Search Amazon.com for “Taiwan” and you will find almost nothing other than guidebooks, academic histories and political studies.
“It’s a tragedy that so few books have been written about Taiwan,” says New Zealander expatriate John Ross, author of Formosan Odyssey (reviewed in the Taipei Times on July 7, 2002). “The country has such an interesting history, geography, political situation, and culture … You could spend a lifetime writing about Taiwan and not run out of material.”
To remedy what he sees a dearth of literature, Ross has organized an English-language book festival, which takes place this weekend at Alleycat’s Pizza in Taipei’s Huashan 1914 Creative Park (華山1914).
Photo Courtesy Steven Crook
The aim is to “provide a place where authors and readers can sell and buy books and, hopefully, encourage more foreign residents to write about Taiwan,” Ross says.
Presentations and group discussions will be led by established authors in Taiwan, such as Jerome Keating (Islands in the Stream: A Quick Case Study of Taiwan’s Complex History and Taiwan: The Search for Identity), Syd Goldsmith (Jade Phoenix), and Steven Crook (Taiwan: The Bradt Travel Guide, Do’s and Don’ts in Taiwan and Keeping Up With the War God).
The focus of the presentations will not be on how to get work picked up by publishing houses, but on self-publishing. “Other than textbooks, the market for English-language books is very small,” Ross says. “Self-publishing, however, is becoming easier, and Taiwan is a great place to do it.”
Several of the festival’s featured authors have self-published books. Other speakers include prominent bloggers, such as Carrie Kellenberger (freelance writer and editor and owner of www.MySeveralWorlds.com, currently one of the most successful travel blogs in the world), Craig Ferguson (professional photographer and blogger at www.CraigFergusonImages.com), and David Reid (freelance writer and blogger at www.blog.taiwan-guide.org). There will be discussions on citizen journalism and how to make money by writing online.
Though this is the festival’s first edition, Ross has high hopes. In the future, he aims “to broaden the focus of the festival to include Taiwanese book lovers, get publishers involved, and invite some foreign guest authors to Taiwan for the event.”
By global standards, the traffic congestion that afflicts Taiwan’s urban areas isn’t horrific. But nor is it something the country can be proud of. According to TomTom, a Dutch developer of location and navigation technologies, last year Taiwan was the sixth most congested country in Asia. Of the 492 towns and cities included in its rankings last year, Taipei was the 74th most congested. Taoyuan ranked 105th, while Hsinchu County (121st), Taichung (142nd), Tainan (173rd), New Taipei City (227th), Kaohsiung (241st) and Keelung (302nd) also featured on the list. Four Japanese cities have slower traffic than Taipei. (Seoul, which has some
In our discussions of tourism in Taiwan we often criticize the government’s addiction to promoting food and shopping, while ignoring Taiwan’s underdeveloped trekking and adventure travel opportunities. This discussion, however, is decidedly land-focused. When was the last time a port entered into it? Last week I encountered journalist and travel writer Cameron Dueck, who had sailed to Taiwan in 2023-24, and was full of tales. Like everyone who visits, he and his partner Fiona Ching loved our island nation and had nothing but wonderful experiences on land. But he had little positive to say about the way Taiwan has organized its
Michael slides a sequin glove over the pop star’s tarnished legacy, shrouding Michael Jackson’s complications with a conventional biopic that, if you cover your ears, sounds great. Antoine Fuqua’s movie is sanctioned by Jackson’s estate and its producers include the estate’s executors. So it is, by its nature, a narrow, authorized perspective on Jackson. The film ends before the flood of allegations of sexual abuse of children, or Jackson’s own acknowledgment of sleeping alongside kids. Jackson and his estate have long maintained his innocence. In his only criminal trial, in 2005, Jackson was acquitted. Michael doesn’t even subtly nod to these facts.
Writing of the finds at the ancient iron-working site of Shihsanhang (十 三行) in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), archaeologist Tsang Cheng-hwa (臧振華) of the Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology observes: “One bronze bowl gilded with gold, together with copper coins and fragments of Tang and Song ceramics, were also found. These provide evidence for early contact between Taiwan aborigines and Chinese.” The Shihsanhang Web site from the Ministry of Culture says of the finds: “They were evidence that the residents of the area had a close trading relation with Chinese civilians, as the coins can be
RSS