Culture Archive

The Ukrainian eyeing long-term cooperation with Taiwan

This is the original version of a piece that appeared in today’s Taipei Times. Even among the diverse gathering at the Liberty Square arch, Glib Ivanov stands out. At 192cm, the 24-year-old Odesa native towers above the crowd, and his floppy mop of hair accentuates this. With a pair of oversized black spectacles, peach-fuzz goatee, […]
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Little Burma: Where great food meets fascinating history

The following article appeared in this month’s issue of Taiwan Business Topics, the magazine of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan: On most afternoons, Henry Wong and friends sit outside A-Mui’s Noodle Shop (阿妹緬甸小吃, 41 Huaxin St.) in Little Burma, sipping tea from yellow cups. On cooler days the saucers go on top like sombreros, […]
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Taiwan in the frame

Among the proselytizers, merchants and adventurers from Europe who inserted themselves into Taiwan’s early modern history, George Psalmanazar is notorious. Centuries before the Chinese Communist Party began faking news about Taiwan, this (most likely) French-born hoaxer, who claimed to be a Formosan and invented his own language to prove it, was regaling eighteenth century London […]
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All the World’s a Stage: Shakesepeare and Taiwan

The following book review appeared in today’s Taipei Times: A few years ago, I attended a Shakespeare workshop in Taipei. As someone who only began to appreciate the Bard outside the classroom, I was excited. Several Taiwanese were participating in the four-week course, and I was curious to see what they would make of it. […]
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An interdisciplinary treasure trove of learning (review of ‘Maritime Landscapes’ for Taipei Times)

The following book review appeared in today’s Taipei Times. Now and then a work appears that ruthlessly exposes the limits of one’s knowledge. Even seasoned students of Taiwan’s history are likely to find this book doing so repeatedly. Whether speculating on the origins of the Pisheye (毗舍耶) raiders who terrorized coastal Fujian in the twelfth […]
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The complex tale of Taiwanese identity (Global Asia review of ‘Politics and Cultural Nativism in 1970s Taiwan’)

The following book review appeared in the June issue of Global Asia: References to Taiwan as the first Chinese democracy have justifiably drawn flak in recent years. With almost 90 percent of Taiwan’s population now identifying as Taiwanese and less than 5 percent as Chinese, the description is no longer seen as appropriate. For many, it […]
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Hidden in plain sight: the extradordinary work of Hsieh Tong-liang (Part 2)

Part 2 of a feature for Guan Xi Media: With tea and preliminary chit-chat done, Diane suggests we start our tour in the large exhibition space next door. Split into sections showcasing the various series of works that have occupied periods of Hsieh’s life spanning, in some cases, a single year, in others, decades, the […]
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Taiwan’s ‘return-to-reality’ trailblazers (Taipei Times review of ‘Politics and Cultural Nativism in 1970s Taiwan’)

The following book review appeared in today’s Taipei Times: Discussions of identity in Taiwan are seldom clearcut. Viewed through the prism of the country’s democratization, things can be even more opaque. For those with rudimentary knowledge of these issues, this short book is no primer; indeed, even the initiated may find it challenging. But those […]
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Hidden in plain sight: The extraordinary work of Hsieh Tong-liang (Part 1)

The follow article appeared in Guanxi Magazine: For years I’d been intrigued by the peculiar house on Chang’an Rd in Taichung’s Taiping District. As with most of my best discoveries in Taiwan, I’d stumbled upon it – in this case almost literally, when a scuffed pass had sent a football trickling down a sloping, paved […]
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Hand in glove: Taiwan-born movie star branches out to chart his own course

The following article appeared in today’s Taipei Times: Ignacio Huang (黃勝煌) is a puppet master. But unlike Argentina’s political operators, he doesn’t pull strings. “It’s glove puppetry,” says Huang of budaixi (布袋戲, traditional Taiwanese puppetry), which in recent years has replaced the big screen as his bread and butter. Ahead of legislative elections in Argentina […]
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