Earlier this week, between the evening of Feb. 19 and midnight of Feb. 20, 12 suicides were reported around Taiwan using eight different methods. The sad fact is that Taiwan seems to have enough suicidal tendencies of its own.
The tragedies, however, have nothing to do with the cancellation of a visit to Taiwan by the Venice Beach thrash band, Suicidal Tendencies, who were originally scheduled to play at the Taipei club Zeitgeist (聖界) tomorrow night and in a free concert at 228 Peace Park on Sunday. It is also perhaps relevant that, rather than advocating suicide, Suicidal Tendenciessongs tends to cast suicidal impulses in an ironic light, with the band calling themselves "suicidal failures" in several songs.
The band was forced to cancel because travel and other arrangements could not be zcompleted as quickly as originally anticipated, said organizers, adding that the band still hopes to come to Taiwan once a new schedule can be worked out.
Softball, a three-girl Japanese punk rock fireball originally scheduled to open for Suicidal Tendencies, will still come to Taiwan to play at both shows. Hitting the stage before Softball at both venues will be Milk, a seven-person funk and groove outfit from Taichung.
Performance notes
What Softball and Milk Concert
When & Where Tomorrow, 9pm; Zeitgeist (聖界),122 Chung Hsiao E. Rd., Sec. 2, B1 (122 B1)
Tickets NT$350
What Say Yes To Taiwan (和平演唱會) concert, including Echo, the Clippers (夾子), L.T.K. (濁水溪公社), Chthonic (閃靈), Milk, Softball and Anarchy (無政府)
When & Where Sunday,5pm to 9pm; 228 Peace Park (二二八和平公園)
Tickets Free
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless