Nepal’s honey industry stung by climate change

In the 15 years Chitra Bhan Khatri has been keeping bees in west Nepal, he never had trouble providing food for his insects — until last year, when unseasonally heavy rain left his honeybees hungry. Five days of torrential rainfall in Dang district in October sent temperatures plummeting, killing the bright yellow blooms of the mustard plants Khatri grows to provide nectar and pollen for his 300 colonies of European honeybees. Then, when he took his bees to graze on nectar from chiuri (butter) trees in a nearby forest, the rain had knocked all the flowers off their branches, he said. As he walked through his apiary inspecting his hives with their empty honeycombs, the 44-year-old beekeeper said he used to extract more than 40kg of honey per hive each year. But his insects last year produced less than half of that. Previously, Khatri had always been able to move his hives to another part of the region to feed — but last year there was almost no pollen or nectar to be found anywhere. “My 500,000-rupee (US$4,220) investment has all gone in vain,” he said. “Honey is my sole source of income. I don’t know how I can cover my household expenses.” Heavy rain, prolonged drought and harsher winters have thrown off flowering seasons and destroyed blossoms across Nepal over the past decade, decimating the country’s honey supply. In 2020, Nepal’s beekeepers produced about 50 percent less honey than three years earlier — and the warming climate is a big reason for the drop, said Shiva Prasad Sharma, a beekeeper and president of the Federation of Nepal Beekeepers (FNBK). National honey yield data for last year is not yet available, but Sharma predicted it would be even worse than the year before, blaming an exceptionally wet, lengthy monsoon season for crushing what had been a blossoming industry. “My

By Pramod Acharya

‘A banana, concrete – those are good gifts:’ the recycling group turning strangers into friends

Who on earth wants fish tank wastewater, chicken poo, tumble-dryer lint, loo roll tubes, “a plaster mould of a Komodo dragon’s foot” or half a broken toilet? No one, you might think, but the Buy Nothing community begs to differ: these are all real “gifts” snapped up by more than 5 million members worldwide, who give away their unwanted items in the local community. It’s living proof that “one person’s trash is another’s treasure,” as Alisa Miller, the administrator of the group puts it. Miller offered her daughter’s broken toy birdcage with little hope anyone would want it; it was snapped up by a local flower-arranging enthusiast, and filled with succulents and trailing plants. Her co-administrator’s son is the current custodian of a toy helicopter that has been played with by five Buy Nothing families to date. Members ask for what they want and usually get it: anything from household appliances, furniture and gardening tools to clothes and baby gear. There is nothing unique or original about giving and getting stuff for free. It’s a practice as old as humanity. The juggernaut giveaway network Freecycle was founded in 2003 — but what distinguishes the Buy Nothing project from Freecycle, Freegle, Olio and their ilk is that the emphasis is less on stuff, per se, and more on community. ‘HYPERLOCAL GIFT ECONOMIES’ In what Buy Nothing describes as its “hyperlocal gift economies,” users are encouraged to let items “simmer” rather than giving them away to the first person who asks, suggesting they share a joke or provide a story explaining why they would like the item. In addition to “gifts” and “asks”, users are encouraged to post “gratitude”, with a message or a picture showing what a gifted item has meant to them. That could all sound insufferably twee, but the thinking behind it

By Emma Beddington

‘He was a handful’ — Hunter S Thompson’s PA and photographer relives her wild job

