
Centuries later, the beauty and welcoming atmosphere of Taiwan have cast a spell on a Spanish diplomat, who without hesitation listed “Taiwán” as his top preference for an overseas posting.
Is there anyone you’ve been friends with for 40 years?
Among Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, there is one that has been our friend for more than 40 years. It is the island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and they have always spoken out on Taiwan’s behalf in major international forums such as the United Nations.
In recent years a number of young Bunun indigenous people have been returning to their hometowns and, through millet cultivation, have begun a renaissance of fading traditional millet culture. From one plant pot and one garden they have expanded outward, enabling Bunun millet culture to once again take root in their communities and continue into the future.
The Nile River floods every year, but those floods made it the cradle of Egyptian civilization.
If you wanted to identify a river in Taiwan that was prone to flooding but also essential to both the island’s agricultural civilization and its industrial development, then that river would be the Zhuoshui.
The invention of photography enabled people to record images of their times. However, 80 years ago it was standard practice to take photos in black and white, which makes them feel more remote to people who look at them today.
In Taiwan there is a group of people who are earnestly researching the details of black-and-white photos and carefully colorizing them, simply to make times gone by more familiar to us and help today’s Taiwanese better understand their past.
If you’re visiting Taiwan, why not go on a local birding tour to explore the country’s wonderful avian diversity? Birdwatching takes patience. We have to prick up our ears to listen for birds, and use binoculars to observe their beauty: their strikingly colorful plumage and those glistening eyes that sometimes fix themselves on ours. Brief encounters like these can stay with us for a lifetime.
If you ask 100 Taiwanese what they ate for breakfast, they’ll give you 101 different answers. How about Taiwanese-style dry noodles, vegetarian sticky rice dumplings, milkfish congee, rice noodle soup, plain congee with side dishes, or radish cake? Or try some dishes that originated in China, such as sesame seed cakes with fried dough sticks, soy milk, steamed buns with egg filling, sticky rice balls, and egg pancakes.
