Jan. 25 to Jan. 30 It was the beginning of the end when Dutch sergeant Hans Jurgen Radis walked out of Fort Zeelandia and surrendered to the besieging army of Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功, also known as Koxinga). The Dutch had already been trapped in the fort for nine months, and they were sick, hungry and in despair. After one defection during the early days of the siege, Dutch commander Frederick Coyett set up checkpoints around the fort’s perimeter, in what is today’s Tainan. Radis told his bunkmate he was going hunting, but by the time they realized where he was headed, it was too late. Tonio Andrade writes in How Taiwan Became Chinese that “Radis directed Cheng’s attention to a redoubt located on a hill above Fort Zeelandia. If Cheng could take it, he would be able to shoot directly into the company’s defenses and Zeelandia would be his.” Cheng began constructing batteries for the operation, and Radis was seen at the fields providing his expertise. The Dutch could do nothing but watch. On Jan. 25, 1662, Cheng rallied his troops for the final offensive and bombardment. Vastly overpowered, the Dutch blew up the fort and after discussing the matter, decided to surrender, ending their 38-year presence in Taiwan. UNEASY RELATIONS Just two decades after the Dutch established their presence in Taiwan in 1624, the Manchu armies had taken the Ming Dynasty capital of Beijing and been pushing southward against remaining Ming loyalists. Cheng was one of those opposed to the Manchus and their subsequent Qing Dynasty, and he camped in his stronghold of Xiamen, directly opposite Taiwan. Cheng’s relations with the Dutch in Taiwan were cordial at first. Andrade writes that although Cheng would periodically request medical help from the Dutch, there remained deep distrust between the two parties. Some suspected that Cheng
“Well, if it cannot happen this year because of the pandemic,” Tourism Bureau Director General Chang Shi-chung (張錫聰) says at the end of his interview with Cycling Shorts last week, “at least we’ll be ready to promote it next year.” Chang is discussing the Year of Cycling Tourism (自行車旅遊年) that has long been planned for this year. He has spent the previous 30 minutes introducing the various infrastructure projects undertaken over recent years and those proposed for the next few. Essentially, the Bureau, under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC), has been pulling together resources from a wide range of national and local government agencies, as well as private companies and NGOs. These include the Construction Department of the Ministry of the Interior, Sports Department of the Ministry of Education; bodies overseeing the country’s national parks, Railway Administration, High Speed Rail and bus companies; representatives of the hotel and catering industries as well, of course, as the main bicycle manufacturers and tour companies; and cyclists’ groups such as the Cycling Life Style Foundation (自行車新文化基金會). This means that after a decade or more of piecemeal development of short cycle paths in numerous towns, cities and counties, these have now been woven together into a network of routes that totals more than 4,000 kilometers and is still growing. Where designated paths are not possible, a blue bicycle lane has been painted along main roads to enhance safety. Also, where feasible, alternative routes through quiet farming villages have been mapped out that do not add greatly to the distance. TAKING A BREAK Provision of rest areas has also been increased and their services enhanced, Chang says, so that now every eight to 12 kilometers on a round-island ride cyclists can find places to wash and sit down. There are also toilets and drinking water fountains, simple
The town of Baolai (寶來) is located along the Southern Cross-Island Highway in the upper reaches of Kaohsiung City. After suffering a devastating setback at the hands of Typhoon Morakot, the town’s tourism industry is finally showing signs of recovery. While the town itself has many commercial hot spring offerings for tourists, the adjacent Baolai River also has at least five different wild hot springs available to those with a more adventurous spirit. SHIDONG AND WUKENG Just before entering the town of Baolai, make two right turns to reach the bridge across the Baolai River. Immediately after crossing this bridge, there is a temple on the left. Descend to the riverbed from here, and begin walking upstream. After about an hour and a half, and a dozen crossings of the river, you will arrive at Shidong (石洞, “Stone Cave”) Hot Spring. This spring’s source is a pool of hot water that is bubbling up inside an actual small cave, easily located by following the hose from the hot pool. Yes, the soaking pool here is artificial, in that the water flows in through a hose, and that the pool has been strengthened with concrete between the natural river stones. However, without these improvements it would be difficult to soak here, and the concrete and natural stone pool is a lot less visually jarring than the blue and white tarpaulins found at many other wild hot springs. As this spring is so close to civilization, it can be busy, especially on weekends. For instance, last Sunday afternoon, there were approximately 20 people here having a BBQ, soaking in the springs and singing karaoke. Twenty minutes farther upstream is Wukeng (五坑) Hot Spring. At the time of writing, the pools here were quite small and only suitable for a foot soaking. However, the adjacent sandy