One evening towards the end of 2003, Chloe Sells was entering the J-Bar in Aspen, Colorado, in search of a late night drink, when an older woman approached her. As Sells recalls in her new photobook, Hot Damn!: “She looked me up and down and said, ‘We’re looking for some help for Hunter. Are you a night owl? Would you be interested?’” Hunter, as every local knew, was Hunter S Thompson, the celebrated creator of “gonzo” journalism, and the town’s most infamous resident. The woman was his wife, Anita. “It took me only a moment,” Sells says, “to answer ‘Yes’ to everything.” Sells ended up working as Thompson’s personal assistant for just over a year, doing “anything and everything that needed doing.” Her typical working hours were 11pm until dawn, and her tasks included preparing his often elaborate dinners to order (microwave turkey dinner with soup, chutney, peanut butter and salsa), reading his prose back to him while he shouted instructions (“Louder, louder, slower, slower”) and dealing with his increasingly frequent bouts of explosive anger at his publishers, editors, acolytes and the world in general. “I was in my late 20s in full rock ‘n’ roll mode, young and bulletproof,” she says. “I’d grown up in Aspen in a pretty wild, bohemian family and I knew nothing that Hunter did could bother me. In fact, the only thing that got to me was the cigarette smoke. There was so much of it.” Sells’ father had been a hippy in his youth, opening one of Colorado’s earliest “head shops” in nearby Boulder, selling drug paraphernalia. Just like Thompson, he had relocated to the mountains in Aspen in the late 60s to escape the pressures of the straight life. In the decades that followed, though, the town became a hangout for the privileged and the famous,

By Sean O’Hagan

Preserving the Paiwanese past

The first time I traveled to Pingtung County’s Tjuvecekadan (老七佳 “Old Cijia”), I was greeted by a locked gate and a sign written in old, peeling paint forbidding entry to unescorted outsiders. Behind the gate, the road to the village disappeared around a curve. After the long drive out, not being able to even catch a glimpse of the old slate houses, let alone walk among them, was a major disappointment. What lay behind that gate remained a mystery for years, until the right contact finally helped me arrange a visit last year. After visiting the village, the locked gate actually makes sense, and is part of a very successful model for sustainable tourism. CENTURIES OF HISTORY Our trip began with an hour-long van ride along (and through) the Cijia River, across a new suspension bridge (to replace one destroyed by Typhoon Morakot), then further up along a dirt road. After passing by the infamous locked gate, we then disembarked in a large flat clearing in front of the village. Nowadays, this plaza is a parking lot and Internet hotspot (there is no reception in the village itself), but it has an interesting history. Decades ago, the Japanese built a police station on this spot, and the station’s brick water tower and flagpole base are still there. In earlier times, enemy skulls from headhunting missions were placed on display here as a warning to outsiders. Perhaps the first non-Formosan outsiders to arrive at this place were the Dutch, who were attempting to open a cross-island route to the east coast for gold mining. The village, recorded as “Toutsikadangh,” appears in their records from 400 years ago. That this village has survived a minimum of four centuries of typhoons, earthquakes and landslides is a testament to the wisdom of the original founders in selecting

Ｂy Tyler Cottenie

Will Smith, Lady Gaga, Ben Affleck score SAG nominations

The Oscar race may be missing in-person glitz this year, but it doesn’t lack for star power. Will Smith, Lady Gaga and Ben Affleck landed individual nominations for the 28th Screen Actors Guild Awards on Wednesday, while the casts of Belfast and CODA were among those nominated for the guild’s top award, best ensemble. The nominees were announced Wednesday by actors Vanessa Hudgens and Rosario Dawson on Instagram Live. While the nominations were conducted virtually due to the surge in COVID-19 cases, the streamed announcement still represented one of the most meaningful mornings in an awards season largely snuffed out by the pandemic. Joining Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical Belfast and the coming-of-age drama CODA for best ensemble were the casts for Ridley Scott’s true-tale, high-camp House of Gucci, Adam McKay’s apocalypse comedy Don’t Look Up and the family tennis drama King Richard. Notably left out were the casts of Steven Spielberg’s lavish West Side Story revival (which landed a supporting nod for Ariana DeBose) and Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog. Campion’s gothic drama, though, landed individual SAG nominations for Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee. The SAG Awards have more of the awards season spotlight this year since the Golden Globes — usually the kickoff party to final Oscar stretch — made barely a peep. The Globes were unceremoniously announced Sunday on Twitter in a private ceremony due to Hollywood’s boycott of the beleaguered Hollywood Foreign Press Association over diversity and ethical issues. The omicron surge also prompted the Critics Choice Awards to postpone its Jan. 9 in-person gala. For the second straight year, Oscar season has gone virtual — and struggled to make much noise. But the SAG nominations suggest that plenty of famous faces are in the hunt this year. Along with Will Smith (King Richard) and Cumberbatch, the nominees

