A week after bone spurs robbed Chiao Chiao (巧巧) of the use of her hind legs, her owner’s friend recommended acupuncture therapy. “I was like, can dogs even get acupuncture?” Choong Chee-wai (鍾志偉) says. “I had no clue. But after the first electro-acupuncture session, she stood up again.” Several sessions later and the 15-year-old dachshund has regained about 80 percent mobility. Chiao Chiao also suffers from an incurable trigeminal nerve tumor, and Choong says treatment has alleviated the discomfort it causes. Due to changing attitudes on pet ownership and increased media exposure in recent years, there are growing numbers of vet clinics in Taiwan who offer pet acupuncture services for animals who suffer from joint discomfort, spinal problems and other chronic issues. Chiao Chiao’s veterinarian, Yang Ching-jung (楊清容), however, says the practice has existed in Taiwan for decades. “It’s just that more people know about it now,” Yang says. “I think it’s because of the media.” Yang started experimenting with it in 1978, and in 1984 he and three fellow veterinarians co-published Taiwan’s first comprehensive handbook on clinical veterinary acupuncture. Yang painstakingly drew all the detailed diagrams in the book, which include not just cats and dogs but goats, horses and pigs. He also prescribes traditional herbal medicine to the animals. Liaw Bor-sung (廖柏松) is among the new crop of acupuncture-practicing vets, receiving his certification from the US-based Chi Institute in 2018. He combines acupuncture and electro-acupuncture techniques with the innovative MLS (multiwave locked system therapy) system, although he prefers using needles because they can be applied to more pressure points. “For acupuncturists, the feeling of the hands on the needles is very important,” Liaw says. ACUPUNCTURE PIONEER Yang’s book states that veterinary acupuncture has existed in China for thousands of years, dating as far back as the Western Zhou Dynasty (1045BC to 771BC), where records
My goals were straightforward. I’d ride my motorcycle from my home in Tainan along back-country roads into Kaohsiung’s Tianliao (田寮) and Cishan (旗山) districts, then loop back through Yanchao (燕巢). I had a short list of places I wanted to visit along the way, and I was confident I’d stumble across a few more points of interest. Turning off Provincial Highway 19A (19甲), I veered northeast on Tainan Local Road 163 (南163) until I saw a sign for Daping (大坪). Like 163, this second (and apparently unnumbered) road turned out to be a gently undulating rural delight. I passed a few pineapple plantations, and some farmers who were cutting bamboo, but few other signs of agriculture, let alone industry. Soon enough I’d crossed from one municipality into another, and the route’s designation was now Kaohsiung Local Road 39-1 (高39-1). Before reaching Provincial Highway 28, I got to enjoy some views of the moon-like badlands for which Tianliao is famous. One of the best places to take photos is around the km3 marker on 39-1. I’ve driven or ridden along Highway 28 a few times, but never before noticed the entrance to Flora Lakes Campground (麗湖探索教育園區). It’s on the southside of the road, a bit west of the km26 marker. From the sorry state of the campground’s sign, I assumed the place had gone out of business long ago. However, after making inquiries, I’m still not sure if it’s closed down or not. The main building is falling apart and fenced off to deter urbex-types. At the time of my visit, the only guests were anglers trying their luck in the sizable lake. From the outskirts of Cishan I rode south on Provincial Highway 29. I was searching for a sight that barely counts as a tourist attraction, but which some people think is worth
With no mainstream Chinese films showing for the third year running, Taiwan’s top film festival may have lost some luster, but directors and critics say it remains a crucial bulwark against Beijing’s censors. Long dubbed the Chinese-language “Oscars,” the Golden Horse Film Awards will kick off in Taipei tomorrow — again without the legion of Chinese filmmakers and stars who once used to walk the red carpet. It ran afoul of Beijing when a Taiwanese director called for the island’s independence in an acceptance speech at the 2018 ceremony, triggering an official boycott the following year. There were no mainland films in the 2019 nomination list after China’s national film board ordered directors and actors to boycott the event. Several Hong Kong films dropped out while international sponsors cut ties with the awards that year under pressure from Beijing. While plans to boycott were not spelled out the following two years, commercial Chinese cinema and some advertisers have continued to steer clear. Hong Kong director Jun Li (李駿碩), whose social drama Drifting is a frontrunner at this year’s awards, said it was “obvious” that strained relations between China and Taiwan have affected the awards. “Anyone would be lying if they tell you they don’t feel the tension,” he said. Li’s film has the most nominations at 12, including best film and best director, and it tackles Hong Kong’s notorious inequality with a story of homeless people taking authorities to court. ‘COURTING TROUBLE’ Chinese films once dominated the nominations but last year and this year saw just two films in the running, for best documentary and best animated short film. According to organizers, over 200 Chinese and Hong Kong films submitted for competition this year, although film industry sources say they were mostly independent productions unlikely to hit theaters. Analysts say mainstream Chinese cinema stayed away for fear of repercussions. “For mega-production
