The opening of a general store may not ordinarily warrant a mention in the newspaper, but the Treasure Hive, which opened its doors to the public at Treasure Hill last Sunday is part juice bar, part performance space, part soup kitchen, part grocery store, part local pub.
But it's mostly the latest chapter in the half-century saga that has seen Treasure Hill go from an anti-aircraft installation to an art installation.
"It's great to see somebody doing something here that is going to stay and to see this area revitalizing," said Yeh Wei-li (
PHOTO: DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES
Treasure Hill got its start when the soldiers of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) came to Taiwan.
The area was fortified and designed to protect the city's southwestern side from a Communist air attack. The soldiers stationed there built homes next to the guns they manned and married local girls.
By the time the guns were eventually removed, the area had become home and the soldiers stayed. Now there are ongoing plans to turn several of Treasure Hill's dilapidated structures into facilities that will host an artist-in-residence program.
Treasure Hive, located at the front of the community by a bicycle path that runs along much of the Danshui River, could be considered the first of the structures in the new artist community. Its proprietor, Mina Chin (覃敏怡), says she'll host weekly music performances on the lawn adjacent the store, will serve up a soup of the day, and plans to offer a variety of staple goods which she'll deliver to elderly locals.
The Treasure Hive is at 3, Alley 16, Ln 230, Dingzhou Rd, Sec. 3, Taipei (
In recent weeks the Trump Administration has been demanding that Taiwan transfer half of its chip manufacturing to the US. In an interview with NewsNation, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said that the US would need 50 percent of domestic chip production to protect Taiwan. He stated, discussing Taiwan’s chip production: “My argument to them was, well, if you have 95 percent, how am I gonna get it to protect you? You’re going to put it on a plane? You’re going to put it on a boat?” The stench of the Trump Administration’s mafia-style notions of “protection” was strong
Every now and then, it’s nice to just point somewhere on a map and head out with no plan. In Taiwan, where convenience reigns, food options are plentiful and people are generally friendly and helpful, this type of trip is that much easier to pull off. One day last November, a spur-of-the-moment day hike in the hills of Chiayi County turned into a surprisingly memorable experience that impressed on me once again how fortunate we all are to call this island home. The scenery I walked through that day — a mix of forest and farms reaching up into the clouds
With one week left until election day, the drama is high in the race for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chair. The race is still potentially wide open between the three frontrunners. The most accurate poll is done by Apollo Survey & Research Co (艾普羅民調公司), which was conducted a week and a half ago with two-thirds of the respondents party members, who are the only ones eligible to vote. For details on the candidates, check the Oct. 4 edition of this column, “A look at the KMT chair candidates” on page 12. The popular frontrunner was 56-year-old Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文)
“How China Threatens to Force Taiwan Into a Total Blackout” screamed a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) headline last week, yet another of the endless clickbait examples of the energy threat via blockade that doesn’t exist. Since the headline is recycled, I will recycle the rebuttal: once industrial power demand collapses (there’s a blockade so trade is gone, remember?) “a handful of shops and factories could run for months on coal and renewables, as Ko Yun-ling (柯昀伶) and Chao Chia-wei (趙家緯) pointed out in a piece at Taiwan Insight earlier this year.” Sadly, the existence of these facts will not stop the
RSS