Long championed as a leader in adopting digital technology, Sweden is set to ban mobile phones in schools beginning in the fall for the next academic year as part of a broad, international reversal on the use of screens in classrooms.Since 2023, the Scandinavian country’s center-right coalition gove
Audiences in Leicester, Cardiff, London and Sheffield will this month gather to watch a series of black-and-white Taiwanese-language films made more than 70 years ago. On the surface, these screenings commemorate the seventieth anniversary of taiyupian (台語片) — Taiwanese-language cinema. Yet the sign
In December of 2008 Lee E-tin (李乙廷), a Miaoli county legislative hopeful, was convicted of vote-buying. Rather than buy votes retail, voter by voter, in the usual manner, Lee had done it wholesale, in a commendably efficient manner: he had visited local temples and made donations to gain their suppo
June 8 to June 14It was once said that flowers bloomed throughout the four seasons in Yunxiaocuo (雲霄厝). Not real ones, but “incense flowers,” referring to a radiating circular formation of freshly cut incense sticks set out to dry.Up until the 1970s, almost every woman in the settlement in Chiayi Ci
With weighty, anxiety-inducing geopolitical topics dominating the headlines, checking in on the wild and weird state of local politics can take some of the edge off. This November’s elections will determine who will be in charge of fixing potholes in your neighborhood, not the potholes in Taiwan’s c
Raw, bleak and at times difficult to watch, That Burning House (失樂園) does not shy away from depicting child sexual and physical abuse within children care homes. The movie is structured in three parts. “Stuffed Toy” depicts a severely bullied and abused boy (Hung Chun-hao, 洪君昊) living in a group ho
Democracy came to the cradle of Voodoo religion in 1991, when Benin’s military dictator of many years surprisingly lost an election that he had organized.Mathieu Kerekou had amassed power partly by banning the practice of so-called sorcerers, whose authority he deemed subversive to his own. Voodoois
Sure, folks discuss the weather a lot, especially in Britain.Still, it’s hard to imagine that a quiet chat about the weather — and why it isn’t boring — could be an emotional high point of a feature film. Especially when that film is about World War II, one of the most cinematic subjects in history.
In a video posted to TikTok, where Katie Whitney has 2.5 million followers, she says to the camera, bluntly: “This video is for Cynthia Erivo. If you’re not Cynthia Erivo … you can keep on scrolling.” Her demeanor then shifts, her voice becomes softer; more the way a person might talk to their puppy
Lost in the news last week: Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwanese People’s Party (TPP) legislators fast-tracked bills intended to expand local government authority over industrial air pollution. The government, Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) and local business organizations all registered object
“Taiwan’s Opposition Leader Comes to US With a Message Straight Out of Beijing” read a May 31 headline in the Wall Street Journal. Top US administration officials and members of Congress almost certainly read the WSJ, and if there was a bullet point takeaway that people in Washington should absorb a
As someone who normally steers clear of books with “transcendence” or “metaphysics” in their subtitles, this reviewer — a casual observer of local belief systems since the 1990s — found Fabian Graham’s Money God Temples in Taiwan a challenging read. Those who’ve only dipped their toes into temple cu
Japan’s thousand-year-old samurai horse festival has survived wars, earthquakes and a nuclear disaster. Now it’s battling a new challenge — climate change.The Soma Nomaoi began as a way to train mounted warriors and it still looks the same a millennium later, with riders dressed in samurai armor com
Taiwan’s English education system is being pulled apart by three opposing forces. Bilingual Nation 2030 pulls students toward English and global communication. Artificial Intelligence (AI) readiness pulls them toward digital judgment, verification and AI-mediated work. But Taiwan’s old exam culture
The pavements of Hanoi’s wide boulevards and narrow lanes have long been clogged with bustling food stalls, weaving scooters and crowds of coffee and beer drinkers sitting on low plastic stools.But the spontaneity that charmed tourists and supported street vendors in Vietnam’s capital has subsided i
Over the years, springtime has become synonymous with bold choreographic exploration at Cloud Gate Theater (雲門劇場) through its annual Spring Riot program. Initiated in 2001 by former artistic director Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) but paused for five editions, the program resumed in 2024 under Cheng Tsung-lung
It seems every few days one bumps into one of those “real man” comments in which Taiwan is urged to “face reality” or similar, and “make a deal,” with the speaker implying that soon it will be too late. “Deal” advocates always present themselves as having a superior grip on reality, and the manly ab
June 1 to June 7"If all Taiwanese were as afraid of dying as you, then what would happen?” Physician Shih Chiang-nan (施江南) reportedly said this to his wife Chen Chiao-tung (陳焦桐) after she urged him to stop intervening on behalf of Taiwanese soldiers stranded overseas after serving in the Jap
There are shadowy cabals plotting to sell out Taiwan to be annexed by China, by invasion if necessary. Fortunately, they are buffoons. In 2019, former Bamboo Union gangster and founder of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), Chang An-le (張安樂, colorfully known as “White Wolf”), led a protest
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