A full-throated, supremely confident Lady Gaga belted out the national anthem at President Joe Biden’s inauguration in a very Gaga way — with flamboyance, fashion and passion. The Grammy winner wore a huge dove-shaped brooch and an impressively billowing red sculpted skirt as she sang into a golden microphone, delivering an emotional and powerful rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner. She was followed at Wednesday’s ceremony by Jennifer Lopez, dressed all in white, who threw a line of Spanish into her medley of This Land is Your Land and America the Beautiful — a pointed nod to multiculturalism, just two weeks after white supremacists and other violent rioters stormed the Capitol in an effort to undermine the peaceful transfer of power. And country star Garth Brooks, doffing his black cowboy hat, sang a soulful a capella rendition of Amazing Grace, his eyes closed for much of the song. He asked the audience to sing a verse with him: “Not just the people here, but the people at home, to work as one united.” The three superstars were among a slew of glittery celebrities descending on Washington — virtually or in person — to welcome the new administration of Biden and Kamala Harris, a duo popular in Hollywood, where former President Donald Trump was decidedly not. While stars mostly eschewed Trump’s inauguration four years ago, the A-list was back for Biden. Brooks was careful to call his decision to perform on Wednesday non-political, and in the spirit of unity. He had performed during the inaugural celebration for Obama in 2009, but turned down a chance to perform for Trump in 2017, citing a scheduling conflict. Gaga went on Twitter later to explain that the giant brooch accompanying her Schiaparelli haute couture outfit was “a dove carrying an olive branch. May we all make peace with each
Italian police have found a 500-year-old copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in a Naples flat and returned it to a church that had no idea it had been stolen. Officers said late Monday they had arrested the 36-year-old owner of the apartment on suspicion of receiving stolen goods, after the painting was found in his bedroom cupboard. Depicting Jesus Christ with his hand raised in a blessing and holding a crystal orb, the painting is part of the Doma Museum collection within the San Domenico Maggiore church complex in Naples. It is a copy of Leonardo’s famous work that in 2017 became the most expensive painting ever sold, fetching US$450 million at a Christie’s auction. But the collection has been without visitors for months due to coronavirus restrictions and nobody had reported it missing. It was not immediately clear how the police came to discover the theft of the painting, but they said it was a “particularly complex operation.” “The painting was found on Saturday thanks to a brilliant and diligent police operation,” said Naples prosecutor Giovanni Melillo. “There was no complaint on the matter and in fact we contacted the [church] prior, who was not aware of its disappearance, as the room where the painting is kept has not been open for three months.” The oil painting is believed to be by artist Giacomo Alibrandi and dates to the early 1500s. COMMISSIONED THEFT Having returned the painting to the church, police are now investigating how it was stolen in the first place, as there was no sign of a break-in, Melillo said. “Whoever took the painting wanted it, and it is plausible that it was a commissioned theft by an organization working in the international art trade,” he added. Video images released by police showed an empty wall inside a large niche where the artwork had been housed, in
This reviewer almost walked out of the theater in disgust after Philosopher King: Lee Teng-hui’s Dialogue spent the first 40 minutes glorifying Japanese colonial rule. It’s beyond tacky to use an imaginary late president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) to tell a cynical, suicidal Japanese schoolgirl to be proud of her country despite its historic atrocities due to its achievements in Taiwan, and calling them acts of honesty and compassion. Yes, Japan made great improvements to Taiwan and the life of its people in its quest to create a model colony out of a disease-riddled, poorly managed land. But if that was purely the case, there wouldn’t be countless uprisings and a continuous anti-colonialism movement that persisted until the Japanese forcefully clamped down on dissidents during the last decade of its rule. None of this is mentioned at all. The only inkling that there was any resistance is regarding the Aborigines, but only under the context that they later changed their hearts and formed the Takasago Volunteer force during World War II, with zero reference to the many bloody revolts and large-scale campaigns the government undertook to “pacify” them. Part of the local resistance was against government monopoly and tolerance of opium, which got to the point that frustrated Taiwanese activists reached out to the League of Nations about the matter. But in this film, the Japanese allegedly single-handedly eradicated opium use in Taiwan due to their great benevolence. All of this is just sickening. It then took this reviewer great control to keep watching after “Lee” started sympathizing with Japan during World War II, portraying the nation as a victim and stating that Taiwanese were more than eager to defend their home country. Maybe some did, but this was after decades of colonial rule and years of pro-war propaganda and forced
Everybody who knows what they’re talking about will tell you not to do it, but the lure of bed is hard to resist for any home worker. Or it may have become a necessity. With children home schooling, or in a cramped flatshare, your bed may be the only place you can get any peace (although many people living and working with chronic illness will be rolling their eyes at the idea that working from bed has only just been invented). During the first lockdown, one survey, by Uswitch.com, found a quarter of home workers had worked from bed. Ten months into the on-off lockdown, more of us are doing it than ever. “We’ve found that up to 40 percent of people who have worked from home during lockdown have worked from their bed at some point,” says Catherine Quinn, president of the British Chiropractic Association. Of course, you know you’re not supposed to have devices in the bedroom, that your bed is only meant for sleep and sex, that good posture is easier at a desk (Quinn says bed-working can cause or exacerbate back pain), that you don’t need to be encouraged into even more sedentary behavior. But it’s January, the world is grim, and many of us, even if forced back under the covers by circumstances, will have discovered the joys of working from bed. Far from being indulgent and indolent, the practice may spark creativity and productivity — memorably, Samuel Johnson, Edith Wharton, Marcel Proust, Florence Nightingale and William Wordsworth all worked from bed. Contemporary writers, including Monica Ali, do, too. View it also as a rebellion against the corporate ridiculousness of standing desks, or worse, those with treadmills. They seem very 2019. Still, it can be healthy to create some boundaries between work and rest. I delineate the two by
Situated on the edge of the Alps, Neuschwanstein Castle may not look like the birthplace of modern art. Best seen from a perilously crowded footbridge across a vertiginous gorge, it floats in misty rains, a cloudy dream of white spires and battlements. Yet this 19th-century colossus is an architectural homage to one man: a composer who inspired the avant garde to make the leap to modernism. Richard Wagner’s music so enflamed King Ludwig II of Bavaria, he built this magnificent medieval vision in honor of the composer. But, in artists across Europe, Wagner’s musical might released much more futuristic impulses. The abstract leitmotifs and unearthly symbolism of his operas fascinated artists from Aubrey Beardsley to Paul Cezanne. The impressionists, too, were entranced: Renoir traveled to Palermo, Sicily, to portray Wagner when he was composing Parsifal. For all these artists, Wagner, in spite of his disfiguring antisemitism, was a new kind of creator from a new kind of country, and not just one that built castles for its cultural heroes. Germany became a unified nation 150 years ago this week, on Jan. 18, 1871. It’s an anniversary that will doubtless be seen by some as one of shame and blood: the Prussian chancellor and architect of German nationhood Bismarck secured unification through a series of wars in the 1860s, including attacks on Denmark and Austria, and it was sealed at the Palace of Versailles after the military humiliation of France. In the next seven decades, Germany would be at the center of two world wars and perpetrate the Holocaust, only to re-emerge today as a successful democracy after the defeat of Nazism in 1945 and the fall of communist East Germany in 1989. But Britons who close their minds to Germany are missing so much. For one thing, this is the greatest modern artistic
