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Categories
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People Archive
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Trinity Indian Stores
Perhaps not from the very minute I started this blog, but fairly early on,I realised that, with a fair number of blogs relating to Taiwan already out there, I wanted it to be a little different. I don’t mean stylistically, though that too, but in the actual content I would present. Generally I try not [...] -
Of Music
There are some blogs that just won’t be written. At times, I’m frustrated by the feeling that these are potential pearls; that if I could somehow prise them from their unyielding shells they might outshine the rest of my largely ephemeral output. Mostly, I lose focus or interest. Or I feel that the effort I’d [...] -
Beitou Express
Beitou (北投) has a few idiosyncrasies that make life here interesting. One is the bike service that ferries people around the immediate environs for a paltry NT$40. Affectionately dubbed the Limited Special Delivery (限時專送) by locals, it is in a little nook on Gongguan Rd (公館路) across the road from Beitou Market, near where the [...] -
All Quiet on the Eastern Front (Now!)
From the rasped pleas of baituo (拜託) that crackle through loudspeakers during election campaigns, to the heavy artillery percussion of the firecrackers and the wailing suona (嗩吶) horns that accompany Taoist parades, Taiwan’s streets are seldom quiet. This afternoon I was on my way out of the office to a park that serves as a [...] -
Remembering POWs in Taiwan
“The camp at Kinkaseki was in an ideal location, that is, from the Japanese point of view. Tucked away in a decidedly inhospitable landscape, with two sides of the camp overlooking a deep and perilous gorge, the third hemmed in by the steep slope of a mountain, and on the fourth a high [...] -
Sculptor’s workshop in Beitou
With LGBT Pride, Halloween, and veteran vote-grabbing rallies taking place around town this weekend, the Inveterate Bede and I did the most obvious thing and retreated into our crusty shell to cook up a storm and watch Chelsea cop the critical off The Arse. Sunday involved slightly more activity. Bede’s been Beitou-bound (by which [...] -
Mona Rudao and Seediq Bale
Truth, as is often the way, is much more interesting than fiction in the case of Mona Rudao. One of only 18 Taiwanese aborigines to graduate from secondary school during almost the entire span of the Japanese colonial period, the chief of the Nantou-based Mahebo clan of Seediqs spoke fluent Japanese. In 1910, at almost [...] -
Chang Hsueh-liang (張學良) in Da House
Clowns to the north of me, jesters to the south; there I was, stuck in the middle – Hsinchu. Well, flitting about the border with Miaoli to be precise. Last weekend, while friends texted and called complaining of crap weather in Taichung and the capital, I was swimming in cool mountain waters in Chingchuan (請泉), [...] -
Taiwan Moon Lute Folk Music Festival (台灣月琴民謠祭)
The circle is complete; the terrible trio reunited. Lately returned from a year of foot loose and fancy free shenanigans in Southeast Asia and the subcontinent, The Inveterate Bede is right back in the thick of it, joining The Aesthete and me on a most agreeable afternoon of merrymaking. It started, as all good days [...] -
Turf War on Taoyuan Street
Furtive as a street-corner stool-pigeon, Mr. Sun peers from behind a pillar and beckons with that palms-down flap that baffled me when I first saw students use it to signal for assistance, fresh off the plane, a decade ago. I cross over. “You know why they don’t want you taking pictures?” he asks. There’s no need [...]
