The Taiwan Gazette translates and publishes original reporting from Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. Our goal with the platform is simple: We want original reporting from the Sinosphere to have a wider impact on global civil society.
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?
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?
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.
Australian musician Brett Dean's diagnosis of COVID-19 on March 5 2020 shocked Taiwan's art world. Cho Hsiao-ching (卓曉青), the first violinist of the National Symphony Orchestra shares her personal journey as an artist, mother and victim of the pandemic, following her experience of self-health management.
During COVID-19, exceptional public health measures were adopted by nations to secure their populations from disease and death. In imperial Japan, practices and discourses of public health played an equally important role in transforming the nation into a civilizing power fit to survive in the modern world. What can we learn from the practice of mask-wearing in colonial Taiwan?
The Taiwan Gazette interviews Taiwan-based cultural studies scholar Chien-ting Lin to discuss how Taiwan’s treatment of Mainland Chinese students (lusheng) during COVID-19 can be understood in terms of war and love. Divided into two parts, this interview is the fourth piece of our special series: Lusheng in Taiwan: Contradictions and Anticipations.
