When Becky Liu (劉樾) visited the Plum Pavillion (梅亭) in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), it reminded her of her great-grandfather, who, like the pavilion’s former resident, former Control Yuan president Yu You-jen (于右任), was an expert calligrapher.
“Through this connection, I can tell [tourists] about calligraphy in our culture and what it represents,” she says.
This is one of the personal experiences that local tour guides will relate during Sunday’s Beitou, Hundred Years a day walking tour, organized by Like It Formosa (來去福爾摩沙), formed by a group of twenty-something locals dedicated to a variety of walking tours all conducted in English.
Photo courtesy of Like It Formosa
“We want our guides to not read from a book but to incorporate their personal experiences and serve as storytellers and performers,” says founding member Julia Kao (高于晴). “We want to present to foreigners the perspective of local young people.”
She adds that visitors have joined the same tour multiple times just to hear different tour guides share their experiences.
Formed early last year, Like It Formosa started out last September and October with two pay-as-you-want weekly walking tours of Taipei — a historic one every Thursday that takes people through the old Taipei neighborhoods on the western end, and a modern one every Sunday that shuffles through the bustling East and Xinyi districts from Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall to 44 South Village (四四南).
They launched their first paid tour in November — an LGBT Taipei one that took visitors to locations such as an LGBT bookstore and Rainbow Sauna (彩虹會館), a 24-hour gay establishment. Sunday’s Beitou tour is their first time taking people to northern Taipei, and they have more tours planned for later this year.
These young Taiwanese aren’t just looking to show foreigners what Taiwan is about. They say it’s also a self-exploration of what it means to be Taiwanese, which is a question local students especially struggle with when asked to present their culture while studying overseas.
“When I went on the tours myself, I felt pretty impacted,” Kao says. “To locals, it’s a chance to get to know Taiwan all over again.”
“When we pass by the Presidential Palace, we can discuss the protests and democracy in Taiwan,” Liu adds. “In Ximen, we can talk about Japanese influence on the city. Through exchanges with tourists, we can in turn ponder deeper questions about where we live.”
What was the population of Taiwan when the first Negritos arrived? In 500BC? The 1st century? The 18th? These questions are important, because they can contextualize the number of babies born last month, 6,523, to all the people on Taiwan, indigenous and colonial alike. That figure represents a year on year drop of 3,884 babies, prefiguring total births under 90,000 for the year. It also represents the 26th straight month of deaths exceeding births. Why isn’t this a bigger crisis? Because we don’t experience it. Instead, what we experience is a growing and more diverse population. POPULATION What is Taiwan’s actual population?
After Jurassic Park premiered in 1993, people began to ask if scientists could really bring long-lost species back from extinction, just like in the hit movie. The idea has triggered “de-extinction” debates in several countries, including Taiwan, where the focus has been on the Formosan clouded leopard (designated after 1917 as Neofelis nebulosa brachyura). National Taiwan Museum’s (NTM) Web site describes the Formosan clouded leopard as “a subspecies endemic to Taiwan…it reaches a body length of 0.6m to 1.2m and tail length of 0.7m to 0.9m and weighs between 15kg and 30kg. It is entirely covered with beautiful cloud-like spots
For the past five years, Sammy Jou (周祥敏) has climbed Kinmen’s highest peak, Taiwu Mountain (太武山) at 6am before heading to work. In the winter, it’s dark when he sets out but even at this hour, other climbers are already coming down the mountain. All of this is a big change from Jou’s childhood during the Martial Law period, when the military requisitioned the mountain for strategic purposes and most of it was off-limits. Back then, only two mountain trails were open, and they were open only during special occasions, such as for prayers to one’s ancestors during Lunar New Year.
March 23 to March 29 Kao Chang (高長) set strict rules for his descendants: women were to learn music or cooking, and the men medicine or theology. No matter what life path they chose, they were to use their skills in service of the Presbyterian Church and society. As a result, musical ability — particularly in Western instruments — was almost expected among the Kao women, and even those who married into the family often had musical training. Although the men did not typically play instruments, they played a supporting role, helping to organize music programs such as children’s orchestras, writes
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