A Briton who has lived in Taiwan for 10 years has gained renown for drawing detailed maps of Taiwanese cities.
Artist Tom Rook gained a following in 2013 when a magazine posted an interview with him online. By the next day, the magazine’s post had been shared more than 1,000 times, and Rook’s Facebook page was inundated with comments and friend requests. The Taipei Times first reported on Rook in 2015 (“The accidental illustrator,” Sept. 9, page 12).
Rook’s drawings are so special because he looks at cities from a unique perspective, whether he is sketching a 3D streetscape as a 2D engineering drawing or recreating a scene from history, such as an abandoned sanatorium or a pre-war cityscape. Sometimes, Rook draws a section of a city that especially captures his imagination, such as New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) or Taipei’s historic Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area.
In a recent interview, Rook said people tell him that they connect with his maps on a personal level, such as recognizing on his maps the places where they grew up or got married. Rook’s maps, with their ability to evoke a sense of nostalgia, easily lend themselves to rendering Taiwan’s unique history and identity, fostering a national consciousness and claiming a beachhead among tourists.
A walk along the main streets of Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) might not differentiate itself from a walk in any other major city, but meandering through the small alleyways of the city’s older areas reveals surroundings that are uniquely Taiwanese. Mismatched buildings, small shops selling traditional goods, tucked-away temples, weaving pathways, buildings so close they nearly touch and walls draped in hanging plants are just some of the sights that characterize Taiwanese alleys.
Arguably, these are the alleyways where Taiwanese culture takes shape, and it is the historically mismatched spaces taken as a whole that serve as a representative landmark for the nation.
Rook might not be the first or the only person to artistically invoke Taiwan’s cityscapes, but the reaction to his work demonstrates the value of commissioning and encouraging such work.
Another British artist, Amy Tams, integrates things she considers to be representative of Taiwan into caricatures of birds that are seen throughout Taiwanese cities. One is an image of a personified Taiwanese hill partridge next to a field of tea leaves — seen in the trees of Taiwan’s urban spaces. Another image shows a light-vented bulbul — seen perched on Taipei roofs — wearing glasses and a hat like those typically worn by older Taiwanese men.
Perhaps the works of such artists could tip off the Tourism Bureau. While many people want to visit Alishan, Taroko Gorge or Sun Moon Lake, what many might find most memorable as a Taiwan travel experience would be visits to the shops, parks and temples of cities’ back alleyways.
Some tour operators and community organizations are thinking along these lines, and the number of walking and bike tours along historic streets have increased. However, the government often overlooks these older spaces.
When travelers return to the skies after the COVID-19 pandemic, visitors to Asia might head to Japan to ride the bullet train or see Kyoto’s temples, or to Thailand to experience Bangkok nightlife or to relax on that nation’s majestic beaches. People might be drawn to Taiwan to see its eclectic urban spaces, its back-alley traditions and the unique living spaces that have evolved as different cultures arrived in the nation.
There is a saying in Taiwan that the nation’s most beautiful landscape is its people (台灣最美的風景是人). It makes sense then that the country’s communities — and the living spaces they share — should be emphasized when sharing Taiwan with the world.
China has not been a top-tier issue for much of the second Trump administration. Instead, Trump has focused considerable energy on Ukraine, Israel, Iran, and defending America’s borders. At home, Trump has been busy passing an overhaul to America’s tax system, deporting unlawful immigrants, and targeting his political enemies. More recently, he has been consumed by the fallout of a political scandal involving his past relationship with a disgraced sex offender. When the administration has focused on China, there has not been a consistent throughline in its approach or its public statements. This lack of overarching narrative likely reflects a combination
Father’s Day, as celebrated around the world, has its roots in the early 20th century US. In 1910, the state of Washington marked the world’s first official Father’s Day. Later, in 1972, then-US president Richard Nixon signed a proclamation establishing the third Sunday of June as a national holiday honoring fathers. Many countries have since followed suit, adopting the same date. In Taiwan, the celebration takes a different form — both in timing and meaning. Taiwan’s Father’s Day falls on Aug. 8, a date chosen not for historical events, but for the beauty of language. In Mandarin, “eight eight” is pronounced
US President Donald Trump’s alleged request that Taiwanese President William Lai (賴清德) not stop in New York while traveling to three of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, after his administration also rescheduled a visit to Washington by the minister of national defense, sets an unwise precedent and risks locking the US into a trajectory of either direct conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or capitulation to it over Taiwan. Taiwanese authorities have said that no plans to request a stopover in the US had been submitted to Washington, but Trump shared a direct call with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平)
It is difficult to think of an issue that has monopolized political commentary as intensely as the recall movement and the autopsy of the July 26 failures. These commentaries have come from diverse sources within Taiwan and abroad, from local Taiwanese members of the public and academics, foreign academics resident in Taiwan, and overseas Taiwanese working in US universities. There is a lack of consensus that Taiwan’s democracy is either dying in ashes or has become a phoenix rising from the ashes, nurtured into existence by civic groups and rational voters. There are narratives of extreme polarization and an alarming
RSS