Gently unwrapping clingfilm covering the old man’s damaged feet — skin darkened and cracked, nails lumpen and deformed — the Hong Kong beautician doesn’t flinch. Instead she picks up her tools and starts working. Once to twice a month, Cass Ng and her team of beauticians swap out their nail polish collection for tough scissors, nail files, an electric drill. Her initiative CHANGE (Caring Health Anywhere Nails Goal Elderly) offers free pedicures for low-income elderly people who cannot afford healthcare and do not have family to fall back on. “We want to serve these people the most because they lack others’ love the most,” the 37-year-old said. After three years of giving volunteer manicures, Ng was inspired to start her own social enterprise to help those — often over 65 and on social benefits — unable to afford the city’s expensive private healthcare. While Hong Kong has a public healthcare system, many complain they have to wait for long periods to be seen with various ailments getting worse. One of those visiting Ng’s free clinic for the first time was Martin Sun, 71, who said he had been troubled by ingrowing toenails and fungal infections for years. He describes that day’s treatment, a full pedicure, as a blessed relief. “If not, I would do it myself, bend down, then take a deep breath, and endure the pain,” he said of trying to do the same work himself. Kwan Lung, 86, gave a thumbs up and beamed during her visit to the clinic at the Kwai Chung community center. “The more they (the manicurists) come, the happier we old people are,” the grandmother explained. She described “sweating like it’s raining” when she tried her own pedicures before. Although the day seems light-hearted, Ng explains, when the elderly don’t treat their fungal nail infections — the most common problem — they can face difficulties
Foreign viewers at the Cannes premiere of Moneyboys (金錢男孩) may not have noticed the glaring incongruities that persist through the movie, but Taiwanese viewers certainly will. They’re apparent to the point that it’s difficult to enjoy the movie. First of all, the entire film is obviously shot in Taiwan, but the plot is set in fictional locales in southern China, with most secondary characters, passersby and television announcers speaking in Beijing-accented Mandarin. This melancholy tale revolves around gay sex workers in China and the unique challenges they face, especially regarding traditional expectations, including marriage, and the large-scale rural-to-urban migration of young people. This is an interesting topic, as it’s taboo in China and significantly different from the LGBTQ situation in Taiwan. Shooting it in Taiwan was probably a way for this story to be told, as Chinese authorities do not welcome films depicting overt homosexuality. And it’s quite explicit in Moneyboys, especially the sex scenes. Which brings us to the second problem. Given the tensions between Taipei and Beijing, it might raise a few eyebrows for Taiwanese to see their homeland portrayed as part of China. Politics aside, however, CB Yi, the Chinese-Austrian director who is using a pseudonym for fear of reprisals against relatives still living in China, has made some other questionable decisions. Take language, for example. Despite his superb acting, which earned him a Golden Horse nomination, Taiwanese lead actor Kai Ko (柯震東) delivers his lines as A-fei in an unnatural Mandarin accent, while using vocabulary that’s more common in China. So does the other Taiwanese principal actor, JC Lin (林哲熹), who portrays A-fei’s former lover Xiao-lai. This just scratches the surface of the linguistic trainwreck. At one point, A-fei returns to his home village, where everyone speaks Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) — except for his father
