Time flies. In 2019, the Presidential Office Building celebrated its hundredth birthday. Once the tallest building on the island of Taiwan, and still the unshakeable center of political power today, the structure continues to inspire awe. In recent times, it has quietly acquired an added sense of intimacy.

Creating unforeseeable, fantastical works of art via kiln firing—this is Sun Chao’s great accomplishment. Recipient of a National Award for Arts in 1987 and a National Craft Achievement Award in 2018, he has devoted his life to perfecting the art of “crystalline glaze,” and thereby established his reputation worldwide. From conventional ware to large painted porcelain panels, he has generated countless works over a period of 60 years.

In Taiwan, more than 100 original tabletop games are published a year. Beyond pure entertainment, the games are used for a variety of purposes, from government agencies and civic groups using them as a means to communicate with the public (to explain long-term care policies, for example), to businesses using them to train their staff in negoti­ating skills.

He became fascinated with paper at four years of age because of a paper airplane. Now, nearly half a century later, he has received countless patents for his innovative paper art. He has continually refined his work, seeking the highest achievements in paper art. Hung Hsinfu has integrated invention into his life, with helping others as his main motivation. He selflessly shares his creative ideas, and he uses games to activate people’s powers of observation, in order to achieve the goal of self-

A meal can be a conduit for memory. From images to ideas, through her lens Cheng Jen-pei is able to crystallize that sensation. Her “Recipe Evolution Movement” collection uses physical objects to express artistic illusions, capturing the tastes that linger on the tongues of migrants and sketching out their feelings toward their homes and families.

Hsu Mao-sung has dedicated his life and his considerable creative energies to Taiwanese comics, and in his decades of work, this national treasure has been witness to the ups and downs of the industry.

“Space, the final frontier.” These are the words, familiar to science fiction fans the world over, that opened each epi­sode of the TV show Star Trek, poetically intoned by Captain James T. Kirk. Through the power of imagination, in science fiction films we have long traveled among the stars and even accepted aliens who settle on planet Earth.

The first-ever Republican-era Sacrificial Official to Confucius, the last person to hold the heredit­ary title of Duke Yan­sheng, former president of the Examination Yuan of the ROC—and the 77th senior lineal descendent of the Sage—Kung Te-­cheng survived stormy times while tenaciously maintaining the Confucian orthodoxy he inherited, and thereby inscribed his name as a 20th-century legend.

“One gains strength upon becoming a mother.” The fortitude of the mothers in the advocacy group “Parks and Playgrounds for Children by Children” bears witness to the truth of this Chinese idiom. “Our children inspired us to gain expertise and fight for their right to play.” These women have mobilized through social media.

In 2014, Leo Tsai (a.k.a. Tsai Shun-jen) launched his “traveling with door gods” activity. He and his team had deftly restored four paintings of door gods made by the famous temple artist Pan Li-shui, after which they received endorsement from Inter­national Architectural Paint Research (APR) to exhibit the restored paintings in Sweden. This showed that there is international recognition of the restoration standards upheld by Tsai and his team. Amidst numerous images of the Virgin Mary, Jesus, a