A 29-year-old Taiwanese illustrator would say the best art form to encapsulate the varied aspects of Taiwan is an aesthetic female figure that was created through his paint strokes.
From Penghu’s Tianhou Temple, a Matsu temple built in 1604, to corrugated metal shacks alongside roads, from betel nut beauties to bus drivers, a young illustrator going by the pseudonym Chih Yu (蚩尤) brings the nation’s cultural characteristics, religions, architecture and ecology to life in the form of illustrated female characters.
On the cover of We Stay, We Live, a compilation of about 20 hand-drawn works by Chih, a glamorous woman curls her slender body in a position that mimics the contours of Taiwan.
Photo provided courtesy of Chih Yu
She is embellished from head to toe with Taiwanese features, such as azaleas from Taipei, the Hakka patterns from Miaoli County and the giant Buddha sculpture on Bagua Mountain in Changhua County.
Chih said he put a map of Taiwan underneath the paper he drew on to better adjust the body posture of the female character to represent Taiwan.
The scruffy corrugated metal shacks common throughout Taiwan also come to life through the tip of Chih’s paintbrushes, being transformed into a youthful woman with corrugated steel sheets winding softly around her silken body.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
“Such a representation hints at the way modern people who live in an urban jungle are smothered by concrete and steel, while becoming habituated to it,” Chih said.
In another illustration titled the Betel Nut Beauties, Chih presents a lighter side of Taiwan. A motorcyclist in the form of a pig — an animal that often represents promiscuous men in Taiwanese culture — is depicted falling off his -motorbike after trying to peep at a betel nut beauty while driving, knocking over the betel nut stand and launching the betel nut beauty into the sky.
The scene was inspired by one of Chih’s personal experiences, he said, in which he crashed his motorcycle because he was staring at a betel nut beauty while driving.
Photo provided courtesy of Chih Yu
We Stay, We Live is meant to convey the way he see the country, Chih said.
“However, what truly matters is not the way I perceive her [Taiwan], but if you [the public] really love her [Taiwan].”
Translated by Stacy Hsu, Staff Writer
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by