Huang Xueqin (黃雪琴), who publicly supported a woman when she accused a professor of sexual assault, was arrested in September. Wang Jianbing (王建兵), who helped women report sexual harassment, was detained along with her. Neither has been heard from since. Meanwhile, several other women’s rights activists have faced smear campaigns on social media and some have seen their accounts shuttered. When tennis star Peng Shuai (彭帥) disappeared from public view this month after accusing a senior Chinese politician of sexual assault, it caused an international uproar. But back in China, Peng is just one of several people — activists and accusers alike — who have been hustled out of view, charged with crimes or trolled and silenced online for speaking out about the harassment, violence and discrimination women face every day. When Huang helped spark a grassroots #MeToo movement in China in 2018, it gained fairly wide visibility and achieved some measure of success, including getting the civil code to define sexual harassment for the first time. But it was also met with stiff resistance from Chinese authorities, who are quick to counter any social movement they fear could challenge their hold on power. That crackdown has intensified this year, part of wider efforts to limit what’s acceptable in the public discourse. “They’re publicly excluding us from the legitimacy, from the legitimate public space,” said Lu Pin, an activist who now lives in the US but is still active on women’s rights issues in China. “This society’s middle ground is disappearing.” In a sign of how threatening the #MeToo movement and activism on women’s rights is to Chinese authorities, many activists have been dismissed as tools of foreign interference — a label used to discredit their concerns as fabrications by China’s enemies meant to destabilize it. The ongoing crackdown has mostly targeted activists with little
Wearing sunglasses and a tiger print dress as she raps into a mic, Malaysian hip-hop artist SYA calls for empowerment while taking a sledgehammer to stereotypes of Muslim women. The first female signing for label Def Jam — the label behind superstars from Jay-Z and Rihanna to BTS and Justin Bieber — in Southeast Asia, her debut single PrettyGirlBop tackles misogyny and acceptance in her Muslim-majority homeland. “I just want women to feel more comfortable in their own skin,” says SYA, whose long dark hair is uncovered. “I don’t have to pretend to be somebody else just to fit what society deems is good.” The track, which also features up-and-coming Singapore artist Yung Raja, includes scenes of SYA dressed in white, and stroking a cat wearing a pearl necklace in a lavish bedroom. Underlining her desire that women should not be pigeon-holed, it then switches to her holding a snake and wearing a leopard print jacket, as she defiantly raps: “I wanna be like me.” She is among a crop of young artists from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines who have been signed by global music giant Def Jam’s Southeast Asian arm. Lauded by the industry as a rising star, the 25-year-old says she faces online abuse from those who believe her behaviour is not appropriate for a young Muslim woman. “I’ve had a lot of disturbing comments,” the rapper reveals, adding that she has been accused of being a prostitute and had her faith questioned. “’Is she a Muslim? How much per night? Why is she showing so much skin?’” ‘IMPOSTER SYNDROME HIT ME’ While Malaysia is a relatively affluent country, society remains largely conservative, with critics saying women’s rights are not sufficiently protected and harassment is common. SYA says she is facing down the “patriarchal mindset” and “sexualization” of those who
Unlike his surrealist contemporaries, Rene Magritte tended to keep Freud at a distance from his work — though few artists offer as much scope for armchair analysis. Speaking in 1961, he observed that “psychology doesn’t interest me. It claims to reveal the flow of our thoughts and emotions. Its efforts are contrary to what I know; it seeks to explain a mystery. There is only one mystery: the world.” One conclusion in reading Alex Danchev’s recreation of Magritte’s formative years, in this diligent and insightful biography (almost complete at the time of Danchev’s death in 2016), is that he was in denial about being in denial. In their village, 30 miles west of Brussels, at the turn of the century, the Magritte family was notorious for its chaos. The artist’s father, a tailor, was also a gambler and drunk who sometimes sold pornography to make ends meet. His mother was severely depressive (“neuraesthenic” was the contemporary term) and apparently had to be locked in the family home overnight for her own safety. The three sons — Magritte was the oldest — were known locally as “Cherokees;” there were widespread rumors of them mistreating animals, even starving a donkey to death in their backyard. This village chatter was compounded when eventually, one night when Magritte was 13, his mother did slip out of the house and drowned herself in the nearby River Sambre. Her body was discovered by bargemen some days later. Magritte subsequently refused to discuss the tragedy even with his childhood sweetheart and lifelong partner, Georgette Berger, though it surfaces in more than one of his paintings; in The Musings of the Solitary Walker (1926), for example, a ghoulish and naked female figure floats in the air behind a characteristic faceless bowler-hatted figure who is turned away from the viewer, staring
In Taiwan’s rural lowlands, it’s a common sight at this time of year. Having cleared and plowed their fields, farmers intending to grow pineapples, strawberries or certain other crops, roll lengths of thin black plastic across the ground. To keep the film in place, soil is piled over the edges. Plastic sheeting — or plastic mulch, as it’s often called — makes farmers’ lives easier by suppressing unwanted foliage that might otherwise crowd out their crops. As an inexpensive labor-saving technique, its appeal is obvious. Taiwan’s farmers are getting old (in 2014, their mean age was 62 years), and finding hired help willing to pull weeds isn’t easy. Those who defend the use of synthetic mulch also claim it can reduce the use of insecticides. By reflecting light, the plastic repels certain pests, among them thrips (which damage fruits and legumes), spider mites (10 of Taiwan’s 74 spider-mite species are considered major pests) and whiteflies (which transmit plant viruses). AGRICULTURAL PLASTICS But one of its drawbacks is obvious to anyone who takes a close look at the landscape. Countless fields are strewn with shreds of black plastic. As these scraps break apart and break down, they turn into microplastics (fragments no more than 5 mm in length) and nanoplastics (particles so small they can penetrate human organs and tissues). In recent years, scientists have realized that plastics pollution isn’t limited to the bags, bottles and other visible trash that lingers by roadsides or washes up on beaches. Microplastics have been found on mountain tops, in bottles of mineral water fresh from the manufacturer, in seafood, inside fruits and vegetables grown far from industrial zones, and in human feces. Because this is a relatively new phenomenon, scientists aren’t clear as to the effect of microplastics on humans health. But it probably isn’t good. The
Ten years ago, the psychologist Steven Pinker published The Better Angels of Our Nature, in which he argued that violence in almost all its forms — including war — was declining. The book was ecstatically received in many quarters, but then came the backlash, which shows no signs of abating. In September, 17 historians published a riposte to Pinker, suitably entitled The Darker Angels of Our Nature, in which they attacked his “fake history” to “debunk the myth of non-violent modernity.” Some may see this as a storm in an intellectual teacup, but the central question — can we learn anything about the future of warfare from the ancient past? — remains an important one. Pinker thought we could and he supported his claim of a long decline with data stretching thousands of years back into prehistory. But among his critics are those who say that warfare between modern nation states, which are only a few hundred years old, has nothing in common with conflict before that time, and therefore it’s too soon to say if the supposed “long peace” we’ve been enjoying since the end of the World War II is a blip or a sustained trend. In 2018, for example, computer scientist Aaron Clauset of the University of Colorado Boulder crunched data on wars fought between 1823 and 2003 and concluded that we’d have to wait at least another century to find out. Clauset doesn’t think it would help to add older data into the mix; indeed, he thinks it would muddy the picture. “It’s up to researchers who study sub-state-level violence to substantiate their claims that the dynamics of such violence are relevant to the dynamics of war and, in my view, they haven’t done a great job there,” he says. COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE Most researchers accept that there is a difference between
In our neoliberal, corporate capitalist world, things fall into just two categories, the useful and the discarded. Useful things are exploited until used up, then moved to the other category and forgotten. In Taiwan, that includes children. Last week the Social Work Department with the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF) sounded an alert: the nation’s young are being eaten alive. Suicide and suicidal thoughts among teenagers are spiking. According to a survey of over 600 young people by the charity, a fifth had thought of suicide. The charity pointed out that the number of reported suicides and suicide attempts among children 7-18 had risen from 1,152 in 2016 to 5,464 in 2020, based on statistics compiled by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Lest the reader think the charity is exaggerating to raise its profile, the Taiwanese Society of Suicidology (台灣自殺防治學會) has posted an extensive array of stats on their Web site. FRIGHTENING STATISTICS For society as a whole, the suicide rate and overall suicide deaths have remained stable for roughly a decade now. But among the young, the rise in suicidal thoughts is striking. In 2014, the rate of suicide attempts in the 15-24 was 5.1 percent. In 2019, it was 9.1 percent. According to the Society of Suicidology data (taken from the Ministry of Health and Welfare), in the 15-24 bracket the rate of having suicidal thoughts has doubled since 1994 from 4.4 percent to 8.8 percent, rising alarmingly in the last few years. In 2013 it was still only 5.2 percent. Among females 15-24, suicidal thoughts have tripled since 2014, to 7.6 percent. In the under-14 bracket, it has jumped sixfold since 2017, though thankfully it remains tiny, still less than 1 percent. As anyone battling chronic depression knows, suicidal thoughts make it seductively easy to attempt suicide, and
