Dihua Street (迪化) will be buzzing with activity for the next two weeks as both traditional vendors and young entrepreneurs take part in the annual Lunar New Year goods market.
Now in its 21st year, the official market organized by the Taipei City government will open today and run until Jan. 26 on the main thoroughfare, with stalls selling all kinds of dried goods, snacks, herbs and tea at discount prices.
A separate market put together by local community groups will be held in several side alleys as well as the northern part of Dihua Street. The focus is to showcase the businesses in the area that do not sell traditional goods, with special events taking place each weekend until Jan. 26.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, TT
This weekend, there will be leather bracelet making, bowl painting, and traditional pastry baking workshops alongside performances including lion dancing.
■ The traditional market takes place on Dihua St Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市迪化街一段), north of the intersection with Nanjing W Rd. The alternative market can be found at lanes 13, 32, 46 and 72 at Dihua St Sec 1 as well as the northern section of the street.
■ Until Jan. 26. For more information on the alternative market, visit www.facebook.com/events/228534967604474 (Chinese)
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless