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Alighting at Danhai New Town (淡海新市真站) in New Taipei City, the penultimate station of the Tamsui (淡水) light rail line, I make my way westwards, passing nondescript apartment blocks until I come within view of the Taiwan Strait. On reaching the corner of Sinshihwu Road (新市五路) and Houjhou Road (後州路), a
Shanggang Park (商港公園) marks the journey’s beginning. I’m not alone. Families are picnicking on the grass. Across the street, Garden Bicycle (田園小站) is doing a roaring trade renting four-seater velos to tourists also keen to pedal along Bali District’s (八里) section of the Golden Riverside Cycling Path
At the beginning of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, we are introduced to a kick-ass woman who rides a horse, then a motorbike, nails a few bad guys with sharpshooting finesse and fights off a mob. But it’s not Furiosa — it’s her mom.That’s one of the oddities of this latest offering in the Mad Max Cinemati
Before a journalist has even lobbed a question, Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos spit out a string of overlapping answers.“We have a great relationship,” begins Lanthimos. ‘“We just love working together,” adds Stone. “It was cool to do a modern-day piece.” “Going back to some of the early stuff,” sa
When the writer Fredick King Poole visited Taiwan in the late 1960s, he was struck by “the sad little sun flag over the airport proclaiming this to be China itself, the announcement over the plane’s PA system that picture-taking was not allowed because this island was in fact a great nation at war,
When the foreign press describes Taiwan’s democracy as “boisterous,” it almost always follows another brawling incident in the legislature. No doubt we will be seeing this word frequently. On Friday, throughout the day struggles and brawls broke out. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan Pe
With its fragmentary timeline, which captures the author’s feelings of disruption, displacement and helplessness, this collection of autobiographical essays really comes to life in the last third of the text.As suggested by its title, language — and the cumbersome cultural baggage it conveys — is a
When he was a 20-week-old embryo — before he even had a real name — Choi Hee-woo became one of the world’s youngest-ever plaintiffs by joining a groundbreaking climate lawsuit against South Korea.His case, known as “Woodpecker et al. v. South Korea” after Choi’s in utero nickname, seeks to prove Seo
When it comes to humanity’s response to climate change, the focus on carbon dioxide is sucking all the oxygen out of the room.Greenhouse gas emissions aren’t the only reason why global temperatures are creeping upward. The climate is also influenced by changes in the Earth’s orbit and rotation; thes
From 2004 until 2010, school children around the globe would learn from their geography teachers that the tallest building in the world was in Taipei. Although construction of what was then called the Taipei World Finance Tower was not without mishap — in 2002, an earthquake caused a crane to fall,
With the inauguration of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) William Lai (賴清德) today, the DPP has already announced plans for increased social spending. Meanwhile the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is pushing east coast infrastructure spending bills through the legislature, in part to feed and
May 20 to May 26The two American HU-16 seaplanes hovered helplessly above the roaring waves, unable to save their seven comrades who had parachuted into the Pacific Ocean after their plane malfunctioned.As they were discussing the next plan of action over the airwaves, a Taiwanese plane overheard th
Like many young Taiwanese men who recently graduated from university, George Lee (李芳成) isn’t quite sure what he’ll do next. But some of his peers surely envy what he’s already achieved. During the pandemic, while staying with his brother in California, Lee started an online food page, Chez Jorge. At
Gaotai Mountain (高台山) and the three Daotian Peaks (小中大島田山回來) afford visitors a truly rewarding hike in Hsinchu County (新竹).Located in the foothills just beyond the charming Neiwan Old Street (內灣老街), the hike is well suited for hikers in a fair to good physical condition. It’s also a good introductio
Back to Black as a movie is a tame and mediocre affair. A conventionally told biopic about a talented artist who became famous, struggled with drugs, depression and bulimia, and died early. There are nice performances from gifted actors like Marisa Abela, Jack O’Connell, Eddie Marsan and Lesley Manv
The Cannes Film Festival is hallowed ground in cinema but understanding its unique landscape can be confounding.The Cote d’Azur festival, which kicked off Tuesday, is a 10-day ballet of spectacle and film where even the photographers wear tuxedos, standing ovations are timed with stopwatches and mov
If the old city walls could talk, Tainan would tell a tumultuous tale of 17th-century Dutch forts, ornate Qing Dynasty temples and Japanese colonial opulence. Incense smoke lingers thick in the air as colorful parades weave through cobbled alleyways; here the spiritual realm remains inextricable fro
Last week a video showing 60-year-old Peter Abbott screaming abuse at TV producer Samantha Isaacs gained a viral audience, after Abbott was found guilty at Poole magistrates court of “using threatening words or behavior to cause alarm, distress or fear of violence.”In the phone-filmed video, Abbott
Throughout the 500-plus pages of Dorian Lynskey’s overview of the art and literature of the end of the world, terrible things are done to the Earth. It is frozen, boiled, irradiated and desiccated. It is bombarded by asteroids, comets and rogue planets; volcanoes and earthquakes destroy it from with
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