By Jake Coyle

‘Who We Are’ offers a searing view of racism in US

“If you’ve ever owned a slave, please raise your hand,” Jeffery Robinson asks a live audience at the beginning of Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America, a searing documentary based on a lecture he’s spent a decade perfecting. Obviously, nobody in the auditorium raises a hand. This is 2018 New York City! But the few seconds that follow the question are probably the only chance these audience members have to put some distance between themselves and the country’s sorry record of racial oppression. No, explains Robinson, slavery may not be our fault. But it is “our shared history.” And then Robinson, a longtime criminal defense lawyer and former deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, launches his harrowing journey through centuries of institutionalized racism. Along the way he points out both the well known (the plantations, the lynchings, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre) and the less widely known (the troubling third verse of the Star-Spangled Banner, or the advertised offer by future President Andrew Jackson of US$10 extra for any 100 lashes given his escaped slave). No matter how much you think you already know, you’re bound to learn new things from Who We Are, directed by Emily and Sarah Kunstler. And to be stunned, at some point. How did this lecture come about? Robinson explains that he became a father in 2011, when his sister died and her son, then 13, moved in. Suddenly, Robinson needed to teach a Black teen about racism. In educating himself, he was stunned by what he — lucky enough to have a stellar education, including a Harvard law degree — didn’t know himself. He began sharing his findings wherever he could — in community centers, churches, conference rooms. The directors, after hearing him speak, suggested a movie. Their resulting film is anchored

By Jocelyn Noveck

Does Lin Yu-ju deserve to die?

Lin Yu-ju (林于如) pushed her mother down the stairs of her own home, causing head trauma that led to her death. She poisoned her mother-in-law, first at home, later administering a second deadly dose in hospital via IV drip. She killed her husband, too, the same way she dispatched her mother-in-law, though this time it took more than one attempt. That Lin Yu-ju murdered three people is not in dispute. The fact that two of Lin’s convictions were based largely on confession? That she had long suffered physical abuse at the hands of her husband, with whom she had also accumulated massive gambling debts? That the beatings she endured likely contributed to an addiction to painkillers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medications? That she has, according to medical reports, both bipolar disorder and mild intellectual disability? According to trial records, all that mattered was that she killed, then she killed again and she killed a third time — three lives, people close to her, snuffed out in a matter of months. What is important is the who, what, where and when. “Why,” as it pertains to background, is immaterial. So, according to the highest levels of Taiwan’s criminal court, Lin deserves to die. Lin, 40, was born in Tainan in 1981. She and her sister, who still lives in Tainan, were close as kids. Theirs was a good family, according to a court-ordered background report — a normal family, by Lin’s own account. But after their father died due to causes unknown, when the girls were still young, the family fell on hard times. After Lin graduated from vocational school, she and her sister went to work in a cabaret club, where men pay for the company of hostesses who sit and drink with them, sing karaoke and sometimes offer other,

