For a brief, yet interesting photographic look at Taiwan of yesteryear, the National Museum of History (
Entitled A Retrospective of One Hundred Years' of Taiwan Photography (
Focusing predominantly on people rather than places, the works paint an interesting picture of not only the development of photography in Taiwan but also of its peoples. The exhibition begins with some of the earliest photographs taken in Taiwan by foreign photographers.
PHOTO COURTESY OF NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HISTORY
Many of these early works, such as those taken by Japanese national Torii Ryuzo (
Ryuzo took some stunning shots of Atayal and Ami men, women and children, at a time when very few foreigners had ever seen such peoples, often dressed in their battle gear. His subjects are generally posing, fully aware a camera is being pointed at them.
Examples of works by Taiwan's "first" photographer, Lin Tsao (
Other works of note include those by Wu Jin-miao (
Some shots of the time are less funny, however. Deng Nan-guang (
The shot, taken in 1940, shows a group of soldiers walking passed a crowd of civilians, all of whom are bowing in respect, or possibly dread.
Sadly, like many other exhibitions at the museum, English language material is minimal and the show gives viewers an all to brief glimpse of the works of the nation's pioneering photographers.
For those who wish to learn more, and who posses moderate Chinese language capabilities, then in addition to the exhibition, a special two-day seminar featuring panel discussions and lectures apropos the history and development of photography in Taiwan will take place on Saturday, Nov. 8 and Sunday, Nov. 9.
For further information about the seminar, call (02) 2370 6031 or email janet@moe.nmh.gov.tw.
June 2 to June 8 Taiwan’s woodcutters believe that if they see even one speck of red in their cooked rice, no matter how small, an accident is going to happen. Peng Chin-tian (彭錦田) swears that this has proven to be true at every stop during his decades-long career in the logging industry. Along with mining, timber harvesting was once considered the most dangerous profession in Taiwan. Not only were mishaps common during all stages of processing, it was difficult to transport the injured to get medical treatment. Many died during the arduous journey. Peng recounts some of his accidents in
“Why does Taiwan identity decline?”a group of researchers lead by University of Nevada political scientist Austin Wang (王宏恩) asked in a recent paper. After all, it is not difficult to explain the rise in Taiwanese identity after the early 1990s. But no model predicted its decline during the 2016-2018 period, they say. After testing various alternative explanations, Wang et al argue that the fall-off in Taiwanese identity during that period is related to voter hedging based on the performance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Since the DPP is perceived as the guardian of Taiwan identity, when it performs well,
A short walk beneath the dense Amazon canopy, the forest abruptly opens up. Fallen logs are rotting, the trees grow sparser and the temperature rises in places sunlight hits the ground. This is what 24 years of severe drought looks like in the world’s largest rainforest. But this patch of degraded forest, about the size of a soccer field, is a scientific experiment. Launched in 2000 by Brazilian and British scientists, Esecaflor — short for “Forest Drought Study Project” in Portuguese — set out to simulate a future in which the changing climate could deplete the Amazon of rainfall. It is
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on May 18 held a rally in Taichung to mark the anniversary of President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20. The title of the rally could be loosely translated to “May 18 recall fraudulent goods” (518退貨ㄌㄨㄚˋ！). Unlike in English, where the terms are the same, “recall” (退貨) in this context refers to product recalls due to damaged, defective or fraudulent merchandise, not the political recalls (罷免) currently dominating the headlines. I attended the rally to determine if the impression was correct that the TPP under party Chairman Huang Kuo-Chang (黃國昌) had little of a
RSS