June 24 to June 30A curious article titled “Taiwan’s earliest UFO photo taken 29 years ago?” appeared in the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) on May 5, 1996. “That flying saucer was multi-colored,” read the pull quote.The black-and-white photo in question was taken in Taipei by Tsai
President William Lai (賴清德) campaigned on continuity with the two terms of his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文). In government, he has kept his word, and has continued her policies and picked some familiar faces from the Tsai administration to be in the new cabinet. While he may be carefully preservin
The antique Japanese-era Kaohsiung Main Station (高雄車站) has survived the facelift the city is currently undergoing. But only just. It is dwarfed by the still-under-construction new station building, which, like so much of that has been built in Kaohsiung of late, is big, brash and orientated towards
Still images have been a source of wonder and mythology in the films of Jeff Nichols.Mud, Nichols’ Twain-soaked Mississippi fable, seemed derived from the magical sight of a boat held aloft by a tree. Loving, about a ‘60s interracial marriage, took inspiration from tender Life magazine photographs t
As peak summer approaches in Sicily, Anna Fiannaca prefers the peppers, eggplants and zucchini her brothers grow over the packaged food in the supermarket.The 89-year-old cooks everything from scratch and eats mostly vegetarian. But she attributes much of her continued good health to adjusting her d
Douglas Habecker and Courtney Donovan Smith giddily remember their first encounter. “We were at an anniversary dinner at TGI Fridays … sucking helium out of a balloon and talking in a squeaky voice,” Smith recalls. “It was only him. I wouldn’t do that,” Habecker adds. “But we were all laughing along
Hundreds of Uighur villages and towns have been renamed by Chinese authorities to remove religious or cultural references, with many replaced by names reflecting Communist party ideology, a report has found.Research published yesterday by Human Rights Watch and the Norway-based organization Uighur H
Regular readers of academic works about Taiwan — or practically any other subject in the humanities and social sciences — will likely have encountered the notion of liminality. The frequency with which the term recurs almost suggests it is a prerequisite for publication in these fields. Usages range
After her mother’s death, Elizabeth (not her real name) sought therapy to process the trauma of seeing her father abuse her mother while she was suffering from dementia.With a lack of therapists on the New South Wales South Coast, she turned to online counseling platform BetterHelp, which claims to
We meet in a branch of McDonald’s on Dasyue Rd (大學路) just opposite the leafy campus of Tainan’s National Cheng Kung University, where Bruce Humes occasionally likes to “sneak into the Engineering Department’s shaded, Japanese-style courtyard for a snack.”It’s not yet 7am but Humes has already been u
As the five-pfennig German coin from 1910 slipped into the slot, a metal disc — hidden from view behind the painted panel of a Greek muse adorning the gorgeous mahogany cabinet — began turning. The room was suddenly filled with the clear, metallic ringing of this Polyphon music box. The song we were
In political writing on Taiwan it is frequently noted that three of the first four democratically elected presidents previously served as mayor of Taipei City. That made sense prior to the city-county mergers that began in 2010, as the mayor of Taipei was also the mayor of the biggest city and the n
Last month I got together with the longtime Australian scholar and Taiwan expert, Mark Harrison, who was in Taipei for the presidential inaugural. He remarked to me that if the People’s Republic of China (PRC) ever invades Taiwan, will mean that his nation’s most important trade partners go to war w
June 17 to June 23Sixty B-24 heavy bombers from the US’s Fifth Air Force appeared over the port city of Keelung on June 16, 1945, escorted by eight P-51 long-range fighters. One group unleashed a torrent of 260-pound (117kg) bombs onto the ships in the harbor, while another squadron dropped 1,000-po
With the inauguration of President William Lai (賴清德) complete and everyone moved into their new offices, the Lai administration and Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) are getting to work. As in many cases regarding government terminology in the Republic of China, Taiwan (ROC), using “Lai administration” and
In Tainan’s Annan District (安南), a pond-pocked wedge of land juts out into the Yanshui Estuary (鹽水溪口). Salt scents the breeze and the soft slapping of water against mangroves is broken only by the occasional dinosaur squawk of an egret in flight. Gazing seawards from the tip of this wedge, Sicao Bri
Far from Parisian bistros serving up Burgundy snails, one Japanese man has figured out how to farm the slimy species — a feat that has long eluded the French.Toshihide Takase, 76, says he is “the only person in the world” breeding this specific delicacy after four decades of trial and error to find
Death has taken many forms in cinema. It’s been Bengt Ekerot. Ian McKellen. John Cleese. Even Brad Pitt with blonde highlights. But in Tuesday, filmmaker Daina O. Pusic’s bold, fantastical and affecting debut, death looks like a lot like a macaw that’s seen better days.Covered in a thick layer of gr
Shauna Persse has been unlucky in love. She’s tried Tarot cards, horoscopes and rose quartz crystals, yet continues to look for the girl of her dreams. So when she hears of Taipei’s Xia Hai City God Temple (霞海城隍廟), she decides to take a leap of faith. Outside the matchmaking temple, a group of devou
With a booming tech sector and recent graduates flooding the market, many people are looking for jobs. If you are looking for a career in international business, LinkedIn is a must-have tool in your job finding toolbox. As long as it is used in the right way.As a headhunter in the tech industry with