After the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, embarrassed American politicians lined up to declare: “This is not who we are.” Having read Michael Pembroke’s account of the country’s international thuggery in the last 70 years I’m inclined to reply: “Sorry, no, this is what you always were — loutish, lawless and violent by default.” Pembroke, an Australian jurist and an avowed conservative, quotes a Trump adviser who unforgettably sums up the arrogance of Washington policymakers. “We’re America, bitch,” snarls this unidentified apparatchik; lesser nations can just suck it up. The British, wanting to look aristocratically nonchalant, claimed they acquired their empire in a fit of absent-mindedness. Americans hid their scheming behind sanctimonious cant about freedom and human rights: they dreamed up the UN but have consistently flouted its principles, no longer even pay it their annual dues and carry on regardless with their godly mission to Americanize the rest of the world, by force if necessary. During the Cold War, the Pentagon invoked a spurious communist menace to justify its exorbitant budget, amassing deluxe weaponry that existed mainly for show. There was no military need to atomize Hiroshima and Nagasaki, since the Japanese were edging towards surrender; the bombs were dropped, as one of President Truman’s cronies suggested, because the apocalyptic display would “make Russia more manageable in Europe.” Resistance to communism excused American ventures whose actual purpose was to lubricate commerce. A coup was engineered in Iran in 1953 to protect the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company; the CIA hired uncommitted local people to pose as Bolshevik agitators and, when the shouting stopped, American companies snapped up the oil assets. In 1954 in Guatemala, a democratic government was overthrown because its labor reforms impeded the United Fruit Company’s shipments of bananas. This time, the CIA wrote sermons for priests, who obligingly
Benjamin Chen (陳昱安) didn’t know how intense a hackathon could be. “You literally work non-stop. You don’t eat breakfast, you don’t eat lunch because you really need to finish the product,” the 10th-grader from Taipei American School says. “You feel the adrenaline rushing… It’s refreshing, I was like a new person.” Chen became fascinated by these round-the-clock competitions to create technology or software products, and participated in 10 more before he decided to start one that focused on his twin passions of economics and technology. He says there are many hackathons that delve into social and environmental issues, but few have economics as the main theme, not to mention student-led and focused ones. He fondly recalls his first hackathon, where he and two teammates designed a phone app that allows people to earn virtual currency within the game by walking, encouraging them to reduce their carbon footprint. He called up a friend who has organized several hackathons, and recruited an international team. Thousands of calls and e-mails to various institutions and companies later, and they had enough sponsors and guest speakers to make it a reality. Chen expects about 500 people to participate in the event, dubbed EconHacks, which will take place over 24 hours starting at noon on Feb. 13. Speakers will be presenting throughout the day on topics ranging from economic policy, financing a startup and virtual reality app-building. Participation is virtual and free to all 8th to 12th graders. “The most important thing was getting the sponsors because people won’t join if you don’t have good prizes,” Chen says. Worth over NT$6.4 million, the prizes include cash rewards, various course and program subscriptions, promo codes as well as internship, exposure and funding opportunities through well-known tech-companies. Though the specific theme will be announced during the opening ceremony, the core idea
Yuichiro welled up as he collected a food parcel at a Tokyo outreach event offering help to the growing number of Japanese pushed into poverty by the coronavirus pandemic. “There is no work. Absolutely none,” said the 46-year-old, until recently a construction worker, while clutching a small plastic bag of essentials on a cold winter street in the capital. “This doesn’t get reported much in the media, but many people are sleeping at train stations and in cardboard boxes. Some are dying of hunger.” The world’s third-largest economy has seen a relatively small coronavirus outbreak so far, with around 4,500 deaths and largely without the drastic lockdowns seen in other countries. With an unemployment rate below three percent and a reputation for a strong social safety net, Japan also appears well placed to weather the pandemic’s economic fallout. But campaigners say the most vulnerable have still been hit hard, with statistics masking the high rate of underemployment and poorly paid temporary work. “The pandemic, rising joblessness and falling wages have directly hit the working poor, people who were barely getting by before,” said Ren Ohnishi, who heads the Moyai Support Center for Independent Living, an anti-poverty group. Around 40 percent of workers are in vulnerable “non-regular” jobs with lower wages and contracts that can be terminated easily. Many also struggle to access welfare. Yuichiro, who did not give his last name, said he was sent from one government office to another before being told assistance was only for those with children. “But there are lots of adults who aren’t able to eat,” he said. ‘THE ROPE JUST SNAPPED’ More than 10 million people in Japan live on less than US$19,000 a year, while one in six lives in “relative poverty” on incomes less than half the national median. Economists say that half a million Japanese lost their jobs in the past six months,