On a shore near Greenland’s capital Nuuk, a local scientist points to a paradox emerging as the island’s glaciers retreat: one of the most alarming consequences of global warming could deliver a way to limit its effects. “It’s a kind of wonder material,” says Minik Rosing, a native Greenlander, referring to the ultra-fine silt deposited as the glaciers melt. Known as glacial rock flour, the silt is crushed to nano-particles by the weight of the retreating ice sheet, which deposits roughly one billion tonnes of it on the world’s largest island per year. Professor Minik Rosing and his team at the University of Copenhagen have established the nutrient-rich mud boosts agricultural output when applied to farmland and absorbs carbon dioxide from the air in the process. Scientists at multinational brewer Carlsberg are also investigating and have found that adding 25 tonnes of glacial rock flour per hectare increased crop yield on barley fields in Denmark by 30 percent. Similarly, researchers from the University of Ghana, managed to increase maize yields by 30 percent using glacial rock flour to offset the impact of rain and heat on poor farmland. The nano size of the silt’s particles is what allows plants more access to nutrients including potassium, calcium and silicon compared to normal rocky farmland. “We are at the stage in this project where we definitely know that it works,” Rosing says. “There are many barriers between this and a big scale industry, but the potential is definitely there.” His team has asked Novo Nordisk Foundation, owner of drug-maker Novo Nordisk, to extend its financing of the project. Following on from the small tests, over the coming three years, larger-scale field tests are planned in Denmark and Ghana to assess whether it makes economic sense to ship the material to farmers around the world. The scientists also plan to begin testing the
Nov. 22 to Nov. 28 In Chu Tien-jen’s (朱點人) short story Autumn Letter (秋信), protagonist Dou Wen (斗文) arrives in Taipei in October 1935 and is shocked to see that a colossal, modern concrete building had replaced the Qing Dynasty Provincial Administration Hall. Only the building’s exterior was complete, but it was enough to serve as the main exhibition space for the extravagant Taiwan Exhibition, held to showcase Japanese colonial achievements in Taiwan to the world. Then-Fujian provincial governor Chen Yi (陳儀) was among the international guests for the exhibition as the Republic of China’s (ROC) representative, marveling at the displays and sending a detailed report to then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石). On Nov. 26, 1936, the building officially opened as the Taihoku Public Hall (台北公會堂). Just over a decade after his first visit, Chen found himself in the structure again on Oct. 25, 1945, as he accepted Japan’s surrender to the Allies as Taiwan’s new governor-general under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). The Taihoku Public Hall was built to honor the ascension of the Showa Emperor; the KMT renamed it Zhongshan Hall in honor of ROC founder Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙). This iconic Taipei landmark was just one of numerous Zhongshan Halls in Taiwan. Almost all Japanese-built public assembly halls across the nation were either demolished or given the same name after 1945. Wang Shao-chieh (王紹傑) counts 125 in his Study of Public Halls during the Japanese Colonial Period in Taiwan (台灣日治時期公會堂建築研究). But that’s not all, as assembly halls on military bases and state-owned factory complexes were also named Zhongshan Hall, as well as other governmental cultural spaces. THE PUBLIC HALL Wang writes that the Japanese erected these structures en masse to provide assembly space and rule more efficiently. They hosted events ranging from graduation ceremonies and weddings to business parties and
From the dark forest we see glowing eyes peering out at us. Mere meters away, our lights reveal a massive black beast through the trees. As it slowly turns to face us, we see its enormous curved horns. These are creatures we had hoped to see on this stage of the hike, but not not so close. We quickly and cautiously move a safer distance down the trail, hoping they will not charge at us — as they’ve done with other hikers, most recently killing one in January. Throughout the night, owls hoot and fly over-head, while flying squirrels clamber around in the trees. A highly venomous many-banded krait scurries across the path in front of us. It is no wonder so many spooky tales are set in forests at night. The third section of the 92km Taipei Grand Trail (台北大縱走) is proving to be just as thrilling as we could hope, but we are in for a long night. STAGE THREE Having spent the whole afternoon navigating a logistical nightmare of taxis and buses, and getting our vehicles parked at the end of the trail, we arrive right before dusk at the iconic fumaroles at Xiaoyoukeng (小油坑). Great plumes of steam rise up from cracks in the dormant volcano, filling the air with the smell of rotten eggs. From here we begin our steep ascent up to Qixingshan (七星山). Our eyes are set toward the Qingtiangang Grasslands (擎天崗大草原), then on all the way back down to our motorbikes at Fengguizui (風櫃嘴). At about 14km in length, tonight’s stage of the Taipei Grand Hike is the longest. Soon the Mid Autumn Festival full moon fills the night sky, making the silvergrass flowers glint in the moonlight as they tower high on either side