By Joe Henley

Body-monitoring tech trend comes with concerns

A ring shimmers on display at the Consumer Electronics Show, but this is no mere piece of jewelry — it’s packed with sensors capable of detecting body temperature, respiration and much more. Startups at the annual gadget extravaganza in Las Vegas touted technology-enhanced accessories designed to look fetching on the outside while scrutinizing what is happening on the inside of wearers. “We want to democratize personal health,” said Amaury Kosman, founder of the French startup that created the Circular Ring. While that goal was shared by an array of exhibitors, some experts worried a trend of ceaselessly tracking steps, time sitting, heart rate and more could bring risks of stress and addiction. Circular Ring provides a wearer with a daily “energy score” based on the intensity of their activity, factoring in heart rate, body temperature, blood oxygen levels and other data, according to Kosman. “At night it continues, we track the phases of sleep, how long it takes you to fall asleep, if you are aligned with your circadian rhythm, etc,” he said of the ring, which will cost less than 300 euros (US$340) when it hits the market later this year. “And in the morning it vibrates to wake you up at the right time.” A mobile application synced to the ring is designed to make personalized lifestyle recommendations for improving health based on data gathered, according to the founder. HIGH DEMAND FOR WEARABLES Demand for body-tracking “wearables” is strong: CES organizers forecast that more than US$14 billion will be spent this year in a category that includes sports tech, health-monitoring devices, fitness activity trackers, connected exercise equipment and smartwatches. That figure is more than double what was spent in the category in 2018. Growth has been driven by smart watches such as those made by powerhouses Apple and Samsung, as well as internet-linked sports gear — which boomed during

Book reviews: Don’t shout, don’t let it all out

Therapists dwell in the land of emotions. It is our job to receive the emotional tenor of our analysands, to follow their speech patterns, their repetitions, their haltings, speedings-up and silences. We endeavor to find the words to decipher the complexity and subtlety of what is wanting to be conveyed and understood. It is not a simple job. The therapist’s emotional capacities are stretched. We register a feeling in the person we are working with, such as fear. But it isn’t just fear; there is a tinge of despair that alerts us to a closing in, almost, a collapse and a freeze. Or we register anger, and simultaneously tucked into the seam of that anger is disappointment, a very different kind of feeling, but which, once recognized, can disperse the anger. Getting to the accuracy of the feeling allows for an emotional sigh of understanding. The feelings can be digested, and in time flow through and out of the body. Feelings, emotions, are profoundly physical. Whereas once it was thought that they were distractions from thought, we now know that emotions are precursors to thought and profoundly implicated in consciousness. Or, as the American philosopher Owen Flanagan argues in his new book, How to Do Things With Emotions: The Morality of Anger and Shame Across Cultures, emotions are things we do. How we enact them, he insists, what sense we have of them and their purposes, are culturally inscribed and made sense of through the communal embrace of the rules they enforce. Flanagan is mainly talking about the attitudes that police society through instilling in children the correct ways to behave. In a long discussion on anger and shame, he makes an ethical argument — that we in the west need to turn up shame and tone down anger, because our society suffers

By Susie Orbach

Environmental Impact Assessment: Polluting in gods’ name

The first Monday of this year was also the first day of the twelfth month on the traditional lunisolar calendar. As they do at the start of every lunar month — and again on the fifteenth day — countless people across Taiwan positioned circular braziers in front of their homes, and set about burning sheaves of joss paper. The ritual burning of incense and joss paper (which English speakers sometimes call ghost money, spirit money or votive currency) is central to local religious and ancestor-worshipping traditions. Unfortunately, it has a noticeably detrimental effect on air quality, especially in urban areas. Because some people begin burning joss paper soon after dawn, children on their way to school are among those exposed to high concentrations of particulate matter (PM). The Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA) Web site, on a page dated Aug. 18, 2017, points out that burning joss paper produces sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and fine suspended particles, as well as carcinogenic substances such as benzene, formaldehyde, toluene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The same page states that, in 2016, Taiwanese consigned to flames around 195,000 tonnes of joss paper and 21,000 tonnes of incense. According to another estimate, 280,000 tonnes of votive currency go up in smoke each year. It takes around 24 trees to make one tonne of paper. Some joss paper is made of recycled paper, but that may well produce even more dangerous emissions. Academia Sinica’s Research Center for Environmental Changes has studied air quality in and around temples. In 2014, it concluded that, on days with significant religious activity, PM10 levels at major temples are 5 to 16 times those in a typical urban home, while houses near temples show increased PM2.5 levels. Scientists from at least three local universities have said that the air quality within temples is frequently hazardous

By Steven Crook

Helen Mirren: is the Israeli icon Golda Meir a role too far?

