Christmas arrives a day early for many of us this year as there won't be a national holiday conveniently celebrating the generalissimo's birthday and we'll be at our desks on Monday. Fans of the festive season blowout will have to make do instead with a traditional dinner on Christmas Eve.
Not to be put off, Sunworld Dynasty Hotel Taipei is putting on a song and dance to go with all the turkey trimmings of its Christmas buffet. Head chef Tony Wu (鄔仲利) said it's a secret but there will be oysters cooked in garlic and butter to go with appetizers of French bread, mixed-grain loaves and white rolls. The perfect starter will be followed by baked garlic scallop, lobster gratin and US fillet smothered in cracked pepper and mushroom sauce.
On most days this would be enough, but since this is Xmas and a time of excess, leave room for the traditional turkey, with apple chestnut stuffing, vegetables, roast potatoes, red currant jelly, bread sauce and gravy. Wu said he would be using 5kg to 6kg birds so they would be tender and juicy.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SUNWORLD DYNASTY HOTEL TAIPEI
Asked whether Christmas was a big deal in Taiwan, Wu said it was becoming so. "We worship the West so even though it's not a religious event for most of us it is an international festival and younger people in particular like to celebrate it because they have experienced the special atmosphere abroad."
A 30-member choir from Shixing University (世新大學) will go a-wassailing while you eat and cover tunes from Sister Act, David Tsao (曹明) and Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), in addition to singing classic carols. Jazz band Top will tempt diners onto the dance floor, while a magic clown walks around the tables pulling doves and flowers out of his hat. Organizers said there would also be a lucky draw and Santa Claus will make an appearance, along with his little helper, to dole out prizes.
If you can't make it to Sunworld for Christmas Eve, no worries, they will come to you. A Christmas basket containing Carta Vieja Chilean wine, honey chocolate rolls, German fruit bread and a selection of biscuits baked in the hotel's kitchen (including surprisingly inoffensive durian-flavored cookies) can be yours for NT$1,888, plus 10 percent.
Merry Christmas!
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby