Gypsy jazz guitarist Denis Chang will be visiting Taiwan for a series of concerts with local group Dark Eyes next week. Chang, a 29-year-old Canadian of Taiwanese descent, is hailed by gypsy jazz enthusiasts as a young talent with a knack for teaching. Several years ago, the Montreal native released a well-received set of instructional DVDs that teach the style of playing made famous by French guitarist Django Reinhardt. Chang performs with Dark Eyes next Thursday at Riverside Music Cafe (河岸留言) and on Dec. 16 at Taipei Artist Village (台北國際藝術村), and he will also be holding a workshop on Dec. 18 at National Taiwan University. The workshop is aimed at both advanced players and rock and folk guitarists interested in playing gypsy jazz. For details and registration, contact the organizer at lanxcya@gmail.com.
■ Dec. 15 at Riverside Music Cafe (河岸留言), B1, 2, Ln 244, Roosevelt Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路三段244巷2號B1). Tickets are NT$400.
■ Dec. 16 at Taipei Artist Village (台北國際藝術村), 7 Beiping E Rd, Taipei City (台北市北平東路7號). Tickets are NT$350.
Photo by Didier Bertrand, courtesy of Denis Chang
■ Dec. 18 (Workshop) at National Taiwan University Student Activity Center No. 2 (臺灣大學第二學生活動中心), Room 603, located at 85 Roosevelt Rd, Sec. 4, Taipei City (台北市大安區羅斯福路四段85號). Tickets are NT$200.
The unexpected collapse of the recall campaigns is being viewed through many lenses, most of them skewed and self-absorbed. The international media unsurprisingly focuses on what they perceive as the message that Taiwanese voters were sending in the failure of the mass recall, especially to China, the US and to friendly Western nations. This made some sense prior to early last month. One of the main arguments used by recall campaigners for recalling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers was that they were too pro-China, and by extension not to be trusted with defending the nation. Also by extension, that argument could be
Aug. 4 to Aug. 10 When Coca-Cola finally pushed its way into Taiwan’s market in 1968, it allegedly vowed to wipe out its major domestic rival Hey Song within five years. But Hey Song, which began as a manual operation in a family cow shed in 1925, had proven its resilience, surviving numerous setbacks — including the loss of autonomy and nearly all its assets due to the Japanese colonial government’s wartime economic policy. By the 1960s, Hey Song had risen to the top of Taiwan’s beverage industry. This success was driven not only by president Chang Wen-chi’s
Last week, on the heels of the recall election that turned out so badly for Taiwan, came the news that US President Donald Trump had blocked the transit of President William Lai (賴清德) through the US on his way to Latin America. A few days later the international media reported that in June a scheduled visit by Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) for high level meetings was canceled by the US after China’s President Xi Jinping (習近平) asked Trump to curb US engagement with Taiwan during a June phone call. The cancellation of Lai’s transit was a gaudy
The centuries-old fiery Chinese spirit baijiu (白酒), long associated with business dinners, is being reshaped to appeal to younger generations as its makers adapt to changing times. Mostly distilled from sorghum, the clear but pungent liquor contains as much as 60 percent alcohol. It’s the usual choice for toasts of gan bei (乾杯), the Chinese expression for bottoms up, and raucous drinking games. “If you like to drink spirits and you’ve never had baijiu, it’s kind of like eating noodles but you’ve never had spaghetti,” said Jim Boyce, a Canadian writer and wine expert who founded World Baijiu Day a decade