An afternoon of mellow jazz vibes is set to usher in the 2002 Disabled Arts Season (2002台灣視障藝術季) this Sunday afternoon at Taipei's Huashan Music House (華山音樂館). You Are in My Heart (你在我心 ), the inaugural event of this years' season, sees members of Taiwan's popular blind act the Touch Band (全方位盲人樂團) led by keyboard player, Wu Bo-yi (吳柏毅), performing a set of classic and contemporary jazz tunes.
Organized by the Arts Promotion Association for the Disabled (APAD,中華民國身心障礙者藝文推廣協會) and with backing of the Taipei City Cultural Bureau (台北市政府文化局), the event -- now in its sixth year -- has not only been responsible for giving blind musicians the opportunity to perform at some of the nation's larger venues, but has also broken new ground by attracting diverse and predominately non-disabled audiences. Other performances in the season, which runs until Dec. 24, include a New Age piano recital by Wang Chun-jie (王俊傑) on Dec. 11 at the Tai-Cement auditorium as well as a special performance by flutist, Sunny Lin (林景陽) and the classical Chinese combo, the Jiguo Ensemble (妙音樂集國樂團), at Taipei's Novel Hall on Dec. 22.
The opening show in this year's season begins at 3:30pm at Huashan Music House, which is located at 1 Pate Rd., Sec. 1 (台北市八德路一段一號2樓). Tickets for Sunday's concert cost NT$400 and are available at the door. Tickets for upcoming performances in the season vary depending on the venue. For further information see the APAD Web site at http://apad.yam.org.tw/apad.htm. Information is in Chinese only.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50