Nobody is quite what they seem. And actors? Well, for actors that’s the job. Dame Helen Mirren, as well as being herself for 76 years, has by now notably been Lady Macbeth, a London gangster’s moll, a thief’s wife, an alcoholic cop, an action hero, Prospero and also a British monarch at least four times. Now she takes on Golda Meir, the late prime minister of Israel, in a new biopic, and the casting has caused controversy. The choice of a non-Jewish actor to star as a woman with such a prominent place in the history of Israel has prompted irritation on both sides of the argument. Another illustrious dame, Maureen Lipman, was first to raise the issue — or “blast” Mirren, according to some reports last week — and then Dame Esther Rantzen defended the director’s choice. It is the latest instance of a ‘Jewface’ row, a backlash to the assignment of a major Jewish role to someone not from that minority background. But the list of things that Mirren is not is long, and it does not necessarily start with not Jewish. For openers, she is not of English descent. She was born Illiana Lydia Petrovna Mironova into emigre Russian aristocracy in 1945 in Chiswick. This means that her Oscar-nominated role as Leo Tolstoy’s wife Sofya in the 2009 film The Last Station may be the closest to her own natural type. Certainly, she is not the bun-baking, clothes-shedding Yorkshire woman she played in the 2003 hit Calendar Girls. In fact, her great grandmother was a White Russian countess and her grandfather, Tsarist officer Pyotr Vassili Mironov, was caught in London, where he had been negotiating an arms deal, after the Bolshevik revolution and was permanently separated from his funds. Mirren’s father was a taxi driver and mother the 13th child of

By Vanessa Thorpe

‘The Power of the Dog’ and ‘Succession’ win at celebrity-free ceremony

The Power of the Dog and Succession were the big winners at an unusual, stripped-back Golden Globes. Traditionally, the ceremony is a glitzy telecast with A-listers in attendance but after a year of controversies surrounding diversity and amoral practices, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association lost its footing in the industry, with publicity firms, studios and celebrities choosing to distance themselves. Sunday night’s event took place at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles, with no stars or audience, and just select members and grantees. Results were announced via social media. The acclaimed Netflix drama The Power of the Dog was named best picture — drama, while Jane Campion became the third woman to win best director. Kodi Smit-McPhee also won best supporting actor for his performance in the film. Will Smith was named best actor in a drama for King Richard, while Nicole Kidman won best actress in a drama for playing Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos. It was Kidman’s fourth win from 16 nominations. Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed remake West Side Story dominated the musical/comedy categories, winning best picture, best actress for Rachel Zegler and best supporting actress for Ariana DeBose. Andrew Garfield was also named best actor in a musical or comedy for Tick, Tick … Boom!. On the television side, HBO’s hit drama Succession picked up awards for best drama, best actor for Jeremy Strong and best supporting actress for Sarah Snook. The network also saw freshman series Hacks named best comedy and its star Jean Smart win for best actress in a comedy series. Jason Sudeikis was named best comedy actor for Ted Lasso, while O Yeong-su won best supporting actor for Netflix’s breakout hit Squid Game. Kate Winslet was named best actress in a limited series for the acclaimed crime drama Mare of Easttown while Michael Keaton was named best actor in

