Gweilo, by Martin Booth, recalled the author's life as a child in 1950s Hong Kong. Though well-written, it managed to end up not a little depressing, mostly on account of the author's portrait of his father, who he admits to detesting.
Lastly, Falun Gong, by Maria Hsia Chang, was an exceptionally cogent and balanced analysis of the eccentric doctrines promulgated by this organization, and the equally bizarre strategies adopted by the Beijing authorities to silence them.
Gay-themed books on Asia were few. Global Divas, by Martin F. Manalansan IV, looked at the lives of gay Filipinos in New York, while Mobile Cultures, edited by Berry, Martin and Yue, researched the way gays have been quick to benefit from fast networking facilitated by cellphones and the Internet.
Turning to Taiwan, The Minor Arts of Daily Life was a collection of academics examining a wide range of Taiwanese phenomena, from the often harsh treatment of foreign domestic helpers to yang-sucking she-demons in ghost movies. By contrast, Scott Simon's Sweet and Sour took a markedly upbeat look at Taiwan's female entrepreneurs and, in the process, went a long way to explain why Taiwan can be such a congenial place to live.
Shattering the Myths by Taipei Times' Laurence Eyton rallied the greens with trenchant pre-presidential-election rhetoric in this English and Chinese bilingual edition.
Two new books contributed to the mini-genre of Taiwan fiction in English. Black King, by Eleanor B. Morris Wu, challenged all skeptics with a soap opera-like story of life in the bars of Taipei's Combat Zone, while The Trumpeter of Bull Mountain, by W. Martyn McClave, told of the real-life adventures of an American busker in the Taipei of the 1990s.
In the miscellaneous category, 2004 witnessed the arrival of The Pretended Asian, by Taiwan National University's Michael Keevak. This book is an entertaining study of the man who took 18th-century London by storm when he arrived and claimed he was a native of Formosa. Probably from south-western France, in reality he'd never been farther east than Prussia.
Also in 2004, Taipei City Government issued Reflections on Taipei, the reminiscences of 16 high-profile expatriates, while the Central News Agency came up with an album of photos entitled Sixty Years in Taiwan. The album stretched back to the days when bullocks hauled carts along Taipei's boulevards, a phenomenon also at the fore of the memories of several of the previous volume's authors.
Lastly, a new literary magazine was launched in Taichung this year by Jason Tomassini. Titled Pressed, it is currently inviting contributions for its up-coming issues, plus stories under 250 words for a fiction-in-miniature contest.
So, who gets the prizes? The books I valued most, and continue to value, are as follows. Best novel on Asia: Ha Jin's War Trash, with Hong Ying's K: The Art of Love a fairly close second. Most eye-opening new book on China: Frank Dikotter's Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China. Finest book on the Asia region: Theodore Friend's Indonesian Destinies. This last volume also wins my private "big prize" for Best Book on Asia Published in 2004.
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