For the seventh year, the Compass Taichung International Food and Music Festival gives visitors a chance to gorge themselves and rock out at the same time. The festival, which starts tomorrow and runs through Sunday on Taichung’s Art Museum Parkway (美術綠園道), was founded in 2004 by Compass, a monthly bilingual city guide that covers Taichung and other cities in the middle of Taiwan.
“We wanted an event that symbolizes the mission [of the magazine] by showcasing all that Taichung has to offer, with an emphasis on international dining, nightlife and music,” says Douglas Habecker, co-publisher of Compass.
This year’s festival features 50 vendor booths operated by local dining establishments, selling food ranging from German sausages and Indian wraps to Japanese rice balls and Italian gelato, as well as traditional Taiwanese treats. Other vendor booths will offer items and services including electronics and fitness club memberships.
Sixteen bands are on the lineup for this weekend, including festival regulars the Money Shot Horns, who are headlining. New faces include band Aurora, which music coordinator Patrick Byrne describes as having a “Euro-beat sound,” and flamenco guitarist Cameron de la Vegas. Other acts include Native Space, Nick Fothergill, Way Soon, Point 22 (.22), Awesome Shit, Three Day Bender and The Infinite Minute, which play tomorrow, and The Ever So Friendlies, 2 Acres Plowed, Andy Goode, Reider, ’Round Midnight, Aurora and Coach, which perform on Sunday.
Taichung “is a hotbed of live bands and live music, so we try to keep some variety going,” says Byrne. “The festival will cover a lot of genres, including jazz music, rock, folk, country, the whole gambit.”
A new event at this year’s festival is the Oriental Fashion and Cosmetics Show, which will be staged from 4pm to 5pm tomorrow by Hungkuang University (弘光科技大學) staff and students and has an “East meets West” theme. Organizers “felt that because the Compass festival has so many foreign visitors, that it would be a great opportunity to showcase the latest things in Taiwan creativity when it comes to fashion,” says Habecker.
Late-night revelers can celebrate at an after-party, which will start at 11pm tomorrow evening at 89K Music Bar at 21 Daguan Rd, Taichung City, (台中市大觀路21號). The Money Shot Horns and Andy Goode will appear, and the NT$300 cover charge includes a drink.
In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
Pei-Ru Ko (柯沛如) says her Taipei upbringing was a little different from her peers. “We lived near the National Palace Museum [north of Taipei] and our neighbors had rice paddies. They were growing food right next to us. There was a mountain and a river so people would say, ‘you live in the mountains,’ and my friends wouldn’t want to come and visit.” While her school friends remained a bus ride away, Ko’s semi-rural upbringing schooled her in other things, including where food comes from. “Most people living in Taipei wouldn’t have a neighbor that was growing food,” she says. “So
Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated