2015 was a good year for books, and many more titles than the following five could have been chosen. As it is, three books dealing with East Asia and two dealing with Europe made the final selection.
At the start of the year came My Tibetan Childhood: When Ice Shattered Stone (reviewed Jan. 1) by Naktsang Nulo [Duke University Press]. It first appeared in 2007, albeit in a Tibetan regional language, and was then issued in standard Tibetan the following year. Banned by Beijing in 2010, it was re-published in Taipei in 2011. It has since become the most widely-read book in Tibetan literary history, and this is its first translation into English. The author, who subsequently rose to be a magistrate under Chinese rule, describes his childhood experience in the 1950s, the arrival of PLA troops, a journey of 2,414km to and from Lhasa, the “sky-burial” (the chopping up of a corpse so it can be consumed by vultures) of his mother and much more, all against the backdrop of Tolkien-like landscapes that probably haven’t changed that much to this day.
Paint by Numbers: China’s Art Factory from Mao to Now (reviewed Jan. 15) by Claire van den Heever [Earnshaw Books] was an amusing and knowledgeable survey of contemporary art in China from the 1980s to the present. It deals with phenomena such as artists hanging in chains, naked and upside down, with their blood dripping to sizzle on a hotplate below. Others made more marketable creations, becoming very rich in the process, though as the author tartly observes they were often involved in criticizing society’s materialism while fashioning what quickly became elite luxury products.
A Far Corner: Life and Art with the Open Circle Tribe (reviewed April 16) by Scott Ezell [University of Nebraska Press] made a strong impression. It describes life among a group of Aboriginal Taiwanese artists on the nation’s southeast coast in the first decade of the century. The author is both a musician and a poet, and his latter calling everywhere influences the text, with clouds “coronations of white” and the sky “a bored god, butane blue.” Life by the ocean alternates with recording sessions in an old house the author rented and a trip into the high mountains to investigate the original homes of by then-displaced Bunun people. This fine book is certain to become a classic among accounts of Taiwan seen from a foreigner’s perspective.
Jan Morris, you feel, finds an almost perfect image of herself in Ciao, Carpaccio: An Infatuation [Pallas Athene] (reviewed July 30). The early Renaissance Venetian artist is dear to her heart, but has not, she says, always been appreciated by professional critics. This book, superbly illustrated with vivid reproductions that occupy almost half the space, is made the ideal gift when the amiable text is included in the consideration. When Morris says Carpaccio may have himself resembled a “merrier kind of Quaker” you know you are in the hands of someone who knows she can write whatever she chooses, and proceeds to do so. This book is both something to love, and at the same time an illustrated checklist of most of the artist’s works. A treasure beyond price.
Hugh Trevor-Roper’s The Wartime Journals [I.B. Tauris] (reviewed Sept. 3) is a delight from start to finish. Trevor-Roper was to become one of the UK’s most distinguished historians, but here, in his late 20s, we see him hitchhiking to join in fox-hunts, penning elegant portraits of famous contemporaries, and traveling to post-war Germany to research, and then publish the authoritative account of the last days of Hitler. Two very different areas of the UK countryside, Northumberland and Buckinghamshire, are vividly evoked, and the whole collection — not diary entries but carefully polished mini-essays — is beautifully edited by Richard Davenport-Hines, a true heir to Trevor-Roper in stylishness, wit and profound scholarship.
Many people noticed the flood of pro-China propaganda across a number of venues in recent weeks that looks like a coordinated assault on US Taiwan policy. It does look like an effort intended to influence the US before the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping (習近平) over the weekend. Jennifer Kavanagh’s piece in the New York Times in September appears to be the opening strike of the current campaign. She followed up last week in the Lowy Interpreter, blaming the US for causing the PRC to escalate in the Philippines and Taiwan, saying that as
Taiwan can often feel woefully behind on global trends, from fashion to food, and influences can sometimes feel like the last on the metaphorical bandwagon. In the West, suddenly every burger is being smashed and honey has become “hot” and we’re all drinking orange wine. But it took a good while for a smash burger in Taipei to come across my radar. For the uninitiated, a smash burger is, well, a normal burger patty but smashed flat. Originally, I didn’t understand. Surely the best part of a burger is the thick patty with all the juiciness of the beef, the
This year’s Miss Universe in Thailand has been marred by ugly drama, with allegations of an insult to a beauty queen’s intellect, a walkout by pageant contestants and a tearful tantrum by the host. More than 120 women from across the world have gathered in Thailand, vying to be crowned Miss Universe in a contest considered one of the “big four” of global beauty pageants. But the runup has been dominated by the off-stage antics of the coiffed contestants and their Thai hosts, escalating into a feminist firestorm drawing the attention of Mexico’s president. On Tuesday, Mexican delegate Fatima Bosch staged a
Would you eat lab-grown chocolate? I requested a sample from California Cultured, a Sacramento-based company. Its chocolate, not yet commercially available, is made with techniques that have previously been used to synthesize other bioactive products like certain plant-derived pharmaceuticals for commercial sale. A few days later, it arrives. The morsel, barely bigger than a coffee bean, is supposed to be the flavor equivalent of a 70 percent to 80 percent dark chocolate. I tear open its sealed packet and a chocolatey aroma escapes — so far, so good. I pop it in my mouth. Slightly waxy and distinctly bitter, it boasts those bright,
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