The team behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍) huddled yesterday in Los Angeles to gave itself a morale boost on the eve of the Oscar ceremony by hosting a wine party for all those who stand to be honored for one or more of the film's 10 nominations.
Director Ang Lee (
Although the award Lee hopes most to win is that for best picture. Lee said he knows walking away with the award will be hard to pull off, "After all, we are stepping into their territory this time," he said to Taiwanese reporters referring to the film's outsider status in Hollywood. "It is even possible that we will not win any of the awards, not even the Best Foreign-language film." Contenders in this category are also very strong, he said.
At the posh Hotel Sofitel on Beverly Hills Boulevard, most of Crouching Tiger's 12 nominees gathered for the low-key party. They include Bill Kong and Hsu Li-kong (
At the opening of his speech, Lee first expressed his thanks to Taiwan's Government Information Office (新聞局), which hosted the event. "Without the help of the GIO, my first film would not have been made and the past 10 years would look very differently," he said.
Ten years ago, Lee submitted his script for Pushing Hands to join the GIO's competition for "Script of the Year." He won the award and received grants from the government, boosting his recognition in Taiwan and in the US, where he lived at the time. Lee then worked with Hsu for the production of that film.
James Shamus, writer and co-founder of independent production company Good Machine International, also expressed his gratitude toward Lee's "Taiwanese supporters."
"I'd really like to thank Hsu Li-kong. He is a part of what made Good Machine what it is today. If it was not for him, today I would be probably mowing the lawns of this hotel in LA," he said.
Also at the party were musician Tan Dun (譚盾) who was nominated for the film's original score, Tim Yip (葉錦添), nominated for both art direction and costume design and Tim Squyres, nominated for editing.
Tan, a Chinese musician working in the US much like Yo-yo Ma (
"This not only proved that there are no national boundaries in music and other art forms. It also gives us [Chinese people] a chance to view the world not just from our own angle but from a world angle," said Tan.
Film editor Tim Squyres, who has worked with Lee since Pushing Hands, expressed wonderment at being nominated for best editor award alongside Dede Allen, who is nominated for the Wonder Boys. "[The nomination] already an honor for me," he said.
In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
Pei-Ru Ko (柯沛如) says her Taipei upbringing was a little different from her peers. “We lived near the National Palace Museum [north of Taipei] and our neighbors had rice paddies. They were growing food right next to us. There was a mountain and a river so people would say, ‘you live in the mountains,’ and my friends wouldn’t want to come and visit.” While her school friends remained a bus ride away, Ko’s semi-rural upbringing schooled her in other things, including where food comes from. “Most people living in Taipei wouldn’t have a neighbor that was growing food,” she says. “So
Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated