Beheading a cockerel at the same time as swearing you're telling the truth is an old tradition, apparently originating in Fujian province. It's probably rare in Taiwan today, but is still recognized by everyone as a gesture of the cross-my-heart-and-swear-to-die variety, reappearing in political cartoons in the confident knowledge that everyone will immediately understand its significance.
As for Taiwan's night markets, the contributor argues that they've become politicized, in so far as such popular phenomena are nowadays claimed as embodying a Taiwanese identity. Though common all over China too, they've been seen as typically Taiwanese in their robust combination of informal eating and the availability of a huge variety of goods, albeit some of dubious origin. However the middle classes may disdain them, they're even in danger of becoming officially adopted as tourist attractions.
Writing on gay and lesbian identity, Scott Simon calls Taiwan "one of the most rational and secular states in the world." The chapter on the 1987 Hong Kong movie, A Chinese Ghost Story, perceives in the film, among many other things, a fear of women as potential bringers of chaos; and images of purgatory are viewed as counterbalances to filial piety.
The book contains fair-minded yet astute introductions to each chapter by the editors, David Jordan, Andrew Morris and Marc Moskowitz. Two of the contributors have written full-length books already reviewed in Taipei Times. Simon was the author of Sweet and Sour, a study of small businesses run by Taiwanese women (reviewed Jan. 4, 2004), while Moskowitz wrote The Haunting Fetus (reviewed Aug. 12, 2001), an interesting book on the propitiation of the ghosts of aborted fetuses in modern Taiwese society.
In many ways this book does all it can to be favorable to Taiwan, but its contributors are honest enough to confront aspects of the society they feel are unpleasant or even disreputable. These uncompromising qualities thus give it great strength, and the book deserves a wider readership that the students it's aimed at.
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