ALL — The Taiwan Gazette

Wheaten foods play an important role in the everyday life of Taiwanese people. However, the mass introduction of wheaten foods to Taiwan and even Taiwan’s own domestic production of flour are fairly recent phenomena. Why did Taiwanese begin integrating large quantities of wheaten foods into their diet? The answer to this question is intimately linked to U.S. aid. A story of food culture and U.S. Cold War cultural policy in Asia, this article features as part of our special issue: Encountering Everyday Life: Taiwan in Museums.

Dec 12

Dec 12 Becoming Fit and Strong: A History of Physical Training in Taiwan

Translations

The practice of physical training is not only an issue of individual choice but has always been intertwined with the political economy of nation-building. A story of civilization, wartime mobilization, and nationalism, this article on physical training features as part of our special issue: Encountering Everyday Life: Taiwan in Museums.

Dec 4

Dec 4 Ordinary Straw Hats Guided Colonial Taiwan to International Fashion

Translations

In the early stage of Japanese colonial governance, the Government-General of Taiwan encouraged the straw hat business—the growth of which not only brought Taiwan to the stage of international fashion, but also consolidated Japan’s colonial imaginary of Taiwan as a southern island, a strategic site from which the southward advance policy could be launched. A story about colonial modernity and imaginaries, this article features as part of our special issue: Encountering Everyday Life: Taiwan in Museums.

Nov 27

Nov 27 The Birth of Meiji Chocolate: Colonial Taiwan and Its Sugar Industry

Translations, Sci-Tech Vista, StoryStudio (故事)

Translations

Taiwan’s sugar industry flourished during the Japanese colonial era, giving birth to the widely known chocolate brand: The Meiji Chocolate. A story about Japanese colonial modernity and anti-colonial resistance in Taiwan, this article on sugar features as part of our new special issue: Encountering Everyday Life: Taiwan in Museums.

Oct 23

Oct 23 Thinking Outside the Pot: The Bond between Taiwan and the Steam Rice Cooker

Sci-Tech Vista (科技大觀園)

In Taiwan, using a steam rice cooker is an everyday experience. However, up until the 1960s, the big stoves, briquette stoves, and kerosene stoves still enjoyed widespread popularity. How did the steam cooker eventually step into Taiwanese homes and become one of its essential kitchen appliances? This article will present a few facts about the steam rice cooker, examining the history of its growing popularity in Taiwan.

Oct 16

Oct 16 Taiwan’s Humanitarian Aid to Hongkongers Faces New Questions Amid Geopolitical Uncertainties

July 1, 2019 is the 2nd anniversary of the occupation of the Legislative Council in Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Bill movement and the 1st anniversary of Taiwan’s investment of national resources in providing humanitarian aid to Hongkongers in exile. Two years after Taiwan’s assistance of Hong Kong, official relations between the two have seemingly ceased as the political situation in Hong Kong continues to deteriorate. Amid geopolitical uncertainties, how can Taiwan continue to help Hongkongers?

Oct 10

Oct 10 A Cup of Myanmar Milk Tea and Homesickness: A History of Huaxin Street

Translations, StoryStudio (故事)

Huaxin Street, also known as Little Burma, is home to a large overseas Burmese-Chinese community in Taiwan. How did this community come to be? How did the overseas Chinese policies of “Free China”’ contribute to this rise of this community? What can we learn from this community’s relationship with its “homeland”?

Sep 19

Sep 19 Podcast | Social Worker in the Ring, and the Champions He Brings Out: We All Want to Grow Up Well

Before Taiwan entered the COVID-19 Level 3 Alert this year, The Reporter visited a social worker who also works as a boxing coach in Sanxia, New Taipei City. How has he turned boxing into a tool to empower indigenous youths from disadvantaged backgrounds?

Aug 15

Aug 15 Art Review: How Do We "Become" Taiwanese?

How do artists invite us to reexamine the changes in the Taiwanese identity? What methods do they use? In 2018, Liang-Pin Tsao opened an exhibition at TKG+ Projects examining the intertwined relationships between “identity” and “history”. Focusing on the images of the Martyrs’ Shrine, the exhibition asks: How does one become Taiwanese?

Aug 1

Aug 1 A New City on an Old Port: The 100 Year Transformation of Kaohsiung's Love River

StoryStudio (故事), Translations

For decades, the Love River (愛河 Ai He) has always been a sparkling spot of Kaohsiung’s cityscape. In this article, readers will find out how the story of this beloved river intertwined with the city’s century-long history, from the Qing Dynasty, the Japanese colonial era, to the twenty-first century.

