Taipei has few homeless compared to many major cities, but they're out there and are under the care of government and private organizations
By Gavin Phipps
Many see Taipei as a metropolis where opportunity and prosperity go hand-in-hand. But beneath the facade of glitzy shopping malls, multiplex cinemas and bright neon billboards, there lays a side of the city that those with jobs, cash to burn and a roof over their heads are all too often unaware of.

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KK built White Wabbit Records from the ground up, starting in a converted men's restroom
By Max Woodworth
When Yeh Wan-ching (葉宛青), better known as KK, finally got her degree from National Chengchi University after a marathon seven-year stint of undergrad, her choice of careers was simple: continue as head of one of Taiwan's most respected independent music labels and niche-oriented record stores, or settle into a cubicle for a lifetime of nine-to-five work.

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Taipei City Hall has dished up an uninspired and awkwardly located exhibition
By Susan Kendzulak
To celebrate the second anniversary of Taipei's Hakka Affairs Commission, a small exhibition featuring painter Zeng Ying-qi and photographer Chi Kuo-chang (紀國章) titled Peony in the Wind -- the Splendor of Taipei's Hakka Culture is now showing at the Taipei Hakka Cultural Hall until April 15.

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Four young designers are offering classes and exhibiting works in metal installations and decorative art
By Diana Freundl
Hidden away in a basement studio are four artists who opened their silversmith workshop to the general public last weekend. The Forging Red Studio's Design and Production Exhibition was a two-day event showcasing metal installations, silver jewelry as well as tours of their workspace. The formal opening passed, but their door is now officially open to the public to peruse the workshop and study the craft.

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With dull, caricatured people and situations, `Touching Earth' doesn't make for compelling reading
By Bradley Winterton
This is a slightly better book than it seems at first sight, but is nonetheless far less good than some of its early sections might lead you to believe.

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Jeremy Treglown does an excellent job of separating fact and myth in the author's somewhat Dickensian account of a family life dominated by his father
By William Grims
For nearly all of his very long life and career, VS Pritchett, the novelist, short-story writer and critic, was a man in the middle. Like Charles Dickens and HG Wells before him, he came from the English lower middle class -- "my country," he once called it -- and found his best material there. In politics, he took a humane position somewhere to the right of the left and to the left of the right. In his personal life, he was a devoted but not very faithful husband. He was too famous to be a cult writer, but never popular enough to escape the constant drudgery of reviewing, travel writing and other miscellaneous literary journalism.

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