There are certain places around the world where a railroad and the trains it carries actually enhance the landscape. It’s hard to make that argument in downtown Tainan — yet some residents of Taiwan’s former capital say they’ll miss the trains after 2024. By the end of that year, if all goes to plan, Tainan’s ambitious undergrounding project should be sufficiently far along for rail traffic to switch to a new set of tracks, just east of the current railway and several meters below street level. The Tainan City Government is meeting 12.5 percent of the total cost, estimated at NT$29.36 billion. The section of the Taiwan Railway Administration’s (TRA) historic main line that’s being rebuilt by cut-and-cover tunneling is 8.23km long. It stretches from just south of Daqiao Railway Station (大橋火車站) in Yongkang District (永康) to near National University of Tainan’s Rongyu Campus (國立臺南大學榮譽校區). By comparison, the newish underground rail line in central Kaohsiung uses a 9.75-km-long tunnel. In Taipei and New Taipei City, 22.33km of line between Fuzhou Railway Station (浮洲火車站) and Xike Railway Station (汐科火車站) were placed below the streets between 1983 and 2011. In Taichung, reconstruction went in the opposite direction. Nowadays, trains zip through the core of central Taiwan’s largest city on a 21.7-km-long elevated railroad. Elevated railways are a good bit cheaper to build than tunnels, but they don’t free up nearly so much land. Both approaches, however, eliminate underpasses (which are prone to flooding) and level crossings (where road traffic is forced to wait every time a train comes along, and which sometimes are the site of gruesome train-vehicle collisions). In Tainan, of the nine level crossings due to disappear, the busiest are those on Cingnian Road (青年路) and Dongfeng Road (東豐路). Some of the eight underpasses slated for demolition have already been closed to vehicle
With many upcoming free screenings and festivals completely booked out, cinema buffs need not despair. There are still a few options available at no cost, but those interested better get moving quickly. The Taipei Limitless Film Festival (台北無限影展), which features pieces about people with physical and mental disabilities, had sold out as of yesterday afternoon. While there are no tickets left for the New Taipei City International Documentary Festival’s month-long online program, it has made available until Tuesday a selection of 11 previous winners of the New Taipei City Documentary Awards -- and the best part is that they’ve added a discussion with the director after each film. The diverse program and relatively short running times make for a colorful and thought-provoking kaleidoscope of the less apparent aspects of Taiwanese society: Adju (歌舞的我們) refers to a Paiwan word that has in modern times become a term for indigenous LGBTQ people and explores queer indentity, Vespas, Typhoons and Diplomats (偉士牌、颱風、外交) looks at early expat bands in the 1980s and Glad Rags (酒與妹仔) features hostess club staff who try to overturn their profession’s negative image and fight for labor rights. For more information, visit www.ntpcdf.tw. The Taipei Women’s Center’s winter free screening program kicks off on Sunday with North Country, which tells the tale of the first class-action sexual harassment lawsuit in the US. The program focuses heavily on LGBTQ and women’s rights issues, from surrogacy for lesbian parents in Illegal Mother (非法母親) to a little girl who is sent to live with her uncle and his transgender partner in Close-knit. Those interested in human rights issues can also check out Sunday’s free screening of Me and My Condemned Son (我的兒子是死刑犯), which is part of National 228 Memorial Museum’s long-running Human Rights Film Festival. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, this year’s schedule has been
Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book, a surreal meta-narrative about an author’s promotional tour and his haunted past and present, has won the National Book Award for fiction — a plot twist Mott did not imagine for himself. Hell of a Book is a satirical take on a Black writer’s adventures on the road for a promotional tour — Mott himself had his share of experiences while talking up such previous works as his debut novel The Returned — and a stark and disorienting tale of racial violence and identity, drawing on recent headlines and the author’s childhood. “I would like to dedicate this award to all the other mad kids, to all the outsiders, the weirdos, the bullied, the ones so strange they had no choice but to be misunderstood by the world and those around them,” Mott, 43, said in his acceptance speech. He also cited “the ones who, in spite of this, refuse to outgrow their imagination, refuse to abandon their dreams, refused to deny, diminish their identity, or their truths, or their loves — unlike so many others.” Tiya Miles’ All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake was the winner for nonfiction. Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club — a story of same-sex, cross-cultural love set in the 1950s — won for young people’s literature. The poetry prize was awarded to Martin Espada’s Floaters, and best translation went to Elisa Shua Dusapin’s Winter in Sokcho, translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins. Winners in the competitive categories Wednesday night each receive US$10,000. Two honorary prizes were presented: Author-playwright Karen Tei Yamashita received a lifetime achievement medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and author-librarian-NPR commentator Nancy Pearl was given the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. The 72nd annual
They’re often called “children of the stars,” and as this documentary’s Chinese title suggests, they tend to feel lost trying to navigate this earth. But in Among Us (地球迷航) the children are adults, who have been diagnosed with autism since they were young. All four of them face different challenges, have varying degrees of independence and can appear quite neurotypical on the surface — the autism spectrum is broad, something often misunderstood by the public. Among US does a good job of portraying this range, from Ting-wei (廷瑋), who has difficulties speaking and controlling his body but is a brilliant, expressive poet, to the highly imaginative Hui-lun (惠綸), who holds several part-time jobs and at one point leaves home for a week after arguing with his mother. Despite this, the demographic range is limited: all four subjects are males, with three of them in their 20s. While autism is generally three to four times as prevalent in boys, it would have been worthwhile to see things from a female perspective. This film is a sequel to acclaimed director Lin Cheng-sheng’s (林正盛) 2010 documentary Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars (一閃一閃亮晶晶), which portrayed four autistic children and teens. It’s a familiar topic to Lin, as his wife Han Shu-hua (韓淑華) is an art therapist who has worked with people of all ages on the autism spectrum for nearly two decades. Each film took four years to make, and the comfort level and intimacy shown in Among Us is apparent. The impetus behind the film is DB Art Collective (多寶藝術學堂) in Taipei’s Guandu (關渡) area, which Han launched in 2016 to help people on the autism spectrum express themselves artistically, gain life skills and plan activities. To spread awareness about autism, Lin launched a crowdfunding project to get the film into theaters and also have it
Sporting neon hair and flawless skin, Bangkok Naughty Boo is one of a new generation of influencers in Asia promising to stay forever young, on-trend and scandal-free — because they are computer generated. Blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, these stars are hugely popular with teenagers in the region and will yield increasing power as interest grows in the “metaverse,” industry experts say. “I’m 17 forever, non-binary, with a dream of becoming a pop star,” Bangkok Naughty Boo — who uses they/them pronouns — said in an introductory video. Created by fashion designer Adisak Jirasakkasem and his friends, who envisioned a gender-fluid persona to hang the ideals of the artist community, the character is one of a tribe of “Made in Thailand” virtual influencers borne from COVID-19 pressures. In September, Ai-Ailynn made her debut — she was created after her agency became frustrated by the “limitations on human influencers” during COVID-19 lockdowns. Virtual influencers “are suitable for the new normal,” SIA Bangkok said. Artificial intelligence creations are establishing a foothold worldwide in the lucrative influencer market, which is expected to be worth US$13.8 billion in 2021, according to data giant Statista. But industry analysts say Asia is where the industry will really boom in the coming decade. “We think Asia will be an area of rapid growth in the sector of virtual influencers. Generation Z is the largest group of Internet users in Asia, and it is a digitally adept generation that is highly familiar with social media and all things virtual,” explained Nick Baklanov, a marketing specialist with Hype Auditor. ‘FIRST METAVERSE INHABITANTS’ The number of virtual influencers has more than tripled to 130 in two years, according to Baklanov, who predicted Facebook’s investment in the metaverse — dubbed a VR version of the Internet — will mean an industry boom. “Virtual influencers are
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