Last week the DPP raised eyebrows with what seemed like a sexually charged pro-referendum advertisement in which a girl in a school uniform says with a furtive pointing gesture: "My first time. The whole world is watching." The wording of that ad was nebulous enough to make one question one's own decency in reading a sexual double entendre into it. But this week, the KMT-PFP cast all subtlety aside in a similarly laid-out ad in The Great Daily News, with the same text fonts featuring a slinky model, hands on hips, casting an icy glance at the reader and a line at the top that reads: "I won't just give away my first time to you." Luckily, the election is tomorrow, or who knows in what tasteless territory this tit-for-tat will end up.
Keeping in step with the political tensions, the media has been in a frenzy over the past week trying to expose the voting tendencies of Taiwan's stars. Those who would vote for Chen Shui-bian
TVBS Weekly (TVBS
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
candidate puts up NT$1 million. Not surprisingly, the actor known as Andy (
In his first ever overtly political statement, director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) said he has watched Taiwan's domestic political tensions heat up during the presidential campaign with, what he has described, as "growing unease," in a report in the Apple Daily (蘋果日報). In response he established an ethnic group equality alliance and announced plans on Tuesday to shoot a series of documentaries that look at the life experiences of people in Taiwan from various ethnic backgrounds.
All the election-related news -- even in the gossip columns -- has gotten a bit heavy, which is why Pop Stop is grateful to Canto-pop singer Edison Chan
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Then, Steven Chow
Romance was in the air, as well, this week, when Next Magazine
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
Many Taiwanese have a favorable opinion of Japan, in part because Taiwan’s former colonial master is seen as having contributed a great deal to the development of local industries, transportation networks and institutions of education. Of course, the island’s people were never asked if they wanted to be ruled by Tokyo or participate in its modernization plans. From their arrival in 1895 until at least 1902, the Japanese faced widespread and violent antagonism. Things then calmed down, relatively speaking. Even so, between 1907 and 1916 there were eleven anti-Japanese revolts. A map in the National Museum of Taiwan History (國立臺灣歷史博物館)