A year after the lockdown imposed in the Chinese city of Wuhan shocked the world, the tactic is turning out to be an enduring tool for quelling the coronavirus almost everywhere. When the first large-scale lockdown in modern times was implemented in China on Jan. 23 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was then deemed unproven and unthinkable, particularly by democratic governments who balked at the implications for human rights violations of limiting citizens’ freedom of movement on such a huge scale. Yet almost 12 months on, the UK is in the midst of its third nationwide lockdown as it battles a mutated strain of the coronavirus. In Australia, the recent discovery of one case in Brisbane prompted a three-day lockdown. And China, which is experiencing its biggest outbreak since the start of the pandemic with over 500 cases, locked down three cities surrounding Beijing this month. “Prior to COVID-19 there was a strong global health discourse that argued against lockdowns and similar mass quarantines. This is but one area of thinking that the current pandemic has overturned,” said Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor in health security at the City University of Hong Kong. “As far as is possible, lockdowns are going to become part of the essential toolkit for governments to use in addressing the ongoing as well as future outbreaks,” he said. WARTIME MEASURES The speed with which China locked down millions of people when the pandemic broke out marked the first time that the measure had been taken on such a massive scale in modern times. Until last year, severe lockdowns were synonymous with the waves of bubonic plague that swept through Europe from the 14th century. Even during the Spanish Flu of the early 20th century, no lockdowns were centrally imposed. China did, however, impose three major lockdowns in recent history:
E-commerce workers who kept China fed during the coronavirus pandemic, making their billionaire bosses even richer, are so unhappy with their pay and treatment that one just set himself on fire in protest. China’s Internet industries already were known for long, demanding days. With millions of families confined at home, demand surged and employees delivered tons of vegetables, rice, meat, diapers and other supplies, often aboard scooters that exposed them to sub-freezing winter cold. For white-collar workers in the technology industry, pay is better than in some industries but employees are often expected to work 12 hours a day or more. The human cost caught public attention after the deaths of two employees from e-commerce platform Pinduoduo (拼多多), known for selling fresh produce at low prices. Their deaths prompted suggestions they were overworked. In an indication of high-level concern, the official Xinhua News Agency called for shorter work hours, describing long hours of overtime at the expense of employees’ health as an “illegal” operation. Renewed concerns over dire working conditions for delivery drivers also came to the forefront when a video circulated on Chinese social media showing what it said was a driver for Ele.me, part of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, setting himself on fire to protest unpaid wages. The controversy is a blow to the image of Internet industries that are transforming China’s economy and generating new jobs. They have made some of the founders among the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs. During the heights of the pandemic, the fortunes of the biggest, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma (馬雲) and Pinduoduo founder Colin Huang (黃崢), swelled as online consumer spending boomed. In a video widely circulated on Chinese social media, 45-year-old delivery driver Liu Jin poured gasoline and set himself on fire outside a distribution station for Eleme in the eastern city of Taizhou, shouting that
Last week I had an experience that I suspect has become quite common for foreigners living in Taiwan: talking to a Taiwanese who was an ardent fan of soon-to-be-former US President Donald Trump. As I was heading for the stairs to my apartment, my landlady stopped me, eyes alight, with an idea for what to do about storing my bike downstairs. The conversation eventually veered into politics, and for a full 35 minutes she held forth on the manifold greatness of world-savior Donald Trump. She’s neither unkind nor a fool. Pro-Taiwan, she detests former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and can cogently explain why, without reference to tribalistic cliches. She is generous and hardworking, grounded in dollars-and-cents, and well-liked by her tenants. Yet her discussion of Trump consisted of flights of reality-twisting fantasy that would make Salvador Dali giddy with envy. My first instinct, as I assume it is for many readers, was to patiently