Jul 12

Jul 12 Hold or Postpone the Tokyo Olympics? The COVID-19 Pandemic Hobbles Japan

On July 12, 2021, Tokyo, the host city of the 2020 Summer Olympics, is entering another state of emergency to combat the spread of COVID-19. With COVID-19 still running rampant across the world, why is the Tokyo Olympics not cancelled or postponed?

Jul 1

Jul 1 Be Water, Hong Kong: The Birth of the First Diasporic Hongkonger Magazine in Taiwan

Translations, Initium Media (端傳媒)

In February 2020, the first physical diasporic Hongkonger magazine —Flow HK (如水), or “Be Water” in Chinese—was printed in Taiwan. In terms of its significance to the pro-democracy movement, this magazine is a living embodiment of an imagined Hong Kong community under the shadow of the Hong Kong National Security Law. The Reporter interviewed the editorial board of Flow HK to find out why they decided to publish in Taiwan and how they intended to keep the current of the Hong Kong protests flowing across borders.

Jul 1

Jul 1 A Passport And A City: The Hong Kong Families Holding onto the BNO Scheme

Initium Media (端傳媒)

On July 1, 2020, the UK announced the expansion of rights for BNO passport holders, arguing that the Hong Kong National Security Law is a “clear and serious” violation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. For Hongkongers born before 1997, the BNO now offers a new "escape" route. What can the BNO inform us about the formation of Hongkonger identities and the geohistorical entanglements between Hong Kong, the UK, and China?

Jun 8

Jun 8 The Sugar-Coated Poison of the Chinese Market: How Will Taiwanese Pineapples Fight Against Their Fate?

The Reporter (報導者), Translations

On February 26, 2021, the Chinese General Administration of Customs unexpectedly announced a ban on imports of Taiwanese pineapple starting from March 1. March is the export season for Taiwan's famous Golden Diamond Pineapple. The Chinese ban came as a shock to the Taiwanese industry. How did Taiwan’s overreliance on the Chinese market come to be? Who gets to decide the fate of Taiwanese pineapples?

May 25

May 25 Captured by War, Lost before Liberation: Taiwanese in World War II Internment Camps

Research for You (研之有物)

Translations, Research for You (研之有物)

During WWII, there were hundreds of Taiwanese living in Southeast Asia. They were regarded Japanese, lost everything overnight and were detained in internment camps. Shu-min Chung (鍾淑敏) had dug up historical materials in search of the Taiwanese in internment camps, trying to fill in the forgotten history of overseas Taiwanese.

May 12

May 12 From “Free China” to “Little Indonesia”: Taipei Main Station and Its Contested Spaces

Initium Media (端傳媒)

Translations, Initium Media (端傳媒)

Last year, the Taiwan Railways Administration imposed a ban on public sitting in the lobby of Taipei Main Station, citing COVID-19 concerns. This sitting ban raised urgent questions: Who has claims over this space? What might be the historical and ideological forces shaping the usage of this space? And why is Taipei Main Station associated with the signs of “Free China” and the rise of “Little Indonesia”?

Apr 22

Apr 22 “Bubble Tea Kingdom”: How Did It All Start?

Translations, StoryStudio (故事)

Bubble tea and handmade drink shops are an indispensable part of Taiwanese food culture. For years, they play the role of a cultural ambassador, promoting Taiwanese cuisine to the international community. How did bubble tea rise to its current status of Taiwan’s “national drink”? How did this “bubble tea kingdom” come to be? What can we learn from the rise of handmade drink shops in Taiwan?

Apr 19

Apr 19 Ghastly Heritage of NTU’s Shuiyuan Campus: White Terror Stories in Autopsy Room

Translations, StoryStudio (故事)

Between 1949 and 1999, the National Defense Medical Center was located around what is now the Shuiyuan Campus of National Taiwan University. Ghastly rumors about the site circulated among present-day college students. Why was the site haunted and by whom? What might be the ghosts’ unfulfilled wishes? How have fictions and oral narratives about the White Terror in Taiwan contributed to a haunted remembering of the site? And how should we reckon with the ghastly heritage of NTU’s Shuiyuan Campus and beyond?

Apr 16

Apr 16 We Must Speak Our Name Out – On the Contradictions of Polish Scholars' Taiwan Exceptionalism

The Reporter (報導者), Translations

How is Taiwan seen under the gaze of others? What might hinder people from understanding Taiwan as it is through a more realistic approach? How can Taiwanese establish and present its own subjectivity? Lin Wei-Yun ‘s (林蔚昀) insightful critique of a Polish edited volume on Taiwan might provide some meaningful clues.

Apr 13

Apr 13 When COVID-19 hits Taiwan’s National Concert Hall: Observations from a Violinist, Laborer, and Mother