Every time I hear Suicidal Tendencies sing the line, "I saw your mother and your mother's dead," a saline drop or two begin to well up in my tear ducts, and I think back upon halcyon days of my disaffected youth. No, actually I just feel like smashing stuff. That and maybe wasting myself. Damn. Being a teenager was great.
Well, Suicidal Tendencies is still out there, and in their post-adolescence apparently they've developed a bit of a social conscience. But I guess that's what post-punk is all about. The band is coming to Taipei next weekend to play in the fifth and final show of the Say Yes To Taiwan (
Organizers at the Taiwan Rock Alliance say the concerts carry a political message, though not necessarily that of Taiwan independence. The message is more a call to China to stop its military threats. Weighing in on the half-century conflict across the Strait, Suicidal Tendencies is fully with the program, say organizers, noting that the band even cancelled another event in the US that was "less interesting." As a warm-up to the Feb. 25 show, Suicidal Tendencies will play at Zeitgeist on Feb. 24.
Also on the card for both of the band's shows is Softball, a three-girl pop-punk act from Japan. The band, which is finding international popularity in its third year, is something like the Vandals meet the Go-go's. It's a perfect idea, basically. Three mondo kawaii girls from Chiba, Japan get together and thrash out the kind of absent-minded punk they can't make in the West anymore, because everyone's so jaded there. The tunes are a little catchy and very fast. Plus, Softball also cares that China keeps bullying Taiwan, say show organizers, citing statements the band made last time it was here.
Taiwan’s English education system is being pulled apart by three opposing forces. Bilingual Nation 2030 pulls students toward English and global communication. Artificial Intelligence (AI) readiness pulls them toward digital judgment, verification and AI-mediated work. But Taiwan’s old exam culture pulls them back toward memorization, grammar drills, timed reading and correct answers. If the education system keeps using old exams to define success, it risks producing graduates who are neither genuinely bilingual nor genuinely AI-ready, but trained for tasks machines can already perform. The first force is Bilingual Nation 2030. Launched in 2018, the policy aimed to “help Taiwan’s workforce connect
It seems every few days one bumps into one of those “real man” comments in which Taiwan is urged to “face reality” or similar, and “make a deal,” with the speaker implying that soon it will be too late. “Deal” advocates always present themselves as having a superior grip on reality, and the manly ability to make the “hard choice.” Their testosterone-laden language often echoes that of Taiwan sellout advocates. Note that such commentary always specifies a process (“make a deal, work with, make progress”), never the end state of what occupation by a violent authoritarian colonialist state will entail. In
“Taiwan’s Opposition Leader Comes to US With a Message Straight Out of Beijing” read a May 31 headline in the Wall Street Journal. Top US administration officials and members of Congress almost certainly read the WSJ, and if there was a bullet point takeaway that people in Washington should absorb ahead of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) arrival in DC on June 9, that headline is it. The last few columns have discussed this very topic, and the timing is not coincidental. While those top officials likely do not read the Taipei Times, judging by the number
As someone who normally steers clear of books with “transcendence” or “metaphysics” in their subtitles, this reviewer — a casual observer of local belief systems since the 1990s — found Fabian Graham’s Money God Temples in Taiwan a challenging read. Those who’ve only dipped their toes into temple culture will likely need to parse several sections with special care if they’re to keep up with the author, a British ethnographic researcher whose previous books have investigated religious practices among ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia. This scholarly volume examines a facet of Taiwan’s religious landscape that didn’t exist a century ago, and
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