explain why Trump is the worst and most destructive president the US has ever known. She overrode my polite objections like a train squashing out a penny flat. I found myself just standing there and listening, utterly flummoxed, as she thundered on about why I had no understanding of the world and of the greatness of Trump. I have been having versions of this conversation repeatedly in the weeks since the election with all sorts of Taiwanese. Pro-Trump propaganda has flooded newspapers here and, I suspect, social media platforms and apps almost entirely out of the sight of foreigners. Taiwanese have imbibed the same heady, toxic brew that has poisoned US politics, via the same platforms and media sources. We foreigners will be hearing about Trump for years to come. Discussing this with knowledgeable long-term foreign and local friends here, our first conclusion
Jan. 18 to Jan. 24 Viewers couldn’t believe their eyes when the Taipei First Girls’ Senior High School marching band appeared on television in 1981. None of the girls were sporting the government-mandated hairstyle for female secondary school students, which forbade their hair from going past their neck. Some even had perms. The students had been invited to perform in the US, which the government saw as an important affair since the US had severed official ties two years earlier. The idea was that sending a group of girls with the same permitted hairstyle would appear contradictory to the “free and democratic” values of the US as well as the image Taiwan was trying to promote, to distinguish it from Communist China. It caused quite a stir, and newspapers ran editorials wondering if other students would begin to wear their hair long, and even if such restrictions were necessary. Responding to the voices of the students, Guting Girls’ Junior High School (古亭女中) was the first to repeal the restrictions, but the Ministry of Education forced them to reinstate it. It wasn’t until Jan. 20, 1987, that the government officially removed its restrictions on hairstyles for all secondary school students. However, almost all schools continued to impose their own rules on students’ hair, and punished them for violations. THE QUEUE QUESTION Government control over citizen hairstyles had long been a form of social control. The Manchu-style queue, for example, was a symbol of submission to the Qing Empire. Cheng Ke-shuang (鄭克塽), the grandson of Ming Dynasty loyalist Koxinga, was forced to adopt the hairstyle in 1683 when the Qing vanquished his Tainan-based Kingdom of Tungning (東寧), and when peasant Chu Yi-kuei (朱一貴), led a revolt against the Qing in 1721, his men cut off their queues. When the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in
A new section of Taipei City bike path will open soon along the southern bank of Jingmei River (景美溪). Discovery of this missing link by members of Skeleton Crew, a Taipei-based group of cyclists that grew out of off-season training by dragon boat racers, reignited debate about how many kilometers of bike path there now are in Taipei. Their guesstimates ranged from 60 to almost 400 kilometers, though calculations used different criteria and definitions. Some said “Taipei means Taipei City,” others that this would be silly since it was too easy to cross unknowingly into New Taipei City, Keelung City or even Taoyuan County. Yet others raised the problem of non-contiguous sections, such as short lengths along the north coast or that along Daiyujue River (逮魚崛溪) in New Taipei City’s Pinglin District (坪林), which, passing blossoming banks and echoing with birdsong, is often touted as the area’s nicest ride. This led to debate about the relative aesthetic merits of various rides, and best places to stop for snacks, meals and beverages. Map apps were downloaded, estimates revised but, ultimately, it was decided there was only one way to measure the entire network: the Skeleton Crew would cycle a route along all the rivers in and around the Taipei area that was contiguous and never doubled back on itself. Normally the Skeleton Crew wouldn’t consider riding riverside bike paths on weekends when they teem with other cyclists, many on rentals and YouBikes, often in large groups chatting or veering randomly and stopping suddenly, never imagining there might be 100 kilograms of lycra-and-steel hurtling behind them at 30kph. And so it should be, because the riverside bike paths are a wonderful way for non-cyclists to get a safe taste of this healthy, economic, convenient, non-climate-change-gas-emitting means of transportation. After all, one of the key