By Benjamin Lee

Leave TSMC alone, please

On Aug. 23, 1942, the German 6th Army reached the outskirts of Stalingrad, beginning the long struggle there that ended in catastrophic German defeat. The city housed, among other things, the famous Stalingrad Tractor Works, designed and built with American help and kitted out by American and German engineers in the 1920s, but German interest in that factory was entirely tactical. The Germans did not invade Russia to obtain its factories, and their destruction or movement east out of the path of the Germans — along with the destruction of farms and grain stocks and other resources — did not stop the Germans from continuing their advance. Similarly, the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939 did not occur because the Germans wanted the Skoda Works, a global concern that manufactured everything from piping for canals and power plants to artillery for battleships. Had the Czechs somehow entirely demolished that sprawling firm and its numerous facilities, the German annexation would still have gone forward. One could widen this observation to the Citroen plants in France or the Fokker factories in the Netherlands. The Germans did not annex those two nations, or indeed, any other nation, in order to obtain its factories. Though the two centuries since the Industrial Revolution have seen innumerable imperialistic wars, this writer is unable to find an example of a nation that has invaded another because it had a highly important and productive factory it coveted, or was deterred from doing so by the owner’s threat to destroy such facilities. Most educated readers are aware of this. Thus, it will likely come as a shock to learn that the US Army War College’s most-downloaded paper of last year was one arguing that in the event of an invasion the US should destroy the TSMC semiconductor manufacturing facilities in Taiwan,

By Michael Turton

Women 32 percent more likely to die after operation by male surgeon: study

Women who are operated on by a male surgeon are much more likely to die, experience complications and be readmitted to hospital than when a woman performs the procedure, research reveals. Women are 15 percent more liable to suffer a bad outcome, and 32 percent more likely to die, when a man rather than a woman carries out the surgery, according to a study of 1.3 million patients. The findings have sparked a debate about the fact that surgery in the UK remains a hugely male-dominated area of medicine and claims that “implicit sex biases” among male surgeons may help explain why women are at such greater risk when they have an operation. “In our 1.3 million patient sample involving nearly 3,000 surgeons we found that female patients treated by male surgeons had 15 percent greater odds of worse outcomes than female patients treated by female surgeons,” said Angela Jerath, an associate professor and clinical epidemiologist at the University of Toronto in Canada and a co-author of the findings. “This result has real-world medical consequences for female patients and manifests itself in more complications, readmissions to hospital and death for females compared with males,” she said. “We have demonstrated in our paper that we are failing some female patients and that some are unnecessarily falling through the cracks with adverse, and sometimes fatal, consequences.” The findings have been published in the medical journal JAMA Surgery. Jerath added: “These results are concerning because there should be no sex difference in patient outcomes regardless of the surgeon’s sex. On a macro level the results are troubling. When a female surgeon operates, patient outcomes are generally better, particularly for women, even after adjusting for differences in chronic health status, age and other factors, when undergoing the same procedures.” Jerath and her colleagues analyzed the records of 1,320,108 patients in Ontario

By Denis Campbell

Taiwan in Time: When fishers tried to bomb Kaoshiung Harbor

Jan. 10 to Jan. 16 Vowing to blow up a 2,000-tonne ship and paralyze Kaohsiung Harbor, fed-up residents of Hongmaogang Village (紅毛港) took action in the afternoon of Jan. 14, 2002. Ignoring the local police chief’s repeated warnings, the villagers connected a towboat with the ship and were about to drag it to the harbor’s main channel when over 100 officers arrived to stop them. An intense clash and standoff resulted, and by evening the instigators were arrested and the ship dragged back to shore. This was the first desperate measure of Hongmaogang Village Rights’ Promotion Association chief Chang Chi-hsiung (張吉鴻). If their situation remained unresolved, they would bomb an empty pier next, then a working pier and finally they would start targeting foreign merchant vessels to turn their plight into an international crisis. The once-bustling, centuries-old fishing village had been marked for demolition since the 1980s, but their nightmare begin decades earlier. The creation of Kaohsiung’s second harbor adjacent to the village in 1967 was the first blow. A year later, the area was included in the new Linhai Industrial Park (臨海工業區) zone, which prevented Hongmaogang residents from building new developments. Meanwhile, the surroundings became increasingly polluted due to numerous factories setting up in the area with no environmental controls. This not only affected their health, but also their livelihood. After many protests and lengthy negotiations, the two sides agreed to a relocation plan in 1998 — but things stalled again. Coupled with the fact that they had stopped receiving compensation from the nearby Dalin Power Plant (大林電廠), things finally boiled over. After the bomb threat, 800 residents marched to Kaohsiung City Hall on March 1 to demand answers. The villagers were finally relocated in 2007, and today in Hongmaogang’s place is the Kaohsiung Intercontinental Container Terminal. THE BEGINNING Hongmaogang (“red head harbor”)

