With Valentine’s Day sneaking up on us all like a lecherous drunken expat at Carnegies’ Ladies Night, the following classy parties offer the chance for couples to cut loose and get loved up and desperate singletons to find someone special to get down with.
Kaohsiung has found the love with Mark Stewart’s Frisky promotions hosting Marcus Aurelius, Nina and Lexicon performing at Valentine’s Break Up IV.
The Valentine’s Break Up parties have been going strong for the past three years now and are “a great way to let loose after a few tough weeks of work, have a great night with that special someone ... and win lots of prizes including a NT$10,000 designer bracelet,” said Stewart.
Valentine’s Break Up IV at The Roof Park, 15F, 165 Linsen 1st Rd, Kaohsiung City (高雄市林森一路165號15). Tomorrow from 10pm until 5am. NT$400 plus two drinks. Arrive before midnight to receive three raffle tickets.
Miss Represent plays liquid funk drum ’n’ bass at VU Live House tonight, promoted by Konkrete Jungle who are working hard to develop the drum ’n’ bass scene in Taiwan.
MissRepresent has been working the crowds for seven years in Europe and for drum ’n’ bass heads out there, this is a must-see event before LTJ Bukem hits Luxy in two weeks. MissRepresent from England is, “overjoyed to be playing for the first time in Taiwan.”
Liquid funk drum ’n’ bass is often referred to as “intelligent,” which some feel disparages the rest of the genre.
“Liquid is not aggressive,” said MissRepresent. “Liquid funk d ’n’ b is more chilled and deeper. It attracts a different crowd than the jump-up crew who are into the harder stuff. It is intelligent in the way it works the crowd.”
Like tonight, MissRepresent often plays without an MC because “they can make it or break it.” She prefers to let her music do the talking. “I am looking forward to digging out some new stuff that people may not have heard.”
Also playing with Miss Represent are Too Bad It’s Not Tronic, comprised of Matt Schism and Eben Pretorius, and Konkrete Jungle boy NoNSeNsii from the US.
For the boys, your NT$600 entrance fee gets you a drink while the lucky ladies only have to pay NT$400 for the same privilege. Sexist? Yes. Fair? Probably.
MissRepresent at VU Live House (地下絲絨), B1, 77, Wuchang St Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市武昌街二段77號B1). Tonight from 11pm until 4am.
On the Net: www.missrepresent.com
With plumbing problems resolved but a few issues remaining with the neighbors, Copa reopens tonight with The Love Below. A Valentine’s Day warm-up for those looking for decent cocktails and an eclectic track list of songs to do with love, solicited over the past few months from the Facebook group Bet I Can Find People Who Love Love (the brainchild of man-about-town, Tommy Milloy). With Cap (yours truly) and Sunrise Soup.
The Love Below at Copa. Tonight from 10pm until late. Free entry. Copa Bar, 2, Ln 137, Yanji St, Taipei City (台北市大安區延吉街137巷2號).
Tomorrow in Taipei there’s Return to Paradise, a new club night launched by the resurgent ESPDJs, who are recreating the Eden Deep Inside house party vibe, which ended on New Year’s Eve two years ago. Playing will be Saucey, Matt Ward and SL, the latter of whom is “synonymous with deep house,” said Saucey.
The party will be going off at China White, “because of its intimate size,” said Saucey. “We have rented a beefed up sound system to provide us with the extra oomph required for a nice rolling deep house set.”
Return to Paradise at China White, 2F, 97-101, Dunhua S Rd Sec 2, Taipei City, (台北市敦化南路二段97-101號2樓). Tomorrow from 11pm until 5am. NT$350, includes one drink.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
Mongolian influencer Anudari Daarya looks effortlessly glamorous and carefree in her social media posts — but the classically trained pianist’s road to acceptance as a transgender artist has been anything but easy. She is one of a growing number of Mongolian LGBTQ youth challenging stereotypes and fighting for acceptance through media representation in the socially conservative country. LGBTQ Mongolians often hide their identities from their employers and colleagues for fear of discrimination, with a survey by the non-profit LGBT Centre Mongolia showing that only 20 percent of people felt comfortable coming out at work. Daarya, 25, said she has faced discrimination since she