Decapitated and eviscerated, the two frogs lay on their backs in a clear broth. Noticing that other diners didn’t hesitate to pile toothpick-thin bones and bits of mottled skin on their tables, I set to work with chopsticks and spoon. I was winding up a day trip to Beigang (北港), the religious capital of Yunlin County, when I strolled east onto Minjhu Road (民主路) from Wenhua Road (文化路) and came across this eatery. I’d gone to the intersection to see an obelisk that honors the man regarded as Beigang’s founding father. The Yan Si-ci Pioneering of Taiwan Monument (顏思齊開拓台灣紀念碑) celebrates the arrival in 1621 — or possibly 1622 or 1624 — of Yan Si-ci (顏思齊), a Chinese trader who’d been living in Japan. Some say he left Japan because he took part in an unsuccessful uprising against the shogunate. Others think that changes to the business environment forced him to seek pastures new. Whatever Yan’s motives, the 13-ship convoy he led dropped anchor here. His followers unloaded their supplies, and did their best to establish themselves in a place that the local Aboriginal people called Ponkan. The new arrivals recorded this toponym as Bengang (笨港, literally “stupid harbor”). It wasn’t until well into the 19th century that this odd place name was replaced by the insult-free Beigang (“north harbor”). CHAOTIAN TEMPLE I’d begun the day at the house of worship that gives Beigang its cultural and spiritual significance. Chaotian Temple (朝天宮), founded in 1694, is a key center of the Matsu cult. The pious come from all over southern and central Taiwan to pray to the sea goddess. However, because of a falling out between the leaders of Chaotian Temple and those in charge at Dajia Jenn Lann Temple (大甲鎮瀾宮), the famous annual multi-day pilgrimage that honors Matsu each spring no longer passes through
Music of all genres can provide hope and inspiration, cheer us up when we are down or encapsulate our despair when we are feeling low and just want to wallow for a while. Songs are the hallmarks by which we measure life’s passages. Tunes from Broadway musicals serve this role well, which is why five artists with backgrounds in musical theater and opera, who found themselves safely ensconced in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic, decided to do something to cheer people up. The result is Bright Lights for Dark Nights (曙光再現 音樂劇之旅), billed as “an international musical extravaganza,” which opened at a performance space in Taipei’s Nangang Bottle Cap Factory last night for a four-show run, featuring songs from musicals of the past 50 years. The two-act production starts with songs from darker musicals to symbolize the angst that so many people felt last year, with songs from well-known productions such as The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked and Hamilton to those from shows that might not be as well known to local audiences, such as Spring Awakening, Hadestown and Bonnie and Clyde. Act 2 focuses on the light at the end of the tunnel and the bright lights of Broadway with songs such as Don’t Rain on my Parade, Bring Him Home, Move On and Songs for a New World. Australian Paul Whiteley, an actor/singer/musician turned event promoter, is one of the producers of the program as well as a performer. His resume includes Australian productions as well as international tours of shows such as The Phantom of the Opera. Bonnie Lin (林姿吟) is a bel canto soprano with a background in opera and musicals as a performer and choreographer, as well as a television show host. Mandarin Wu (吳曉清) is a professional singer and dancer and has taught musical theater, dance and choreography
Judging by Tang Tsung-sheng’s (唐從聖) performance in The Servant of Two Masters (一夫二主) on Saturday night at Taipei’s Metropolitan Hall, his nickname of Action Tang is well deserved. Starring as Truffaldino, the servant at the heart of the play, Tang is rarely offstage or even at rest: He whines, wheedles, holds endless conversations with himself or the audience and is always on the hustle. Performance Workshop (表演工作坊) founder Stan Lai’s (賴聲川) Mandarin-language adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s 1743 play kept the improvisational, broad-based and often bawdy basics of the comedia dell’arte tradition of the Italian playwright’s original, but Lai also reduced the cast to a minimum by having everyone but Truffaldino double-up on roles, albeit with sometimes ill-disguised cover-ups. The compactness of the revival of the company’s 1995 production was also highlighted by Lai’s inventive set design, created for the company’s five-city tour in mind: the cast and crew are in Taichung for two shows tomorrow and Sunday at the Taichung Chungshan Hall, before heading further south in the coming weeks. Lai designed a large steel box, made up for four open-sided cages on casters that each hold three or four brightly painted flats, which opens up to form the interior walls of a house, the exterior walls of an inn and a Venetian cityscape. A chandelier, along with a few more painted flats from the fly loft above the stage, a couple of chairs, boxes and tables round out the list. Lai opens the play with the betrothal of Clarice and her true love, Silvio, watched over by her father, Pantalone, and his, Dr Lombardi, along with her maid Smeraldina and a family friend, the innkeeper Brighella. The proceedings are interrupted by Truffaldino, who is looking for a job, and then Beatrice, who appears in the guise of her dead brother, Federigo, who
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