Taiwan’s GuoGuang Opera Company is 26 years old. Founded as a troupe devoted to traditional Chinese theater, GuoGuang has reinvented itself by working to construct a distinctively Taiwanese brand of Peking Opera. Moreover, it has established a foothold in the creative industries by exploring branding and intellectual property rights, and has been collaborating with international performing arts groups.
Lion dancer Wu Teng-hsing is only 40 years old, yet he has been performing professionally for 36 years. The fifth-generation head of the century-old Deyitang martial arts school and the last remaining heir to the tradition of the “Longfeng Lion Ensemble” form of lion dancing, Wu is also the youngest person in Taiwan to have been designated a preserver of intangible cultural assets in two categories.
“These facial tattoos signify courage! To be a good man, one must maintain a thirst for knowledge. Calm at heart and joyful on the hunt, I have inherited my father’s warrior spirit.... I spend my life learning the wisdom of the forest. I am a child of the Truku.”
—“The Hunter’s Song,” collected on the album Taroko Legends by Pi Teyru Ukah
What’s your impression of the Roaring Twenties? A postwar society reveling in song and dance amidst unbridled luxury, akin to scenes in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, or the era when a hundred schools of thought—such as nationalism, socialism, and liberalism—contended for supremacy?
Scottish businessman John Dodd first introduced Taiwanese tea to the West in the late Qing Dynasry. Dodd had establishded Dodd & Co in Dadaocheng (in the present-day Datong District of Taipei City) in 1865, not long after the Qing government opened the nearby port of Tamsui to international trade. In 1869, he leased two large clipper ships to transport some 128 metric tons of top-grade Taiwanese oolong tea to New York.
Atop a float modeled after the Buddha extending his open palm, Gordon Tsai, founder of the Dream Community Culture and Education Development Foundation (DCEF), stands tall, dressed for the occasion with New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi beside him. Adorned with colorful beaded necklaces, the two men throw these Buddhist symbols of peace to those gathered to watch.
In the skilled hands of a master tailor, a flat piece of cloth seems to come alive. It conforms to the lines of the human body and nimbly turns and moves, creating three-dimensional fashion.
Modeling by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) predicts that the world will have more than 900 million metric tons of solar panel waste on its hands by 2050. But finding ways to recycle old panels has already become a pressing global concern.
The scenery changes from city high rises to layered mountain ridges on the 30-minute drive to the Malingkeng Recreational Agriculture Area in Keelung’s Qidu District, a secret hideaway in Taipei’s backyard. Spending just half a day here, you can walk beautiful trails lined with blooming tung trees, play in a riverside park, and visit an old bridge built with glutinous rice.
As a child I lived in a market district. My father ran an ice shop on the ground floor of our house. Morning shoppers at the market would visit us for fruit juice and shaved ice while enjoying a moment’s peace and quiet. When he wasn’t busy, my father would take me round the market, buying me whatever foods I fancied. This father-and-son ritual survived into my adulthood. Whenever I had a few days off and returned to my hometown, I would pay a visit to the market with my father.