By Han Cheung

Entering the spiders’ lair

“Oh my gosh,” exclaims one of our hiking party as an enormous giant golden orbweaver (Nephila pilipes) crawls up the face of another, its leg-span wider than the palm of his hand. These large gold and black spiders are commonly seen at the side of Taipei’s mountain trails, sometimes even crossing the entire trail. Many have had the unpleasant experience of walking face-first into one of their webs, but having one crawl over your face may be a bit much for most. Starting at the China University of Science and Technology (中華科技大學), we soon discover stage six of the 92km Taipei Grand Trail (台北大縱走) is alive with these spiders, along with an abundance of other biodiversity, even as it passes through the heart of Taipei. This roughly 10km stretch of trail also boasts some world famous views of Taipei 101, as it climbs the Four Beasts Ridge (四獸山) and Thumb Range (拇指山). It intersects with Tiger (虎山), Elephant (象山), Leopard (豹山) and Lion (獅山) mountains trails, before ending at Fuzhoushan (福州山) and Fuyang Eco-park (富陽自然生態公園). LIFE ON THE TRAIL As soon as we start, we find some sleeping grass lizards, and next to them a temple tree frog (Kurixalus idiootocus). Various frogs sit around in trees and along the sides of a small stream. We pass by a small green tree viper (Trimeresurus stejnegeri) resting up in the foliage, slightly too high for a close look. Moments later we find a greater green snake (Ptyas major) sleeping in a shrub. These non-venomous snakes have been by far the most common snake we have encountered along the trail so far. It is best to avoid handling wildlife, but with so many of our group on their first night hike tonight, having a closer look is such a good educational opportunity. We carefully bring it down and let

By James Osborne

Highways & Byways: In Shoudao, the land is losing a struggle against the sea

I’d forgotten my boots, and I hadn’t anticipated such clear weather, so I’d not brought a hat. But I was willing to risk sunburn and wet feet to get a proper look at this part of the southwest coast. Photos online had triggered my curiosity about Chiayi County’s Shoudao (壽島). As is true for many toponyms, a literal translation of Shoudao (“Longevity Island”) would be misleading. In this case, it’d also be ironic. The inaccuracy is that only recently has part of it been an island, and then only when the tide is high. And the irony is that Shoudao’s days might well be numbered. Shoudao lies less than 2km south of Baishueihu (白水湖), another place with an imprecise name. It means “Whitewater Lake,” yet there’s no lake. The landscape that surrounds this sleepy community is dominated by oyster beds. For the second time in a month, I’d parked my car by the long embankment between Shoudao and Baishueihu. The first visit had been an impulse detour while driving south on Expressway 61. Because the tide had been coming in, on that occasion I wasn’t able to set foot on the sandbar that provides many of the best photo opportunities. This time around, I’d looked up tide times on the Central Weather Bureau’s Web site (www.cwb.gov.tw/eng/, click on “Marine,” then “Tidal Forecast”), and I’d brought a friend. A coastguard patrol car was parked at the top of the ramp that leads down to the sandbar, so I asked if we could proceed. Having clarified the legality of what we wanted to do, we picked our way across soft mud and broken-up bamboo rafts without much difficulty. SALT PANS AND OYSTER SHELLS The remains of half a dozen small brick-walled buildings, plus a largish shack with most of its roof but none of its walls,

By Steven Crook