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.
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.
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”?
The Taiwan Gazette screened the documentary film Our Youth in Taiwan from March 8 to 14, 2021. We sat down with University of Toronto Professor Michelle Cho to discuss Taiwan-China geopolitical relations and the usage of “worlding” within the context of the film.
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.
